IT spending. lets not go overboard.
I get a lot of questions these days about IT spending, and how we can reduce it.
For large companies, there are lots of options,: reduce the staff by 10%, shift more responsibilities onto the user, pull services in-house (or push them out, depending on the service), etc. all of which could easily reduce your costs by millions.
For the under 10-people businesses (which make up the number-one slot for employment in most economies), reducing staff by 10% is rarely an option. Often there is no staff at all, just outside consultants; it’s hard to make them prioritize reducing the moneys you pay them.
I have the top three things that you can do to reduce your IT overhead in these tough times.
1) Prioritize your needs. If email is critical to the success of your business, make sure your IT consultant knows that. Bring him/her in, pay them for an hour of their time to review where you can reduce. The cost of one or two hours of planning will immensely help you in the long run.
2) Educate your staff. Send out an email that starts: “In an effort to reduce our costs going into these economically uncertain times”.. and go on to explain that users should redouble their efforts to fix any IT issues before asking for the consultant to come in.
3) Update your software to the latest security fixes. These days, all major software has the ability to update itself to the latest version. With anti-virus software you are concerned about “virus definition files” with windows; with Mac it’s “service packs” or “patches”. Have each member of staff run those on a weekly basis. This will help reduce issues needing the attention of your IT consultant.
Depending on how far you need to cut, you may have to do more than that. Again, your IT guy is the key. Work with him to reduce those costs.