IT Manager’s Guide to Surviving a Recession

Came across this guide & consolidating tips from it below:

Saving Next Year When Cutting IT Today
Ø Unless you know that a simple operational change will yield a significant cost reduction, cut operational expenses before strategic. Business applications are strategic, technology upgrades are operational.
Ø A simple consolidation and shutdown of a business unit data center or aging application will save more than that of IT proposed cut on projects and infrastructure management.
Ø Ask vendors to come in and do a free audit and review of how you could cut expenses: cooling costs, maintenance, licenses, aging devices, or whatever.

Ways to Cut IT Costs without Cutting Deliverables
Ø Go “Good enough” - Serena software is saving $750,000 a year by moving to Gmail from MS Exchange, its IT Head says “Gmail may not have all features but it is good enough”.
Ø Automate More IT Tasks - A study at Extreme network on IP phones that are shut off at 5 p.m. and turned on at 9 a.m. showed network costs dropped a staggering 75%.
Ø Stay Flexible - Avoid getting locked into expensive and even unnecessary projects , divide projects into small units – deliverable in say, 60- or 90-day timeframes, and maintain close contacts with end-users.

Gutting Costs Guts Viability
Ø Cost cutting is not a long term strategy and is a short-term tactic. In observing behavior and outcomes we can class cost cutting as a dependent variable because there are limits to how much cost can be removed from a system and still be viable.
Ø Rather than focusing on cost cutting, there is another approach, one that doesn’t have limits. Sales, in contrast to costs, are independent variables. There aren’t limits to how much sales can be generated. In fact, arguments of sales not being possible are reflective of management’s inability to effectively penetrate existing markets or develop new ones.
Ø In a down economy like today, selling the same products the same way may no longer work. But with that “simple” understanding come real effort in the areas of planning and execution.
Ø There is a huge difference between a market being unwilling to buy a current product or service and management’s inability to innovate and bring new products and services to market. The ability to rapidly innovate and bring new products and services to market is critical.
Ø Management teams that are focusing on cost cutting risk the future of their organizations. Firms that have gutted their ability to innovate and compete will find themselves irrelevant in the market and either languish or outright fail. Instead, they must focus improving throughput and reducing operating expenses simultaneously.

Three Ways to Thrive in a Recession
Ø Turn your project management office from an administrative entity to a group that can quickly and transparently articulate where IT is spending its money, what returns are being generated, and what risks have been assumed. If some concept cannot be translated into a defined plan with measurable economic results, scrap it and allocate the resources elsewhere.
Ø Think of every project you undertake as a miniature business. There are costs to start the business, resources to be allocated, and returns to be garnered. If you cannot articulate each aspect of the venture, especially the costs and expected returns, then the project is a bad idea no matter how many IT rags advocate the technology or how many industry leaders run the same software.
Ø Vendors provide a defined service, Partners on the other hand provide advice and guidance. Ensure that your vendors are doing what they should be doing: providing exceptional service at the right cost. Your thinkers should be providing actionable strategies and plans that you can successfully execute. If one is not delivering what you need them to deliver, or attempting to stray too far outside their territory, seek another vendor or partner.

Six Tips for Stretching IT Budgets
Ø Repurpose software you already own - Extend existing software to handle other business functions, without the hassle of buying, implementing, and managing new software.
Ø Manage IT operations more efficiently - Automate repetitive tasks, Implement a set of monitoring tools, Enable your business users to do some of the work themselves.
Ø Reuse old hardware - Must see the need and innovative ways to reuse old hardware.
Ø Get “more for less” with managed services - By investing in MSPs, IT departments can still benefit from new and innovative technologies without spending money on hardware, infrastructure, or internal management and monitoring, allowing them to keep pace with technological innovation even on a tight budget.
Ø Automate enterprise-wide processes - By automating batch processing with workload automation solutions.
Ø Leverage your existing reports for BI - “In today’s economic crisis, one of the fastest ways to save resources and make smarter business decisions is to leverage your existing reports for BI.

Writing Winning IT Plans in a Recession
Ø Pick yourself up and out of the box of thinking about cost controls and start thinking differently.
Ø Recognize that outsourcing is not always the shrewdest move and when it does make sense carefully analyze the year by year outlays to be sure there will be consistent savings over the life of the contract.
Ø Look for places to practice guerilla IT, this means hunting for blatant problems that nonetheless lend themselves to quick, efficient, and inexpensive solutions.
Ø Show flexibility about spreading larger IT outlays over several years, faster approval is seen for programs that extend the dollar outlay over two, three, possibly more years.
Ø Tie every new expenditure back to provable returns. ROI is the big driver today.
Ø You cannot start a plan with the technology. Not today. Start with the numbers, end with the numbers and know that is exactly what the C-suite wants.

Source: "The IT Manager's Guide to Surviving a Recession" ebook from http://www.internet.com/