You know your IT department is crucial to your company’s success, but let’s face it — businesses are always looking for ways to save money. So, how can you cut IT costs without cutting the technology services your company relies on?
Reducing IT costs doesn’t have to lead to reductions in IT productivity and effectiveness. Here are three simple ways to start saving money on IT right now.
1. Clarify IT costs
Some of the easiest ways to save might just be right under your nose. Do an inventory to understand what you really have by reviewing your entire IT infrastructure. Do you have 1,000 applications in use where only 100 would do the job? Rooting out the waste can be a tremendous cost-saving operation. And, no one will notice cuts that aren’t critical, anyway.
2. Go virtual
If you’ve wondered why so many offices are going virtual, consider this: When you have a completely remote workforce, you instantly erase a number of costs. Office rent, Internet service, electricity, and other bills that keep an office running disappear. Lots of companies have moved services to the cloud, which cuts down on IT costs, too. An added bonus is that a virtual company consumes no paper, saving you money and producing less waste – which leads us to…
3. Go green
Do this one for the environment and for your bottom line. Consider that the total cost of ownership of a computer includes not only the cost of the machine itself (including its memory, hardware, and software), but also the cost to power it and to cool the office from the heat it produces. When you add in external devices and large servers, your costs go up quickly.
Sure, when you replace an older computer, you’ll have to fork over some money upfront. But, you can replace that energy hog with a faster, more efficient machine – probably with a flat-screen, low-power LCD monitor, too – and go from a 550 watt device to a 230 watt device. In other words, you can cut your energy consumption in half, which can clearly affect costs.
When you’re smart about slicing to reduce IT costs, the savings can really add up. What other tactics does your company use to keep its IT costs manageable?
