21 Feb How you can reduce IT costs for your SMB

IT costs remain a stress point for SMBs and large organizations, and with economic recessions, it’s harder to avoid. Here are ways to cut costs or otherwise reduce them.

In a time of economic duress and inflation, everyone is getting hit. IT costs are no exception, and bills related to maintenance, upkeep, and installing network equipment racks up a hefty charge – fast. That’s to say nothing of vendor costs, security, staff training, and the myriad of capital required to maintain a healthy IT infrastructure.

But IT isn’t something where cuts and cost reductions can be easily made. Any short-term decision can cause long-term damage and degrade the overall health of an enterprise, so each decision should remain precise. However, Bytagig has a variety of suggestions and techniques you can take advantage of.

Research and Investment

How you start makes all the difference. Cuts into long-term projects and technology infrastructure your business has heavily invested in is not recommended. That’s because reducing IT costs focus on addressing what’s financially beneficial in the short term to weather unsavory economic conditions. But when it’s time to scale resources again, you’ll want the reliable staff and infrastructure built up over the years.

Making the right moves by researching cost-effective solutions is key. Invest in the right ways and think about long-term health over the next several years. While you want to identify resource hogs in the immediate future, don’t make cuts where it hurts in the long run.

What is your cost-saving IT goal(s)?

Cuts are often done to weather economic storms, but also to save a sinking ship. Therefore, think about what your immediate reduction needs are. Is this to reduce the fat and trim expenses, or are you trying to salvage operations to get a handle on inflation and/or increasing costs? Before anything, you need to have a clear picture of these goals, or otherwise risk cutting into critical infrastructure, doing more harm than good.

Scan and Scrutinize Current Budget

Taking a thorough inspection of your current overhead and budget will aid in identifying resource drains. Are there areas of excessive budget expenditures and padding? That’s what you’re looking for.

Identify Immediate Cash Savings

Propping up your bottom line and focusing on cash and capital is a priority when reducing IT costs. Can you recover non-committal payments to vendors or resources you don’t currently need? Are there excess resources you can trim from operations? Can you locate duplicate operations, resources, or assets?

Make sure that location and elimination of these resources can yield an instant cash benefit, otherwise, you risk cutting into important infrastructure.

Consider third-party resources

You can mitigate costs and expenses by taking advantage of third-party experts and resources. This doesn’t mean outsourcing, either. MSPs (managed service providers) are common avenues for smaller businesses lacking infrastructure or experts. Instead of housing costly IT, they use vendors instead.

You can consider cutting costs by taking advantage of third-party services. An example is virtualized infrastructure, where cloud computing takes over traditional systems and/or legacy infrastructure. 

Shave off legacy infrastructure 

It’s harder to reduce IT costs if you’re running on legacy infrastructure. Now more than ever, considerations should be made to retire older systems, hardware, software, and applications. Legacy IT exists due to familiarity, or lack of financial agility. Larger organizations and businesses also face difficulties shifting away from legacy systems because of size.

However, in a time of increased demand and digitally focused ventures, upgrading is important. Where certain unimportant legacy systems can be retired, they should be (or planned for).

Still struggling with costs?

Even with our suggestions, reducing expenses in the IT sector is challenging. It’s difficult to juggle the long and short term without harming your practical infrastructure. You can reach out to Bytagig for assistance.

For more information, contact us today.