Technology evolves by the day. Things are getting faster, lighter, and more mobile. This can be challenging for business owners to keep up with. Changes to their technology infrastructure often mean that the old and new coincide together and the costs can be sky-high. Businesses don’t always know how or when to retire old technology or what that means for the future. With more apps going to the cloud, there are countless ways to reduce the overhead of your technology while still getting all the valuable benefits your business needs.
Consolidation
You have software on this server, there’s a program on this computer over here, and this person can log in to the cloud from this location. Consolidation is about putting everything in one place at your fingertips. Your technology shouldn’t be fragmented, and your data should be easily accessible in one location. Whether you have a single dashboard that is connected to all the important information or you have an app that tracks all the software licenses your company purchases, it should all be located in one place.
When the different business groups in your organization try and track their own software it can be challenging to track the costs across the board. Each expense is siloed and the overall amount is hard to calculate. By allowing one group to manage all those costs and consolidating them, it allows for a better view of what’s going on in the organization.
Remove Unnecessary Redundancies
Consolidation also helps your team discover redundancies. While redundancies are necessary for backups and data, you don’t need 5 business groups all using different software that does the exact same thing. When you consolidate, you’ll be able to see what technology each part of the organization uses and what they use it for.
If those redundancies can be removed, your business can save big money on subscription costs each year. Additionally, an IT infrastructure that includes comprehensive enterprise mobility management ensures that these fragmented parts of the organization are accounted for.
Cloud-Based Software
Things have moved to the cloud. The days of giant server rooms at every company are becoming a thing of the past as more companies host their software and data in the cloud. Outsourcing data hosting and offering cloud-based software has become the norm, and it’s a cost-effective way to run any business.
Think of the Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office. Not only can these programs be downloaded from the cloud, but they can also be used directly in the cloud. Cloud-based software means that you need less IT staff to manage your company’s software and staff can easily download what they need with a link and the click of a button.
Remote Work
While remote work provides many challenges, it also reduces the need for expensive infrastructure in a building. If you have fully remote staff, you won’t need an office that’s wired for wi-fi and hard-line internet. You won’t need phones at every desk. And you won’t need to purchase expensive office furniture. Some of those chairs cost $1000 or more! Instead, you can offer stipends to staff to allow them to create their own home office space for a fraction of the cost.
You can offer a BYOD program to ensure everyone gets access to a great computer for their work. Remote work may seem expensive in some ways, but if done right, it can save upwards of tens of thousands of dollars per year for small companies and millions for large ones.
Do Your Research
It looks shiny and new, so you buy it. But you don’t realize that you already pay for other technology that does the same basic tasks. It’s important to do your research before you buy any piece of tech. You need to understand the business case, what outcome you need, and what input you have to get there.
This is an all-too-common story at many organizations. They get swindled by some software salespeople only to realize the tech they purchase doesn’t do exactly what they need and they need to hire expensive developers to help them fix it. If you want to save money on technology, do your research and due diligence first.
