IT On-Demand: Eliminating the Waste During a Recession by:Zach Schuler
When the recession hit, fast and furious, one of my management consultants was quick
to remind me: "At high tide, the water covers the rocks, but when the tide goes out, the rocks begin to show." I've done a lot of thinking about that statement, and then I started applying that statement to my clients and their business objectives.
During economic downturns, a vast majority of companies go into "bunker mode" to avert crisis; or worse, they pretend that doing the "same ol' thing" will somehow protect them from imminent change. For many, and perhaps the smartest CEO's, the mentality shifts to "trim the fat, and take a an inch of meat along with it." I agree with the fat trimming notion, and where I personally see the most amount of fat is in I.T.
One of the first things to get cut when cash flow wanes is the sizable investments usually made on capital expenditures. Virtually every I.T. project fits into this category. So, logically speaking, if I.T. projects are getting cut, or put on indefinite hold, the human resources that were responsible for these projects should be getting cut as well. However, this doesn't seem to be happening. Instead, companies tend to view internal I.T. professionals as "safety blankets," and experts who need to be available just in case something goes awry.
The I.T. guy who used to have a consistent 40 hours or more per week worth of work to do, now has 8 hours a week worth of actual work spread over 5 days, with 30 hours of sitting around to do in case something goes wrong. The opportunity for companies to save on the 30 hours of "sitting around" is astounding.
Another reason that companies keep internal I.T. personnel on payroll is that most executive managers think that THEIR technology needs are so much different than the next company, and that THEIR technology infrastructure is just too complex for anyone other than a full time employee to wrap their arms around. In the vast majority of cases, this simply is not the case. 90% of small and middle market businesses are running the same systems, with the only variation in one or two specific line of business applications, but even those applications are usually run on the same platform as the next guys.
This is a large opportunity for many companies with respect to cost cutting. What if there were an "instant response, on demand, pay as you go" service that allows you to use and pay for I.T. only when you actually need it? What if this same offering remotely and in an automated methodology maintained your systems at the same time? What if when an issue occurred, there was an immediate response to that issue, and in many cases, the discovery of the issue was caught before the business even knew there was a problem?
In many cases, this service delivery methodology is more responsive than in house I.T. staffs, can resolve problems in 1/2 the time because that's what they do all day, and can cost 1/3 of a full time staff member. This is local I.T. Outsourcing at its best.
A sound I.T. outsourcing model includes resources with different skill sets in various technologies as well as different levels of experience up and down the I.T. food chain. This means that if a business needs a CIO to help tackle a strategic I.T. initiative, the business can have that "on-demand." If the business needs a low level tech support specialist to fix a printer issue, the business can have that, "on- demand." The business will pay accordingly for each level of resource, only paying for what they need and what they use. This kind of "on demand, pay as you need it/use it" is a very attractive model for those organizations looking to cut costs.
The days of the I.T. safety blanket with full time "just in case" resources are pass. The days of "just in time" resources should be leveraged. Overhead salaries and benefit dollars should be used to generate new business, investing heavily in sales and marketing, and investing in displacing competition. I.T. is not overhead; it's an element of competitive advantage if leveraged appropriately. My advice: leave I.T. to those who know it best.
About the author
Zach Schuler, CEO, Cal Net Technology Group,
http://www.calnettech.comhttp://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_10218.shtml
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