As IT leaders, you’re often faced with the difficult task of making budget cuts. Whether those cuts are big or small, it never fails to be a tricky process.
Unfair or not, people outside of IT often view the department as a particularly costly area. Therefore, the IT team has to continuously balance the act of keeping operations running smoothly while also delivering value.
This often entails the CIOs and team leaders searching for new ways to reduce waste and overall expenditures—something that’s much, much easier said than done.
That being said, there are certain things you can do today to reduce costs in your IT department. Here are five easy ways to start saving your business money today—and maybe even finish before the workday is over.
1. Invest in Technology
If cost reduction is a long-term goal for your business and IT department, you can’t simply slash spending and call it a day. Instead, you need to take a look at your current spending trends to determine how to run your operations, infrastructure, and data more efficiently.
Part of this involves determining the major inefficiencies within your IT department. Once determined, you’ll strategize on the best ways to cut costs. Often, this means replacing outdated devices or streamlining clunky processes.
It is also common for organizations to run on a decades-old network infrastructure that technically still works—but not nearly as well as it should.
The price of replacing a network might sound high. However, by crunching the numbers, you may find that it’s far more cost-effective in the long-term to replace it with new, higher-performing equipment.
2. Re-Think Cuts and Investments
If you’re only looking to reduce costs in the short term, it’s essential to re-prioritize your operations and investments.
Simple housekeeping expenditures like training, travel, office supplies, and temporary expenses can be reprioritized and briefly eliminated in order to provide some short-term relief for a stretched budget.
Maybe you’ll be low on pencils for a few weeks, but you’ll make it through.
One area where you should tread carefully is people costs. This makes it an obvious place to start if you’re looking to reduce costs. But do resist jumping right into layoffs or slashing everyone’s end-of-year bonus until you’ve looked at all other options.
For example, cutting back on outside contract work or a temporary hiring freeze can be just as effective in saving your budget—all without the morale-dampening side effects.
3. Telecommuting and Remote Work
If a typical business allowed employees to work from home just half the time, they would save about $10,000 per year per worker based on real estate costs alone!
Now also account for costs that can be reduced from telecommuting including utilities, janitorial services, office supplies, coffee and snacks, office equipment, and travel subsidies. It all adds up fast!
But overhead isn’t the only cost that telecommuting can reduce. According to a study by the University of Illinois, remote workers reported higher levels of job satisfaction and a more positive attitude about their job.
What does this mean? Working from home can reduce the high costs of employee turnover, saves you plenty of money, and keeps your best employees happier, more productive, and less stressed.
4. Make Work Cloud-Based
In 2020, Gartner expects that public, cloud-based storage companies will grow a staggering 17%! So, why are so many businesses quickly jumping on the cloud bandwagon? There are many reasons, although much of it having to do with cost savings.
By relying on the cloud for document sharing, storage, communication, and digitizing documents, you’ll reduce business expenses. Here’s why:
- Document Sharing: With a cloud-based document storage program—which can be a simple as PDFs in Adobe Cloud or as robust as Laserfiche—your workflow will become faster and more efficient.
- Storage: Say goodbye to rooms of filing cabinets, storage containers, and manila folders. With tools like Dropbox or Google Drive, you can use that space for things that can make you money, and you’ll longer need to purchase related supplies.
- Communication: With cloud-based systems like Slack and Microsoft Teams, communicating important information with your team is quicker, easier, and boosts productivity, which usually means higher revenue.
Switching over to cloud-based services also equals less reliance on paper and paper products. Not only will paper reduction save money, but as an added bonus, it’ll make your office more environmentally friendly too.
5. Find a Managed Print Partner
Look, we’re a print management service. Of course, we’re going to talk about how what we do can help you save money. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to take our word for it.
According to IDC Research, businesses can save as much as 30% annually by outsourcing print management functions to a service provider.
Why?
Because an experienced managed print team knows how to expertly consolidate your fleet, make your workflow more efficient, reduce your overhead costs, eliminate the time that your IT team spends maintaining devices maintenance, and so much more.
Chances are high that you’ll see an immediate cost reduction in labor and equipment—all while letting the IT department focus on whatever others tasks are more important and exciting than work printer problems.
Want to discover more ways to reduce inefficiencies in your IT department, keep costs low, and learn how to get your print process under control? Contact the imageOne team, and we’d love to show you how! Set up a free, no-strings-attached consultation today.
