As businesses move past the first wave of COVID-19 in the US – with some returning to offices and in-person work while others stay remote – all are looking for ways to cut costs. Even if your business wasn’t immediately impacted by the pandemic, the economic forecast is grim. While many businesses are scrambling to snip expenses in certain areas of operations, they would do well to look at the technology options available. IT doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg (for hardware or labor), and it doesn’t have to take a ton of your time to figure out the most cost-effective route. Below, we explore three major ways businesses can save on IT.
Many businesses we come across have disparate vendors for each technology service. Not only does this array of providers take time to organize, wrangle, and pay, but it renders you unable to truly know if you’re getting what you should out of your technology service. Businesses have an option here to aggregate their existing services so they can consolidate some of their technologies under fewer vendors. Many technology providers will take over existing services you have and offer better pricing to make you their customer. If you’re not sure where to start with exploring how to aggregate your services to save money, third-party consultants such as Enterprise Visions can help.
One significant move businesses that are using multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) can make is to move to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) to cut costs. MPLS is an expensive, powerful technology, but as SD-WAN technology has evolved, it has proven its ability to connect multi-location businesses with a more flexible approach. It’s less expensive than MPLS and gets the job done. There are many flavors of SD-WAN out there, so businesses have options when exploring how to cut costs on networking.
One of the major benefits businesses have realized from moving to the cloud is the effect of moving from a capital expenditure (CapEx) model to an operational expenditure (OpEx) model. In the OpEx model, you don’t have enormous outlays for hardware and system components when you’re onboarding new technology. You have predictable, monthly costs associated with your IT infrastructure so your budget is more manageable and you don’t take a hit every time you need an upgrade.
As an added bonus, moving to the cloud often enables you to affordably rely on third-party providers for expertise, round-the-clock monitoring, and other aspects of IT that would cost an arm and a leg if you hired one (or multiple) full-time employee(s) to fulfill all those needs.
If you’re ready to cut major costs in your IT department without spending a ton on labor by doing so, contact Enterprise Visions today. We can help you aggregate technologies, move to SD-WAN, and explore the benefits of an OpEx model. We’re here to help you save money. Reach out anytime.