3 Ways to Reduce Personnel Costs without Sacrificing IT Support Levels
Maintaining a cost-effective IT department can be a costly process. To keep the IT systems of a business running smoothly with minimal downtime means hiring a proficient IT service department. Knowledgeable IT service managers and teams do not come cheap, especially if a business is looking for employees with solid background knowledge – this knowledge only comes through extensive training and experience. You would think this makes them indispensable to a business, but often IT is one of the first areas to feel cuts during an economic downturn.
Cutting IT Support Costs
Usually, downsizing an IT department is due to a lack of understanding of its importance. The smaller and less experienced the IT service team, the more downtime will occur – costing the business more money in lost productivity and revenue.
IT is often seen as the one area of a business that does not actively make money. A cost-center, not a business enabler. The fact is, IT's role is to aid the business in making money by supporting other departments. In our experiences, we've seen good Houston IT service providers keep IT infrastructures running so that other departments can make money. However, great providers t use IT as a strategic tool to help automate processes and improve efficiency.
However, sometimes difficult decisions must be made if a business feels that IT is the only department they can downsize without a critical impact on profits. If this is the case, here are a few options.
1. Internal Support via Wikis
One option for businesses looking to cut IT costs is to replace dedicated IT support staff with internal wiki pages. These would be managed by all staff who have encountered problems and fixes.
The idea behind self-help wikis is that each time an employee has a problem, they log it on the Wiki. When a solution is found that is also added. Then, if another employee encounters the same problem then the solution is already there. However, the idea of letting untrained staff manage their own IT support is shocking to IT experts.
Businesses may think that getting staff to fix their own problems is a great alternative to hiring expensive IT staff. But this can be a risky move. Staff who are not trained in IT support will take longer to fix problems – leading to more costly downtime for the business. Any fixes they do come up with could also come back to haunt the business as quick, temporary fixes are preferred over long term system support.
2. Standardized IT Service Management
Using an IT service management standardized framework can be hugely beneficial to cutting down infrastructure.
ITIL is a library of common vocabulary that improves the quality and reduces the costs of IT services. ITIL ensures that IT services are focused on the business case which helps prove to business owners that the IT department is having a positive financial effect on the company.
Unlike using internal Wikis, ITIL means the placement of documented IT strategy, maintained by recognized experts. Often, what a business sees as an area losing money by default is actually just poorly managed department lacking centralized structure. ITIL is a great way to streamline IT service management by introducing structure and minimizing downtime.
3. Cloud computing providers reduce capital IT and maintenance costs
Many organizations have also moved to cloud providers to reduce the capital costs of owning, managing and protecting and supporting on in-house IT system. Using the cloud computing model, organizations treat IT like a utility, paying only for the computing resources they use, and eliminating the need for an on-premise IT system. With the nuts-and-bolts of IT maintenance and support assumed by the cloud provider, the client organization can refocus its resources on strategic initiatives.
With contributions from Silicon Beach Training, an APMG-accredited ITIL training center in Brighton, UK that offers Six Sigma training.
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