Affordable Computing

When every penny counts and you have to make the best use of your budget, IT costs often seem amongst the hardest to control. In most other areas the same amount of money buys more and more each year, but the computers and network live in a parallel economic universe. How come the PCs need to be replaced every three or four years when other equipment lasts for two or three times that long? Why do I need to keep upgrading my software when the stuff I had worked well enough before? Many users are asking themselves those questions.

At Cutter, we believe we can answer some of those questions and provide a way out of the upward spiral if you are prepared to take a different approach to buying and installing systems.

If you ask us what we can provide, we'll invite you to see some of our success stories. We won't hard-sell our products to you, we'll show you them working and then ask you which parts might suit your environment. Because we have experience over a range of different customers we can tell you whether we think you have made the best choice and we'll help you to tailor it to your needs. There's no single answer but into the mix we can provide:

Why can we do this when others can't? Well, we think part of it is down to the way that the industry has ended up making its money. Many old-guard suppliers (we are, of course, the new guard) have teams of sales staff who are highly rewarded for bringing in sales of equipment. When they turn up in their smart suits, shiny shoes and nice cars, that's not their employer's money they are spending, it's yours. Their margins and the rewards are based around selling new stuff regularly into existing customers. Following that comes the support, maintenance and other services. To move to a structure where they have to make a living only selling new equipment every ten years is next to impossible for them: they have no experience whatsoever of making a living that way and if they ever even contemplated it, it the sales staff would desert leaving them stranded. In particular, the software vendors nearly all only make money from new sales - to survive they have to push upgrades onto you whether you want them or not. Overall, it's as easy for them to change as it is for a pig to fly.

Cutter's financial approach is to concern ourselves much less with the margin we make on new sales but instead to aim for a steady income from providing good-quality technical support and advice. Yes we charge for that - we aren't ashamed to say so - but our view is that the less you have to spend on new equipment each year, the more you are likely to have available for the kinds of services we do offer. And we don't have a sales team - our leads come from personal recommendation from other customers, which means we have to get our advice right.