5 Ways to Optimize Your IT Budget

automation, cloud computing, educate staff, evaluate spending, IT budget, IT Support, Ophtek, , , , , ,
17
Sep 2024

Managing your IT budget is crucial in today’s fast paced business environment. After all, technology is becoming more important, but also expensive.

An IT budget allows you to plan your IT expenses for the year ahead, so it needs to be planned carefully. Every cent counts and you want to be able to optimize your IT budget to remain efficient and competitive. This may sound simple, but it presents a major headache for almost every business. You need to determine exactly where you can save money in your budget and which areas need prioritizing for investment. It’s a difficult balancing act, but if you can get it right, you’re guaranteed an effective IT infrastructure.

Optimizing Your IT Budget

To help you get started with optimizing your IT budget, we’re going to share 5 simple ways you can get the most bang for your buck:

  1. Evaluate Existing IT Spending: Over time, your use of IT technology will change, and this often leads to unnecessary spending or a lack of investment in vital services. Therefore, you need to assess your current expenses and focus on the costs which directly impact your day-to-day operations. This will allow you to identify areas where you can make savings e.g. using open-source software such as Google Docs or OpenOffice instead of the subscription-based Microsoft Office.
  2. Embrace Automation: The future of business is automation, and this is never more true than when it comes to IT. By streamlining repetitive tasks, you can reduce manual workloads and reduce your labor costs. A good example of this comes in the form of network monitoring software, this can be used to keep a continuous eye on the traffic flowing in and out of your infrastructure. Anything suspicious can be immediately flagged, and this saves you having to manually monitor your network activity. While there will be an initial outlay in automation software, the long-term savings will greatly enhance your IT budget.
  3. Invest in Cloud Computing: Flexibility is an important part of any budget and cloud computing is the perfect example of this in IT. Using cloud services ensures that your organization only pays for what it uses e.g. a specific amount of storage space for your backups. Cloud computing also reduces the need for physical equipment on your premises and comes complete with minimal maintenance costs. The combined benefits of cloud computing, especially when provided by a single supplier, will quickly streamline your costs.
  4. Optimize IT Support: Rather than handling IT support yourself, why not consider outsourcing this duty to a specialized provider? This minimizes your spending on in-house IT staff and enables you to benefit from remote support services. External providers will be more than capable of maintaining your IT infrastructure and, due to their experience across multiple clients, their expertise will be more varied than in-house staff who primarily work with the same systems every day.
  5. Educate Your Staff: Incorrect usage of your IT resources by staff can quickly generate outgoing costs, so it pays to be mindful of this. So, make sure your staff are regularly trained to use IT equipment correctly and efficiently e.g. only printing in color when necessary. It’s also important that your IT and finance teams are in regular contact with each other to monitor IT spending, so ensure catch-up meetings are scheduled to keep everyone on the same page.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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Sustainable Practices for a Greener IT Environment 

cloud computing, dark data, green IT, Ophtek, outsourcing, sustainable IT, turn off pc, working remotely, , , , , ,
02
Jan 2024

Modern businesses are constantly looking to reduce their carbon footprint. One of the best ways to achieve this is with a greener IT environment. 

When it comes to the environment, digital data comes at a cost. Therefore, it’s important for businesses to evaluate their practices in order to reduce their impact on the environment. This is known as Green IT, a study and practice of the ways in which IT usage can be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. However, for many organizations, their adoption of eco-friendly practices tends to be focused on manufacturing and service elements. 

How Do You Develop Sustainable IT Practices? 

If you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your IT operations, you should start making changes in these areas: 

  • Cloud computing: one of the best ways to reduce your impact on the environment is by embracing the cloud. Due to superior hardware setups, cloud data centers use less energy than traditional in-house data solutions. And the savings are seriously impressive. It’s estimated that cloud computing can improve energy efficiency by up to 93% and, in the process, release 98% fewer greenhouse gases. 
     
  • Dark data: all businesses carry and store huge amounts of data, but does it all need to be kept? Data which is stored, but not required is referred to as dark data. Therefore, if you’re using cloud data centers, which are responsible for 2.5% of carbon dioxide emissions, to store dark data, you’re putting an unnecessary strain on the environment. The solution here is to evaluate your data governance policies and develop strategies for disposing of dark data. 
     
  • Turn your PCs off: many employees fail to shut their PCs down at the end of the day. This is the result of wanting to get home and, of course, saving time the next day when they’re logging on. However, leaving a PC running overnight not only produces carbon emissions but also shortens the lifespan of the device. This means that you are more likely to have to replace the machine, contributing towards environmental damage. Accordingly, your employees need to be educated on the importance of shutting their PC down. 
     
  • Outsourcing: if your business experiences a surge in demand, you don’t have to buy additional equipment to cope with the increased workload. Instead, you can outsource this workload, such as to a call center, to manage the demand. After all, this surge in activity may be short lived, and outsourcing represents a sustainable and more affordable option. Remember, anything which reduces the sale of new hardware will only have a positive effect  
    on the environment. 
     
  • Remote working: advances in IT technology mean that any employee with a high-speed internet connection can seamlessly connect with your IT infrastructure from home. This means a reduction in not just emissions from travel, but also a number of energy saving costs in your office. As a result, allowing employees to work from home will easily enhance your green credentials and reduce your carbon footprint. 

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals. 

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Google Workspace Business and How it Helps Businesses

automation, cloud computing, collaboration, Google, google workspace business, Security, , , ,
29
Jun 2021

Any tool that can help businesses improve processes and enhance productivity is invaluable. And one such tool is Google Workspace Business.

An intriguing and powerful collection of business IT tools, Google Workspace Business has the potential to revolutionize the way your organization works. It’s a platform which embraces the benefits of cloud computing and allows you to take collaboration to a new level. The basic (and free) version of Google Workspace is certainly useful, but the enterprise Business version is packed full of additional features. And, in the current landscape of remote working, it’s an essential tool for businesses.

But what exactly can Google Workspace Business offer your business?

The Lowdown on Google Workspace Business

Introducing a new collaborative tool into any business needs to be managed carefully. But, with Google Workspace Business, you can be rest assured that the following benefits are worth it:

  • Use Business Branded Email: One of the major benefits of Google Workspace Business is that it allows you to use an in-built email system – similar in design to Gmail – with your company domain name attached. Organizations, therefore, can harness the power of enterprise-level email services, but free themselves from the duties of maintaining an email server.
  • Unlimited Storage in Google Drive: Each employee who has an account registered with Google Workspace business will also be allocated a Google Drive account. And, in Google Workspace Business, an unlimited amount of space in Google Drive is on offer. Individuals can securely store all the files they ever need in the cloud and separate Teams accounts can also be set up.
  • Compatibility Across Devices: Whether you are using a laptop, mobile device or desktop, Google Workspace Business will work seamlessly across these different devices. A mobile device user can, for example, share and edit a spreadsheet with a remote colleague working on a desktop PC. The environment this creates is consistent for all users and ensures that productivity is optimized for all employees.

For more ways to secure and optimize your business technology, contact your local IT professionals.

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8 Misconceptions About the Cloud

Internet,
29
Jul 2015

Futuristic Cloud Computer

With plenty of claims floating around about “the Cloud”, it’s no wonder many people find it somewhat confusing. Here are 8 misconceptions about the cloud.

The Cloud; a buzzword that has been tossed around for many years into the vocabulary of  businesses and individuals alike. We’ve written this article to address some myths regarding cloud computing.  According to Wikipedia, the Cloud is a “metaphor” for the Internet.  One could say that the Cloud is a modern way to describe how the Internet is used to store and access data files in large data centers. Like any other physical system, data centers run physical disks to store data that and could be thought of as the Cloud. Despite the latter, the files accessed by cloud users appear as “virtual” when accessed from their systems or devices.

 

Typical_Data_Center

How confusing can all this be?

Applications_in_the_Cloud

According to many circles of IT professionals and businesses alike, the cloud concept has deviated from being a solution for accessing files on the Internet, to many other outrageous things we hear about.  Here are some examples of popular misconceptions:

“The cloud will solve all of your organization’s problems”

The Cloud still isn’t entirely secure and there are other aspects to running a business that the cloud has not yet reached, there’s still a way to go for this.

“Is always available with no down time”

The Cloud solution of choice is just as susceptible to downtime as any other system on earth. This ranges from a genuine outage to scheduled maintenance. Anyone and everyone’s files on the cloud are stored virtually on a company’s physical disk. This means that the Cloud Company is also susceptible to down-time like any other business.

“Needs no backups or disaster recovery plans as the data cannot be lost, deleted, or is never down”

Even files on the Cloud should be backup up (ideally offline ). The Cloud is not 100% guaranteed to hold your files. Cloud servers could go down or even ransom-ware could reach file shares to encrypt or wipe them altogether. For instance Dropbox has been known to be susceptible to ransom-ware attacks.

“I’ve never used the cloud”

Many claim to have never used the cloud despite having used the internet before, a lack of understanding perhaps?  If you’ve accessed email online, social media sites, online banking, shopped online, you’ve definitely accessed the cloud.

“The Cloud gets affected by the weather”

Many believe the literal meaning of the word “cloud”, and associate it with the “fluffy white thing” that is seen over the skies.  Of course, we know that this is complete nonsense!

Cloud Smile

“It’s a backup”

The Cloud is not a backup; however third party services over the cloud like Amazon AWS can be used as a service to form part of a backup strategy.

“With cloud computing you’ll never need to buy hardware again”

Not true. You still need to purchase systems and devices to access the cloud.

“Our Virtual machine environment at our business is the Cloud”

Not entirely wrong. Virtual machines will form the company’s private Cloud which is different to a public cloud.

To help clear up the mental fog about the broad use of the term “Cloud” for many individuals or businesses, it’s best to understand the difference. In reality, the cloud can mean many different things to different people. In essence, the difference for many businesses will mean choosing between an in-house solution or the “cloud” solution “. Of course, they can have both if they wanted to.

For more ways to safeguard your data, contact your local IT professionals.

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