What is Break Fix When it Comes to IT?

Break Fix is a simple concept. It’s not limited to IT. The bottom line for Break Fix is this:“When it breaks…fix it. Otherwise, leave it alone.”

Pretty simple, huh? And that strategy can be used for automotive care, healthcare, home maintenance. But for this conversation, we’re gonna stick with IT. Because I have no idea about any of those other things.

On the surface, break fix sounds like a great way to minimize your costs. You don’t have to pay anyone until or unless…well, something’s broken. And then you’re only paying them to fix it. Very simple, very straightforward.

Let’s review a couple of possible drawbacks.

First of all let’s talk about “Preventative Maintenance”. The thing that ultimately broke? If someone was paying attention to it, there might have been a really simple (and cheap) way to prevent the “Break” from happening. But nope.

Next, let’s talk down time. If something breaks, then everybody who depends on it being available is stuck. And that costs your organization money. And more often than not I’ve found that organizations who are trying to be on the cheap side don’t pay enough to these costs.

And what about when bad guys get into your network. You know they don’t necessarily break anything. At least not at first. They’re focused on getting access to your network, stealing your confidential information. All the while there’s technically nothing broken…except any defense you have against the bad guys. Nothing to fix, folks…let’s move along, now…

Rip Van Winkle tech. Sure, the technology might continue to work. But since nobody’s paying attention to it or upgrading it? It’s falling further and further behind. And since it’s technically “working”, nobody really cares. Until you want to add an additional feature or function. And you find out…you can’t because the freaking thing is 3 versions behind.

Here’s the sneaky one. Nobody likes it when your stuff is broken…except maybe the person that you’re paying to fix it. Hear me out, here…the person who fixes the stuff is only paid when it’s broken. So, from a strictly financial standpoint they actually prefer when your stuff is broken. So, they’re actually incentivized by your downtime…hardly a match made in heaven, right?

To be clear, there are some circumstances where break fix might make sense. Where temporary solutions are easily available while you’re waiting for stuff to be fixed. Or the cost of downtime is minimal. But for most organizations it should be the exception, not the rule.

Because if you get bit by just a couple of the break-fix vulnerabilities we’ve discussed? The savings you think that break-fix brings are likely gone. Let’s talk about what you might be missing.