Practical Tips for Reducing IT Expenses
For the Mid-market & Enterprise
2023’s economic forecast is wild, to say the least. From big tech layoffs, countries dropping the US dollar and skyrocketing interest rates, it’s challenging for your organization to accurately predict the health of the economy over the next twenty-four months. Good IT partners recognize these concerns. Let’s talk about practical steps you can take to contain your budget and minimize expenses, without diminishing the end user experience and security posture.
Perform an IT audit - A comprehensive review of your holistic environment (IT infrastructure) and expenses (simply gather all of your bills) will help you identify inefficiencies, duplication of efforts and potential areas of consolidation. This audit will give you the data necessary to make informed decisions about areas you can trim costs and improve efficiency.
Evaluate your software licensing agreements - An audit of your software licensing agreements could uncover unnecessary or redundant licenses. Furthermore, you could consider open-source software or cloud-based solutions that offer a cost-effective alternative.
Consolidate hardware and software - Consolidating hardware and software are easy ways to reduce duplication, not to mention streamlining your management experience. Believe it or not, there are opportunities to virtualize, consolidate servers and centralize many management tools.
Outsource non-critical IT functions - It’s common for organizations to wrongly hear “expensive!” when outsourcing/managed services are mentioned. Generally, shared services are a way to lower your TCO, if you’re truly calculating an employees salary, benefits, time off, etc… Also, most organizations are under staffing shortages in the IT Department.
Negotiate with vendors - Examples include volume discounts, extended payment terms or bundling services. Keep in mind that IT providers are experiencing a rise in expenses, just like you, so please be reasonable. There are plenty of opportunities to negotiate favorable terms, while accommodating for inflation.
Consider cloud solutions - Hosted solutions reduce the expenses related to hardware, IT staff, cooling, maintenance and more. These services also offer greater flexibility and scalability. Please note that migrating your VM’s like-for-like to AWS/Azure will blow your bill out, so please don’t come back and yell at me.
Implement energy-efficient technologies - This one is a long shot, but it’s worth a mention. Virtualization and power-management tools are examples.
While none of these items are a silver bullet for reducing your IT expenses, a mixture of these elements is a great place to start.
Do you have examples of how you’ve helped reduce expenses? Please share your experiences, so we all learn together!