Analyst Gartner has identified four discrete levels at which IT
organisations can help their businesses optimise business costs in
the face of the recession.
The analyst
recommends that IT managers and the business draw up frameworks
to measure business optimisation and the effects on the overall
organisation.
The four discrete levels of optimising business costs:
IT procurement - True partnerships with IT suppliers mean that
each party benefits in the good times and makes joint sacrifices in
times of economic uncertainty. The manner in which IT organisations
approach procurement issues will affect how much they can reduce
spending to meet business goals.
Cost savings within IT - A priority for many IT organisations
will be to identify opportunities to reduce baseline IT costs, not
just move them to another budget centre.
Joint business and IT cost savings - Consider that the average
IT budget is roughly 3% of revenue, whilst total operating expenses
are 80% to 90% of revenue. If the business is looking to reduce
costs in 2009, IT managers should try to join IT with the business
to reduce costs in business operating expenses.
Enabling innovation and business restructuring - As economic
uncertainty passes, cost optimisation will refocus on efforts to
implement long-term process improvement and enable business
structuring and innovation.