12-27-21 | Blog Post
If you’re in the world of IT then you know how quickly technology changes. And if you’re a CIO, staying on top of these changes while you manage people, time and money can be a struggle.
These days, CIOs are constantly being asked to do “more with less”: more flexibility, functionality and features with less expense, people and time. And while the concept seems relatively simple, the execution can present a challenge. Not only are there thousands of solutions on the market to shift through, figuring out where to trim the fat in an IT organization and cutting costs is not an easy task.
To do more with less, CIOs need to take an objective look at their operations and understand what’s mission critical and what can be modified.
Unfortunately, it is more than likely that your organization is overpaying for IT services. Largely, the areas that CIOs need to take a closer look at have to do with Licensing costs, projects and personnel. Though these areas are important and hard to trim, they should be reviewed.
Often, IT organizations are paying maintenance fees on software that has been shelved or no longer in use. The same can be said for hardware. CIOs should prioritize initiatives to review these ares, uncover and discontinue any unnecessary fees.
Additionally, pending, existing and future projects should undergo an audit to determine if they should be canceled or delayed. Making these decisions can be difficult, but by focusing on projects that contribute to revenue, market share and compliance, your business will be better off.
Doing “more with less” involves better utilizing existing systems to improve efficiency. Evaluate your processes and discover areas where you have overlapping functionalities and determine if you can combine or reduce systems. The effect of this on the business can be extreme, allowing for easier management and support of internal systems.
With doing “more with less” in mind, IT security is not a place to cut corners. Security breeches such, as ransomware attacks, are on the rise and can cause companies to endure significant expenses. Ensuring you have proper security and an effective DR plan in place can help your company avoid catastrophic data loss and reduce the affects of downtime.
The key to doing more with less is having the right resources in place. The most crucial of these resources being the personnel responsible for the day to day IT tasks of your organization. By effectively training employees to in the core functions of their role, you can better enable them to do their job, making them more efficient. The more efficient your employees are, the more efficient your business is as a whole.
On premises IT services can be costly and restricting for the CIO looking to do “more with less.” Not only is hardware expensive to purchase and maintain, reducing or increasing data footprints as businesses shrink or grow is a hassle. Often, companies that shrink end up paying for unused capacity and, on the other hand, growth requires immense time and money to deploy new systems. For these reasons and more, cloud computing has become an attractive alternative for companies looking to reduce costs and increase flexibility and efficiency.
Cloud solutions reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for IT solutions, and service providers make it easy to manage and maintain cloud systems. They also offer immense flexibility and scalability compared to on premises solutions. Cloud environments can be easily spun up for testing and development as needed, or torn down to reduce capacity. With cloud, the motto is you buy what you need and then scale.
CIOs face a lot of sleepless nights over their IT initiatives. The concept of doing “more with less” is enough to inspire nightmares, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By leveraging your exisiting solutions more effectively and making a shift to the cloud where it makes sense, cost reductions and efficency will follow. Service Providers like Otava are here to help your organizations work smarter, not harder.
