IT Cost Reduction Strategies: 8 Real-World Money Saving Examples
“Doing more with less” seems to be a common phrase in meetings and boardrooms. These tips on cost reduction, sourced straight from the Spiceworks Community, can help you save money with minimal impact to your day-to-day work.
If you’re working in an IT department on a limited budget (and aren’t they all these days?), doing more with less is a way of life. You’ve probably had your fair share of cost reduction efforts. But the hard part of stretching your funds is finding a way to cut costs without degrading the level of support or services you provide.
While “doing more with less” can be a tough ask, it’s not impossible.
Over the years, IT professionals in the Spiceworks Community have shared their cost-reduction success stories so others might learn from their experiences. Here are eight examples of how IT departments were able to save on their tech stacks, often resulting in big savings.
Cost Reduction Tip 1: Replace Products or Services with a Cheaper Alternative
While a product or solution might have worked for your business in the past, technology changes rapidly. What might have been a great option before might no longer make sense. For example, within the span of a few years, new solutions might be able to do the job more efficiently while saving your company money. Other times, hungry competitors might enter a market, eager to win your business by extending steep discounts. With this in mind, spending a little time upfront researching your options and shopping around can save you a lot of money in the end.
Replaced antiquated POTS system with VoIP solution that saved $300/mo company-wide while increasing bandwidth and stabilizing connectivity between sites.
One of the biggest savings I have seen is by switching our toner/ink orders over to re-manufactured toner/ink. We were spending over $65,000 a year in toner at my district. I have that down to ~$20,000 by switching… Plus I also shop my purchases to different vendors to get the best pricing.
“We trashed our older copy machine and printer (along with the maintenance contract) and bought a bigger, faster unit that saves us on a maintenance plan each month.”
Cost Reduction Tip 2: Optimizing Processes and Eliminating Unnecessary Spending
Making businesses run more efficiently can help organizations save money, and technology is often an excellent tool IT departments can use to automate or modernize processes. Another thing to keep in mind is that you may be paying for software licenses you don’t actually need. This underused software is called “shelfware.” Even if your software is sitting on a virtual shelf, it ends up costing you money. A software audit can help pinpoint where you’re overspending – as well as opportunities for eliminating redundant tools.
Since I work in the non profit sector, every dime saved is a good thing. I use a lot of free and open source software to do that, and then I do a lot of scripting. For example, I need something to do something, but costs money, I try to figure out how I can make it happen with a PowerShell, bat, or perl script. Staying proactive is a biggie, and finding little problems before the get bigger. I also recently implimented software to put the system to sleep (Not servers or support system) at night, thus helping to save on the electric bill.
If you’ve done what you could to save money, including using open-source softwares, etc, something as simple as changing procedure can save you money and time. Taking what you are doing now and analyze it. What can you do differently that can save time, productivity and overall money?
— SubyFly
Since I took this job we’ve cut some unneeded service or contract each year and this year alone with the combination of contract re-negotiations and staying on top of IT in general we will slash over $100k easily in annual costs (I’m talking hard dollar costs).
Cost Reduction Tip 3: Negotiating Contracts or Finding Discounts
Sometimes, the best way to cut costs is to shop around for the best deal. Just knowing that the competition’s products cost less may be enough to help negotiate a deal with your current vendor, or get you upgraded to a better plan for the same price. There are many ways to find discounts: from comparing prices among multiple providers to good old-fashioned bargaining.
I work in the non-profit sector and I save a lot of money for our organization simply by asking for discounts. Many companies have unpublished charity discounts that can really add up. I work with my vendors to develop solid relationships, and although I would often rather be working on a technical problem, I recognize that I can bring real value to my organization and help the mission by taking the time to do price comparisons and find the best discounts.
When you have determined that you absolutely need a commercial software product, start your evaluations at the beginning of the quarter, wait with asking for formal quotes (minimum 3 from competing vendors) till the middle of the quarter, and wait till the last few days of the quarter to negotiate the fattest discount you can possibly get. Software companies are desperate to make their quarterly numbers!
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