IT Tech Debt: How “Making Do” is Costing Your Business More Than an Upgrade
IT tech debt usually starts as a reasonable decision: “Let’s keep it for one more year,” “We’ll upgrade next quarter,” or “This workaround is fine for now.”
Fast-forward, and “for now” becomes the way your business runs: slow logins, flaky apps, mystery settings no one touches, and a growing list of small issues that steal time every day.
That’s IT tech debt: the cost of “making do” after the temporary fix stops being temporary. If you need a sign to start fixing your IT tech debt, this is it.
What “Tech Debt” Means
Tech debt (also called technical debt) is the build-up of technology decisions that help you move faster in the short term, but make change harder and more expensive over time. It’s what happens when “good enough for now” turns into “we’re stuck with it.”
A simple way to think about it: tech debt is like taking shortcuts on maintenance. You might save time or money today. But you pay it back later in the form of slower systems, more outages, higher support effort, and growing security exposure. IBM explains technical debt as the cumulative impact of those trade-offs and shortcuts over time.
Gartner frames technical debt as something organizations need to actively manage. This is because unmanaged debt grows and eventually blocks progress.
How IT Tech Debt Shows Up in SMB Life
IT tech debt doesn’t usually announce itself. It blends in. That’s until you realize your team has built routines around friction.
The Workaround Economy
This is when “the process” becomes a series of unofficial steps. Maybe you’ve already done it. Copy/paste between systems, manual checks to avoid breaking something, and a growing reliance on whoever “knows the trick.” Gartner notes that teams create technical debt when they “borrow” against long-term quality with short-term sacrifices.
The Restart Ritual
If reboots and re-logins have become normal, you’re paying interest. A restart is a quick fix that hides the real problem… until it becomes a daily habit across the whole team.
The Fragile Stack
Over time, tools get layered. Eventually, everything works. But that’s as long as nobody touches it. This is the point where modernization stops being a choice and starts feeling like a looming event.
The Unseen Security Gap
This is the quietest and most expensive symptom. When environments get older and more patched together, security gets inconsistent. Patching falls behind, access gets broader than it should, and older systems struggle to support modern controls.
And the cost isn’t just theoretical. McKinsey puts a real number on the “interest,” noting: “Companies pay an additional 10 to 20 percent to address tech debt on top of the costs of any project.”
Why “Making Do” Costs More Than You Think
“Making do” feels responsible in the moment. The problem is that IT tech debt doesn’t stay flat. It compounds. McKinsey describes a vicious cycle where debt makes modernization harder, which leads to more quick fixes, which create even more debt.
Most of the cost shows up quietly. Slower logins, clunky apps, duplicate steps, and constant “quick fixes” don’t look expensive one at a time, but across a team, they add up to real payroll hours lost to friction every week.
Eventually, the biggest cost is momentum. When everything feels delicate, upgrades get delayed because “it might break something,” and your technology stops supporting growth. McKinsey’s tech equity framing is a useful reminder that debt steals capacity from real business improvements.
The Way To Pay Down IT Tech Debt
If you want to start paying down tech debt without creating chaos, pair a steady improvement plan through business IT support and cybersecurity monitoring.
The goal isn’t a dramatic overhaul. It’s to chip away at IT tech debt in the places that are costing you the most time, downtime, and risk.
Start by listing your recurring issues and bottlenecks, then sort them into three buckets: fix now (security and supportability risks), fix next (big productivity drains), and plan later (nice-to-have improvements). From there, commit to a simple rhythm, such as one or two targeted upgrades a month, so progress is steady and predictable.
If you want a good example of why this approach works, this post explains how proactive support reduces repeat problems and surprises.
When “Making Do” Stops Being Good Enough
IT tech debt doesn’t usually fail all at once. Over time, it wears down your team with unnecessary friction. The fix isn’t a disruptive rip-and-replace. It’s a steady plan that tackles the highest-cost problems first, then keeps improvements moving so debt doesn’t rebuild.
Want a Practical IT Tech Debt Paydown Plan?
Ready to reduce the friction and get your time back? Reach out to C Solutions IT, and we’ll help you map the quickest, highest-impact upgrades to tackle first.
Article FAQ
Why does IT tech debt get worse over time?
Because it compounds. Each workaround adds complexity, each delayed update increases risk, and each “temporary” fix becomes another moving part that can break. Over time, even small changes start to feel risky, so improvements get postponed.
What are the most common signs of IT tech debt in small businesses?
Recurring issues that never fully go away. Slow or inconsistent performance, frequent reboots and re-logins, and processes that rely on “the trick” someone knows. You’ll also see postponed updates, aging hardware that can’t keep up.
How do we reduce IT tech debt without disrupting day-to-day work?
Start with a short list of your biggest pain points and risks, then tackle them in small, planned upgrades. Prioritize security and supportability first, then the biggest productivity drains.
When should we upgrade instead of “making do”?
If your team loses time every week, issues keep repeating, downtime is increasing, or security exceptions are piling up, waiting is usually the expensive option. A good rule of thumb: if the problem is recurring, business-critical, and getting worse, it’s time to upgrade.