2021 IT Spending Trends — Greater Efficiency Means Greater Cost Effect
The more efficient your IT processes become, the greater ROI you can achieve with your IT budget. Have you harnessed the potential economy of scale available with modern business technology?
In the first article in this series, we explored trends that show IT spending is increasing consistently, even in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Have you achieved an effective economy of scale with your current IT budget? Recent developments in the world of business technology (namely, hosted hardware and software solutions) have given businesses access to a far more effective cost for generally similar IT resources.
In this series of articles, we’ll explore ongoing trends in IT spending, how to approach your current and future budgets, and what your priorities should be. This week, we’ll look at how modern technology is helping to improve ROI for businesses’ IT budgets.
3 Indicators Of Increasing IT Cost-Effect
A recent study by Computer Economics shows how businesses are getting more for every dollar they spend on IT over the past few years:
- Cost Per User Is Decreasing: When adjusted for inflation, the IT cost per user went from $7,758 in 2019 to $7,602 in 2020, thanks to both cloud technology and automation.
- Capital Spending Is Decreasing: Capital spending has become a small part of IT budgets and continues to get smaller year by year. 31% of organizations surveyed planned to decrease their capital spending, even more so than the year prior.
- Capital Budgets Decrease In Relation To IT Spending: Furthermore, capital budgets used to occupy as much as 21% of a given IT budget in 2016, but since then it has dropped to 17%.
As you can see, the IT dollar is going further and further for businesses — but only if they’re investing in the right technologies.
5 Ways The Cloud Increases IT Budget Cost-Effect
- Lower Initial Investment: Choosing a hosted or virtual server over an on-premise server to store your important data comes with a significantly lower upfront cost. A hosted server is maintained at an off-site location and does not require the purchase, installation, or maintenance of hardware or software in your office space. You pay a predictable monthly fee for your hosted services, and never have to worry about covering the cost of repairs, or dealing with prolonged stretches of downtime — and subsequent loss of productivity and profit — due to equipment failure. Most issues are dealt with by your cloud provider before you even realize there is an issue at all, and in the event, there is a disruption to your services, your provider will be responsible for making sure it’s sorted out as quickly as possible.
- Hassle-Free Scalability: As your business grows, your technology needs will change. The more business your organization does, the more data it will generate and then need to manage and store securely. More data requires more server storage space, which often means new or additional servers would need to be purchased and installed. With a hosted server, adding more storage space is as easy as making a phone call, and the cost associated with this addition is minimal. Especially when compared to the cost of buying a brand new server and having it delivered, installed, and configured.
- Lower Manpower Costs: When the bulk of your data, software, and applications are deployed, managed, and stored in an entirely virtual setting, there is less of a need for ongoing onsite IT support. When your internal IT department’s only responsibility is occasional break/fix maintenance, you can reduce the number of full-time staff your business needs to keep your IT environment running. Taking the cost of an annual salary (or salaries) out of your operating budget can make a huge difference to your bottom line, and leave you free to invest your technology budget more wisely.
- Lower Energy Bills: Less onsite hardware means lower initial investment and maintenance costs & will save you money each month on your business’ energy bill. Fewer pieces of onsite hardware and equipment mean fewer pieces of hardware and equipment that need to run 24/7, continuously drawing power. This can also reduce the number of battery backups your business needs to have hooked up and running at any given time, saving even more on both hydro and equipment costs.
- Reduction in Redundancy Expenses: A smart business owner prepares for any potential scenario. Part of that planning is investing in extra pieces of hardware to have on hand in case an important piece of equipment fails. Big-ticket items like servers that sit in a box in the back of your office and will more than likely be outdated long before they’re ever needed are an incredibly expensive way to try and maximize uptime. Cloud providers will take care of that redundancy for you by offering solutions like multiple failover server sites to make sure that their customers never have to deal with the inconvenience of downtime and lost access to their data and applications. Enterprise-grade security measures and data recovery protocols are generally built right into these cloud-based servers, effectively handling any eventuality on your business’ behalf with no extra effort or cost on your end.
Boost Your IT ROI With Expert Advice From Advantage Industries
Keep an eye out for the next article in this series on 2021 IT spending and budgeting. In the meantime, if you have any questions, get in touch with the Advantage Industries team.
Our team will help you select the right modern technologies to drastically increase your IT budget’s ROI. Put our expertise to use to budget your IT more effectively.
