Three Steps to Combat the Slowdown

There’s a stark difference between how a business operates under good market conditions vs a bad one. The objectives change completely. A business normally looks forward to spending on increasing visibility and reaching new customers when the economy is on the upswing. Recruitments are on in full swing,and so are investments in other areas like travel, purchase of new machinery, upgrading of infrastructure, IT, etc. The behavior is exactly the opposite in tough times. Organizations tend to clamp up on everything–new projects, purchasing of new machinery, visibilitymeasures, attempts to get new customers, invest in IT, etc.Thankfully, IT can help during both market conditions. It’s a great tool during good times, butan equally effective one in tough times also. Considering the current market conditions that prevail,you can follow three steps to save costs with technology. The first is to identify areas thatconsume a considerable amount of your budgets. These are Capital and Operational Expenses,power, travel, and of course manual processes and all the operational inefficiencies it brings. Tryand measure how much you are spending on these areas.The second step is to identify technologies to combat the budget sappers we just identified.For instance, you can follow greener measures to combat the excess power consumption. Evenby switching off all equipment like PCs, monitors, lights, etc before leaving office can save cost.Employees tend to leave all these on before leaving in the evening, which unnecessarily addsto your electricity bill. You could also look at the utilization of your servers in the server room.Chances are they’re running 24x7, but being utilized only 30% of the time. The remaining 70%of the time, they’re sitting idle, but consuming electricity nevertheless. Technologies like servervirtualization can help you there.Next is saving on Capital expenses. Here, using Open Source and free software instead ofpurchasing commercial and licensed software can help you save some initial upfront cost. Thismay not be a good long-term strategy because you will ultimately end up paying to support softwarethat you downloaded freely from the Internet. But on a short term basis, when initial expensesare critical, this might be a good idea. On the other hand, using SaaS or Software as a Service might be a good idea to save you some capital expenses.Cutting down traveling expenses is possible by using STD and ISD more judiciously. Use digitalcommunication before calling up. There are plenty of options–email, instant messengers,online collaboration, video conferencing, etc. These will help you save both cost and time to travel.While there are lots of ways to automate manual processes with IT, we’ll leave you with just one–Intranets. Setup your own web 2.0 enabled Intranet website to host your various manuals, processes, and other training material.The last step is to use innovative ways to save cost. Work from home, use CCTV cameras tokeep an eye on employees, renegotiate your existing contracts, outsource wherever possible,and much more.Do send us an email at pcquest@cybermedia.co.in to know more about saving costs withtechnology.

 Anil Chopra

 Editor