TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) recognises that ownership costs are significantly greater than the cost of purchasing or acquiring a product.
The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply defines total cost of ownership as the real cost of a solution across its entire lifecycle —from acquisition through daily use, maintenance, and servicing to final replacement or disposal.
A lower entry price often masks higher ongoing expenses, meaning what looks inexpensive at first can end up costing significantly more—time, money, and resources—when we factor in maintenance, inefficiencies, or early-failure costs. A small saving at the start of a project can quickly disappear when the business has to fund locker and lock repairs, workarounds, or replacements year after year. Not to mention the time- and resource-consuming “one-by-one” locker management.
And this is precisely what still plays out in bigger office refurbishments, where office lockers are fitted with ordinary, mechanical or battery-operated PIN locks.
These legacy locks, promoted as a budget-friendly alternative to smart locking systems, are not in any way equivalent in terms of security, reliability, flexibility of use, ease of operation and maintenance, user convenience, and many other factors.
It is like comparing apples and oranges.
Yet, unfortunately, they are still evaluated as if they were.
It is a misleading comparison that ignores the realities of the factors mentioned above.
The result is sold as a modern workplace upgrade, while the actual user experience relies on technology from a previous era.
The FM and HR teams inherit the hidden burden: manual setups and resets (a.k.a. slow onboarding and offboarding processes), lost codes and annoyed user complaints, lock and battery replacements (and their safe disposal), and time spent managing exceptions.
With no option to resolve issues remotely and from a central point.
And no data to help optimise locker availability and usage.
When you have a three- or four-digit number of lockers to manage, it becomes a significant burden for all involved.
When choosing a locking solution for your lockers for the long(er) run, look beyond the purchase price.
Choose wisely.
Contact us to suggest the best smart locker solution for your workplace or facility (and not make the above mistakes).
