Now that we are in the depths of the recession, companies across the world are looking to cut costs and the I.T departments role in the cost cutting process is extremely important. Studies show that 91% of IT Managers/IT Directors in the UK have seen a reduction in budget in the last 12 months.
Without properly functioning Telecoms & IT systems, the modern business, whether it be SME or Enterprise finds it extremely difficult to function properly, and more importantly, finds it difficult to compete in the increasingly competitive marketplace.
Telecommunications Systems
Keeping a careful eye on your communication contracts is vital, with new and improved solutions like the Cisco UC500, which has been branded the “office in a box”, as it manages voice, data, video and security, plus lots more, ensuring increased productivity without the need for many different hardware products or software solutions to be purchased. Included with the product are basic call centre facilities, soft phones, music on hold support and voicemail, and as this is being aimed at the SME market, the costs are not as much as one would imagine.
Data Storage and Retrieval
Document storage and access is a commonly underestimated drain on business cash and resources. Have you ever thought what it costs to hire premises or use a part of your own premises to store paper documents, and how long in staff time it takes to store and retrieve these document on a daily basis? The cost to the modern business can run into tens of thousands of pounds per year, even for an SME. An electronic document management system could solve many problems. All paper documents would be scanned into the system from a current device within the network, documents can be easily stored and retrieved at the touch of a button. A good system, properly installed and configured can remove any costs associated with storage of paper documents, and cuts down the time of retrieval immensely, ensuring better productivity of staff and is a potential money saver. This helps to serve your customers faster with immediate answers to questions, reduced printing costs, helps keep processes locked down and secures all documents safely and improved security of company documentation.
Virtualisation
One of the big talking points at the moment is virtualisation, but what exactly is it I hear you ask………
“Virtualisation is an abstraction layer that decouples the physical hardware from the operating system to deliver greater IT resource utilisation and flexibility to the user”. Virtualisation put simply, allows multiple operating systems to be run on one server, with the servers resources shared between each one. On the face of it, many think that it sounds a costly and difficult exercise. In practice, if you had 4 servers, it would be acceptable to think that these could be reduced to one server running all of your business applications, thus reducing your yearly support for the redundant servers, saving space, reduced power usage, reduced capital and operational expenses, reduce downtime and lost revenue, not to mention the obvious environmental advantages involved. Read more on virtualisation and access the cost saving calculator by contacting Aspen Solutions directly.
Printing
Finally a major cost to most businesses today is printing documents, with the capital expenditure involved in procuring devices, consumable costs and the ongoing running costs involved. One way of making a quick cost saving is having a print audit of all of your devices, this looks at what type of documents you are printing, how many devices you have and could they be reduced, what is the average toner coverage on a page, what the total cost of ownership is (TCO), and finally could you reduce costs dramatically whilst increasing end user productivity. Contact Aspen to arrange a free no obligation print audit.
Some IT departments that are ahead of the game maybe adopting some of these products already, and will soon align their IT strategies with the financial focus of the business, proving to the shareholders that they do understand what’s going on and can make a positive contribution to the situation.
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