Total cost of ownership: issues around reducing cost of support in a manufacturing organization case

Total cost of ownership (TCO) is of interest to business and academic communities because it expands the understanding of the real cost of technology beyond purchase cost. The dominant Gartner Group model describes ´hard´ and ´soft´ costs, including acquisition, control and operational costs. Such metrics though tend to focus on conventional, abstract categories of cost defined by accounting and management literatures, rather than cost as it is understood in the thick of the everyday work of actual organizational members. Our research attempts to address this, examining one particular group of costs, break-fix, in terms of how costs arise and are reasoned about in actual working practice. This paper describes these costs and relates them to wider issues of TCO. We highlight the barriers that exist to the implementation of a successful break-fix strategy and suggest technologies that facilitate such a strategy.