Reining in Your Business's IT Budget 

One of the most challenging aspects of managing your organization’s technology is developing and maintaining an effective IT budget. The world of Information Technology is perpetually shifting in response to new systems and processes, making it difficult for business leaders to assess which IT initiatives they should fund to maximize business value for the coming year. To complicate matters further, new viruses and malware are constantly being developed by cybercriminals, forcing your business to balance investments in IT innovation with investments in cybersecurity. All of these Information Technology facets play an important role in fostering growth and success for your company, and all of them exert significant pressure on your yearly IT budget. In light of these steep but pivotal expenses, business owners and executives struggle to determine the best way to provide all of the IT resources their team needs without driving their budget too high.

At Thriveon, we take pride in providing small to mid-sized businesses with the support and counsel they need to draw maximal value from their IT systems and keep their Information Technology budget in line. Over the years, our team of technology experts has worked with hundreds of clients across almost every industry imaginable to provide managed IT services that ensure security, optimize productivity and stabilize business IT expenses. Today, we’ll be discussing a few simple steps your organization can follow to rein in its IT budget while still achieving excellent IT results.

1. Align Your IT Budget with Your Strategic Goals

In many cases, IT specialists get so caught up in optimizing technology systems and refining processes that they forget to take a step back and look at the big picture. Yes, expanded and improved IT capabilities are valuable, but unless they’re actively advancing your business’s goals, chances are good that they aren’t important enough to merit a large chunk of your budget. That’s why it’s critical to match your IT budget up with your strategic goals before investing in any new technology. This step will ensure that 100% of the money you invest is working toward a significant business goal that fuels success. Of course, this process will also require collaboration across your entire company. What are the core long- and short-term goals each department has for the upcoming year? How will your IT systems interact with and assist in meeting these goals? Can you work toward multiple objectives through a single IT investment? By getting each aspect of your company to openly communicate and collaborate during this processes, you can eliminate a vast majority of unnecessary IT expenses and confirm that the money you are spending is furthering key business goals.

2. Assess the Impact of Your Current IT Investments

IT investments are only worth their cost if they bring meaningful, measurable business value to your company. Perhaps your team funds similar innovation initiatives or programs year after year without any marked success. You might even be working with an outsourced IT services provider that claims to be bringing value to organization but is underperforming. The only way to tell whether these expenses are worth a portion of your IT budget is to accurately measure their overall impact.

In some cases, this assessment process is pretty straightforward. For example, if you’re paying for managed cybersecurity services and still being affected by malware, viruses, downtime or data breaches, then it’s time to cut that service out of your budget and look elsewhere. However, measuring the efficacy of more complex IT resources like IT leadership can be difficult. One of the best ways to tell whether your IT investments are paying off is by comparing your Information Technology results to other similarly sized companies. That’s why Thriveon offers free discovery meetings where we contrast the impact of your current IT systems with our clients. In any case, by accurately measuring the results of your IT investments each year, you can parse out exactly which ones are pulling their weight and which ones aren’t worth your money.

3. Invest in a Comprehensive IT Strategy

The IT budget process is just one component of IT strategy, a tool that leading companies use to guide decision-making about all of their technology investments and initiatives. Because virtually every modern business process depends on technology, every business needs IT strategy. Information Technology strategy moves beyond alignment of business and IT goals by designing and implementing the specific tactics needed to reach these objectives. And because these goals vary so dramatically between each business, your company must develop a comprehensive IT strategy that identifies and prioritizes the investments needed to meet its specific demands. However, a vast majority of small to mid-sized businesses don’t have access to the IT expertise required to create and execute IT strategies. Until now.

To help you get started with IT strategy, we created the IT Strategy Quick Start Guide. This free ebook contains all of the information your business needs to start developing an IT strategy that decreases and stabilizes your IT budget.

Learn More About Managing Your Business IT Budget Today

Interested in learning more about what your company can do to keep its IT budget in line while delivering outstanding IT service for customers and staff? Then be sure to call or message Thriveon. You can also reach out to us if you have additional questions about IT strategy or how our managed IT solutions can deliver world-class IT results for your business. Our team is fully committed to your success and happy to help in any way we can.