LES Toronto

Donald M. Cameron, Aird & Berlis, Chair

 Mr. Dorbeck spoke about the financial aspects of obtaining new technologies for business purposes. In particular, he emphasized the important role that leasing could play in the acquisition of computer technology.

 He noted that leasing may give the acquiring business more flexibility in updating and replacing equipment in the future. Leasing also avoids the problem of rapid depreciation of assets. If computer equipment is purchased, book value soon becomes divorced from the market value because the value of computer equipment depreciates so quickly.

As well as discussing the advantages of leasing, Mr. Dorbeck noted that a crucial part of managing the cost of technology is managing the cost of support, training and maintenance. Support costs usually are much larger than the costs of acquiring the technology itself. In general, a company will have much lower support costs if it chooses to adopt the same type of technology across the organization, rather than a variety of different types of technology.

Finally, Mr. Dorbeck suggested that businesses should develop a plan to manage the lifecycle of the technology. This means planning to acquire new types of technology at the end of an existing lease in such a way that the company’s business operations are not disrupted.

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