TALKING POINT

Marcelle Steyn, Strategic Sales Lead at InnoVent

THE RESULT IS SIMPLE, THE SAME BUDGET NOW BUYS LESS.

Marcelle Steyn, Strategic Sales Lead at InnoVent, discusses how rising IT hardware costs and supply constraints now carry real operational and financial risks.

But the numbers they’ re working with no longer reflect reality. Most IT budgets today were built on assumptions that simply don’ t hold anymore. Stable pricing, predictable exchange rates, reliable supply and the ability to procure when needed. That world has disappeared, and it has changed faster than most organisations have adapted.

If you approved your capex budget six or 12 months ago, there is a strong chance it is already misaligned to what it needs to deliver. This isn’ t normal inflation. It is a structural repricing of hardware, driven by global component demand, supply constraints and sustained pressure on the Rand.

The result is simple, the same budget now buys less. And yet, many businesses respond the same way. They wait, waiting for prices to stabilise, waiting for better timing and waiting for the next budget cycle. It feels prudent, it feels controlled. It isn’ t, because the real risk isn’ t just higher prices, it is losing your ability to execute when it matters.

South Africa sits downstream from global supply chains, meaning we feel every disruption more sharply. When stock tightens, we get it later. When prices move, they move more sharply. When demand spikes elsewhere, availability here becomes uncertain.

Eventually, something gives. And when it does, the business is forced to act. Not on its own terms, but on the market’ s terms. At whatever price is available, with whatever stock can be sourced, on timelines that are no longer flexible.

That is the operational cost of inaction. In more mature markets, the conversation has already shifted. In parts of the UK and Australia, businesses are moving away from trying to time procurement. They are focusing instead on securing outcomes. Locking in pricing early, committing to supply ahead of need and removing exposure to further volatility.

This is where the conversation needs to change. If your capex budget can’ t stretch to meet rising hardware costs, the answer isn’ t to delay. It is to change how you fund and secure the assets. Structured payment solutions allow you to act earlier, with control.

More importantly, it gives you flexibility that traditional procurement simply does not.

There’ s a more practical reality that often gets overlooked, assets depreciate from day one. Treating them as large capital purchases in a volatile market increases exposure. Structured fixed costs align far better with how they actually behave over time.

Those who move early will lock in pricing, secure supply and execute on their terms. Those who wait will inherit higher costs, tighter availability and compressed timelines. In today’ s market, the biggest risk is not making the wrong call, it is making no call at all. x

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