How to cut costs in 2010

In today’s Business Environment there are two key ways to increase profits. One way is to sell more of your product. This is always the primary goal and should be for good reason. The second way to increase profits is to trim expenses. This is a common practice for most Business Owner/C-Level employees, but there is an area that is overlooked by many.

Where, you ask, is an area that you can cut expenses without harming the output of the department? This is a tough question. What you’re asking is to dedicate less resource and grow output. In most areas of the business this is impossible, that is except for one key area. The IT Department.

The most common area money is wasted in business today is the practice of hiring full time, internal IT people. The perception is that you need to have an in-house IT person or even a team of technical people. Aside from giving yourself a sense of security by having that person sitting across the hall, you have actually achieved nothing, in fact you're most likely overspending and receiving a lower level of service than you should.

Here is the common scenario. Management will recruit and hire what they consider a technical expert. More than not this person is not an expert, but merely a technical professional that knows more than management in regards to technology. They come into an environment and make changes based on their vision of how things “should be”. This vision was created from how they were trained at their last position. The training was built around the previous employer’s budget for purchasing solutions, i.e. the person only knows what they needed to know about their former employer’s infrastructure.

As time goes on, not only is this person stuck on what their own vision of IT, but he also doesn't have hands on access to the latest tools and technologies that the industry has to offer, they are stuck in the fishbowl that is your infrastructure which again is based on what he was trained in prior to coming aboard or on what you could afford to purchase for him.

ACS Services Inc, a provider of IT Services, touches hundreds of unique clients per year. This gives our team hands on working knowledge of best in class solutions, both large and small. Our staff is trained, by the top Vendors, to be experts in the latest solutions, so that they will sell the solutions for the vendor. ACS is given bonuses in the way of back end rebates and commissions to become knowledgeable, to achieve expert status, and continue their training so they know the products and solutions inside and out. When u measure the knowledge of the average "full time" IT employee vs. that of an Engineer employed by a Service Provider, it’s an unfair comparison.

The nature of an “IT Person” is to have access to the latest and greatest technology. When you (the client) recruits and hires your “Expert” you will find one of two people.

• One person who will crave the latest toys the industry has to offer and once your budget cannot deliver, will grow stale and will move on to greener pastures.

• The other person who is ok working on yesterday’s technology, because your budget doesn’t allow for major upgrades every six months, which by definition is not a quality Technology professional.Your “Expert” is now in charge of stretching your Technology budget as far as they can vs. thinking out of the box and giving your organization a competitive advantage, which is the underlying reason all employees are ultimately hired.

Assuming you are the exception to the rule and do find that Key Person to man your staff, how do you manage him or her?

Most C-level/Business Owners know very little about technology, which gives two options:

• Hire a business minded IT professional, either at the C level or upper management level, to hold the IT staff accountable.

• Assume the job is getting done.

Would you hire a sales team without a VP of sales? Would you hire an accounting team without a CFO/Controller? How can you hire an IT person/Team without a CTO/Dir of IT? Your investment in an expert just became greater.

Lets again assume that you hired this Key Person and have also, without breaking the bank, have a way to manage this person, you need to provide them with the tools required to complete the task at hand, which is manage your Technology Infrastructure.

Do you own a ticketing system/Crm to handle support issues? Were you able to dedicate 6 months to train your team on the package? Did you purchase a monitoring system? Did your team spend the months required to become experts with the system so they can effectively run it? This is an average of $150k+ in tools alone, that are an absolute necessity in order to support an SMB's network.

I could go on but I think the information above gives a clear enough picture that Technology is an area where you can spend less (in some cases 50% less) and receive a greater level of support, in turn gaining a competitive leg up on the competition.

If you’re looking for a competitive advantage in 2010, please feel free to contact me, I would be glad to discuss with you how your business could benefit.

Thank you, I hope you found this information helpful.

William Adams Jr.
wjajr@acs.com
508-238-6334