You may be eyeing your IT costs and wondering if there is any way to minimize those line items. Here at Spire, we believe we function as your IT consultant as much as your IT service provider. Our advice to any client is to leverage the expertise of an IT professional so you don’t increase costs on IT solutions that won’t work for you.
We have taken the time to define our spending approach and have developed four steps to take when reevaluating your IT budget. They will get you on track for investing in reliable IT services. If you’d like help evaluating what IT services best fit your company, give us a call, and we would be happy to help you out.
Step 1: Take stock of your current IT solutions and expenses.
Take a look at your current technology solutions. You want to fully understand everything you spent money on and begin to evaluate if it has been effective or worth it. You may be able to find a service that combines the functions of a few others, ultimately cutting costs. Or you may have a sneaky subscription that hasn’t been as useful as you want it to be.
When evaluating, ask yourself these questions:
• Is this solution helping improve our business? Does it accomplish all we need it to?
• Are we underutilizing tools? Do we need to do more education on it, or cut it?
• Is there software we don’t have that we can use to streamline our current processes with? Is there software that would make the lives of employees easier?
Step 2: Cut out any redundant or unnecessary services.
If it isn’t working for you, don’t waste your money on it. We find that sometimes businesses continue paying for IT services that they know they aren’t effectively utilizing because they don’t know if there is another solution out there and don’t have the time to research. Work with a professional IT provider like us. We can help you evaluate your current solutions’ effectiveness, eliminate any unnecessary, redundant tools, and even offer suggestions for more efficient and reliable solutions.
A great example of this would be paying for multiple file storage solutions like box.com or drobox while paying for Microsoft 365 which includes SharePoint and OneDrive.
Step 3: Resist short-term cost saving options.
Paying for fixes as they pop up is usually less cost-effective in the long run than investing in a reliable and sustainable IT solution for your business and having your provider perform regular maintenance to keep everything running smoothly. Though these small fixes might have a smaller price tag then an investment in a better system, overall, you save money by eliminating the constant expenses of fixing a flawed solution.
Step 4: Don’t risk a cyberattack.
Cyberattacks aren’t cheap — IBM reports that the average cost of an insider threat-related incident is $7.68 million. Though a lot of advertising for cybersecurity services is aggressive, it is correct. Cyberattacks are on the rise. It is no longer a question of if you will experience an attack, but when. Leaving your business exposed can be extremely costly. Undoing the harm caused by a cyberattack (if it can be undone) takes time and money. It is much more effective to put preventative security in place.
We believe these four steps will help your business save money on your IT costs and help you make more strategic IT decisions. We would love to continue the conversation with you. If you’re hesitant about tackling this problem on your own, that’s okay! We encourage you to book a meeting with us via the link below.