Most companies only find out they had an IT problem when the problem has already stopped them. A server that stops responding at nine in the morning, an invoice printer that doesn't print at month-end, a laptop that won't boot on the day of the presentation. This is called corrective maintenance: to repair after breaking down. The alternative — a preventative maintenance — it is boring, invisible and, for an SME that relies on systems, almost always cheaper. This article explains why, with figures.
What is corrective maintenance
It is the default model for those without a contract: when something breaks down, someone is called. You pay for the technician's time, the call-out fee, the part — and you pay, without an invoice, for the time the team was idle. It has an apparent advantage: in the months when nothing breaks down, the cost is zero. It has three structural flaws:
- It happens at the worst possible time. Systems break down when they are in use, that is, during working hours and frequently at peak times — month-end, campaigns, high season.
- The response is slow. Those without a contract join the queue of those who have one. A one-day wait for a technician is normal; on a server, a one-day wait means a day of business downtime.
- It repeats itself. Without root cause analysis, the same fault recurs. The filling disk empties and fills up again; the end-of-life equipment is repaired and breaks down once more.
What is preventive maintenance
It is the set of tasks that are carried out before of a breakdown, so that it does not happen or is detected in minutes. In a well-managed SME this includes:
- Updates and security patches applied out of hours across all workstations and servers — not when the user remembers to click “remind me later” for the tenth time.
- Backups checked every day and regular tested restores. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a backup.
- 24/7 monitoring of disk space, disk status, load, temperature, connections and services, with alerts going to a team rather than an inbox.
- Park reviewup-to-date inventory, equipment nearing the end of its warranty or life identified in advance, licences and certificates with monitored deadlines.
- Cleaning and hygieneFormer employee accounts closed, permissions reviewed, unused software removed, antivirus reporting.
- Monthly report with what was done, what was detected and what is recommended — so that management can make decisions based on data rather than frights.
The figures: a realistic example
Imagine a company with 25 workstations and a server, without a contract. In a typical year, it will have three or four emergency interventions (server, network, critical workstation), each involving a call-out fee, two to four hours of labour, and half a day to a day of waiting. In technician invoices alone, that is easily a few hundred euros per intervention. The real cost lies elsewhere: 25 people idle for half a day, four times a year, equals 100 person-days of lost work. Multiply that by your team's average hourly cost and compare it with the annual value of a maintenance contract. In most SMEs we analyse, preventive maintenance pays for itself simply through the downtime it avoids — before even counting the emergency invoices that cease to exist.
Where continuous corrective action still makes sense
There are cases where the corrective maintenance model is rational: non-critical and cheap-to-replace equipment (a monitor, a keyboard, a desktop printer), or very small companies where IT is incidental to the business and a day's downtime costs no money. If your company generates revenue, serves customers or produces with systems online, that is not your case.
How to switch from one model to the other
The transition doesn't require changing everything at once. The order we recommend:
- Survey. What exists, what is critical, what is end-of-life. It is common to discover equipment that nobody knew existed and upon which billing depends.
- Backups first. Before anything else, ensure that an off-site backup exists and that it restores. It is the safety net for everything that follows.
- Monitoring. Install agents and probes, set thresholds, and fine-tune for two to three weeks to eliminate false alarms.
- Calendar updates. Fixed out-of-hours window, every month, with controlled reboot.
- Planned substitutions. Replace end-of-life items in this year's budget, rather than rushing after a breakdown.
In a contract IT Unlimited, all of this is included in the monthly fee — monitoring, updates, verified backups and fleet review — because that is what allows the provider itself not to be constantly firefighting. That is why the unlimited support model and the preventive model go hand in hand; we explain the reasoning in the comparison IT Unlimited vs. monthly retainer and hourly bucket.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does preventative maintenance prevent all breakdowns?
No. It greatly reduces predictable failures — full disks, missing updates, end-of-life equipment — and detects early those that give a warning sign. A sudden hardware failure can still happen; what changes is that there is a tested backup and a plan to resolve it quickly.
How often should preventive maintenance be carried out?
Automatic tasks — updates, backup checks, monitoring — run every day. Human fleet reviews are carried out monthly, and a full review with a report once a year. In an IT Unlimited contract, this schedule is included.
Does a small SME really need preventive maintenance?
It needs more than a large company, because there is no redundancy: when the only server stops, everything stops. The issue is not the size, it's the dependence on systems to work.
Is preventive maintenance more expensive?
Per month, it costs more than doing nothing. Per year, it is almost always cheaper than the sum of emergency interventions, downtime and hastily made replacements. The right comparison is the total annual cost, not a single month's bill.
Want to know the condition of your fleet?
We carry out a no-obligation assessment and tell you in writing what is at risk and what can be prevented. See our IT services for businesses or call 211 459 950.
