By While chances are good that it won’t be prolonged, businesses still need to prepare for a deeper economic downturn. Technology can often put a business in a much better position to respond to the changing dynamics in today’s marketplace.
Recession risk indicators are almost everywhere. Consumer prices are increasing at a rate not seen in 40 years. Although the labor market is strong, recession risk indicators such as elevated inflation, supply chain disruptions, and interest rate hikes have done no favors in quelling the concerns of an economic downturn.
Whether they’re at the risk of recession or a global pandemic, businesses must be prepared and arrive at practical ways to improve efficiency, increase agility, and manage cost controls. Today, one of the more practical ways would be technology.
What You’re Paying For and Why You’re Paying It: Audit Your Technology Bills
How You’re Supporting IT: Adopt the Right Approach to IT Management
How You’re Managing Cyber Risks: Security for Sustainability
Right-size IT for Anytime
What You’re Paying For and Why You’re Paying It: Audit Your Technology Bills
What if you were paying a bill for $200 every month, but no one knew what it was for?
Believe it or not, this kind of thing happens a lot. The bill comes each month and paying it becomes routine since no one knows exactly what it’s for—or what will happen if they stop paying it. It’s worth your while to review all the bills related to your technology. This includes telecom, voice, data, and subscriptions.
Do you still need that phone line?
Do you still use all those cell phones?
Do you still need that domain?
Is that still where your website is hosted?
Does your marketing team still use their Adobe Creative Cloud subscription?
Does anyone use that project management software anymore?
It might take some tracking down, but persistence will pay off when you discover a way to cut a few thousand dollars from your IT expenses. You may even find that you’ve been paying for something you haven’t been getting and you can get a refund.
Software licensing is a similar situation. If your employee offboarding process is missing this piece, you could be paying for more licenses than you’re using. Conduct an audit to ensure every license is associated with a user.
While you’re at it, ask employees if they’re using all of the web apps you’re paying for. People and preferences change, and their tech tools might too.
How You’re Supporting IT: Adopt the Right Approach to IT Management
Once you’ve eliminated the hardware, services, and applications you don’t really need and have a handle on data storage, it’s time to review how you’re supporting IT. What we’re talking about here is the IT management approach or philosophy that’s guiding how your IT support team operates.
It may be tempting to move to a “we’ll call you when we need you” situation with IT support, but that implies a totally reactive approach to IT management—which isn’t really management of IT. The IT function is similar to accounting—it’s an ongoing process with daily activity. You want that process rolling smoothly to avoid interruption, just like with your technology. Managed IT services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating the need for, a range of processes and functions in order to improve operations and cut expenses.
When issues do happen, you want employees to be able to get help fast. Your approach to IT should include support desk services and escalation resources when some deeper digging is required to find the root cause of a problem.
You’ll do your best at managing technology costs when you’re strategic with IT. When you’re strategic and use Managed IT services, you don’t do anything “just because.” You operate with purpose—to create a solid technology foundation; to equip employees with what they need to be productive; to leverage technology for innovation and competitive advantage; and to use technology to meet specific business goals.
The most cost-effective approach to IT is one that is proactive and strategic and gets people the help they need when they need it.
How You’re Managing Cyber Risks: Security for Sustainability
We can’t talk about IT management without including cyber security. Random cuts in your security layers without fully understanding the implications can have painful results. Take the IT manager who stopped doing software patches as a cost-cutting measure. As a result, vulnerabilities never got closed, and the company had a cyber-attack.
Cyber security isn’t optional. The level of protection businesses need these days is enterprise worthy. The baseline for security has moved up and even small businesses need advanced tactics in their cyber security strategy.
Right-size IT for Anytime
Whether there’s a recession on the horizon or not, right-sizing IT is a good idea.
For example, take care of software licenses during your employee offboarding process. Other areas would benefit from an annual review, like auditing your technology bills. However—and whenever—you decide to right-size, the outcome will be that you know that you’re making the best use of the money you spend on Managed IT services.