Member Article

Doing better with the same –  IT budgets

Chief Procurement Officers the world over are adopting a mixture of pragmatism and innovation in productivity solutions to safeguard their company’s IT budgets.

Carnage. It’s perhaps the only word fit enough to sum up the effects of the global downturn in 2008, which saw companies fighting for their very survival as they cut jobs while slashing departmental costs, including IT budgets, to stay competitive.

While 2010 saw the world economy turn the corner and head towards recovery, the hangover from the recession meant that companies were no longer hiring. Instead, they wanted to get the most out of their existing resources. That includes the procurement function.

And this mindset hasn’t changed over the past five years.

Charged with deriving ever more value from the same or fewer resources, CPOs have had to examine every facet of their company, scrutinising the business for more efficiency and productivity opportunities – and at a reduced cost wherever possible.

And no more important has this drive for optimisation been than in IT. After all, IT is a department whose remit can extend across all aspects of the company’s technological infrastructure – from troubleshooting employee technical issues through to software updates, data security issues and even printing.

The operations and maintenance of a company’s IT infrastructure typically consume over 70% of IT budgets. It shouldn’t be surprising then that research reveals a real appetite for change in IT procurement among CPOs who want to optimise their company’s approach to the department while safeguarding budget. A recent report by Ardent Partners/CPO Rising reveals that:

45% of CPOs want to get more out of the technology solutions they have.

32% of CPOs want to improve upon the systems and processes already in place.

Perhaps because of IT’s diverse and substantial slate of responsibilities, more and more procurement professionals are turning to outsourcing or automating their company’s IT support needs to manage the cost/value issue.

Whether it be deploying cloud-based productivity tools from an external provider or outsourcing the entire management of IT to a third party, procurement professionals are aiming to secure the same or better level of IT support excellence while protecting IT budgets.

And this approach can be considered for all areas of a company’s IT infrastructure – for example, a business’s yearly print costs can put a significant burden on a company’s bottom line, with research by Xerox revealing that such costs can consume between 1-3% of annual revenue. But by partnering with a Managed Print Service provider, CPOs have improved efficiency and productivity rates, eliminated bottlenecks, deployed automated workflow processes and, critically, driven down print costs by 30% (on average) at the same time.

It’s through this style of smarter procurement strategy that CPOs are able to safeguard their own roles as well as staffing levels and IT budgets. In other words, it’s a valuable option for any company aiming to secure its future in this post-recession world.

Takeaways:

• No department is immune from the global business drive for increased efficiency and productivity at no extra cost.
• Examining how IT operates has become a key focal point for CPOs looking to drive forward their efficiency plans.
• Outsourcing key IT responsibilities to third parties is a cost-effective solution for dealing with all aspects of IT strategy – from cloud-based software solutions to managed print services.

To discover more about how Managed Print Services can help secure your IT department’s budget, download our free eGuide: ‘A best practice guide to procuring value-led Managed Print Services’.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Justin Milligan .