No matter how successful your small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) is, there’s always an opportunity to optimize how you’re currently working. Cutting expenses and improving internal efficiencies can drive up those profits even higher.
When most companies think of reducing costs they think of cutting rent costs, reshaping the way they employ staff members or ending partnerships with vendors. What they don’t realize is that these drastic changes can all have a negative impact on the results achieved by the business.
In many cases, however, reducing costs is simply about making smarter choices in how and where your business invests its funds. Enter your IT strategy.
Technology allows SMEs to not only reduce business costs, but to advance and grow their organization at the same time. Whether it’s through the use of cloud computing, accessing free applications or completely transforming the way your business operates, there are many ways you can reduce business costs with technology.
In fact, according to a report from Dell, companies that invest in big data, cloud technology, mobility and security can realize up to 53 percent faster revenue growth than their competitors.
In this blog, OT Group has taken a look at five key ways you can reduce costs within your business through the use of technology.
#1 - Use automation to improve employee efficiency
Using technologies to automate recurring and manual tasks is a great way to improve the efficiency of your organization, saving you both time and operational costs. Through process automation, your company will be able refocus your employees’ time away from repetitive tasks and towards core business functions that actually promote business growth and profitability.
Through the use of technology to automate processes, your employees will be able to access new efficiencies, improve productivity, minimize errors and produce higher-quality work that delivers better results.
#2 - Transition IT infrastructure to the cloud
For true efficiency, businesses need an IT infrastructure that securely stores all of their data in one centralized location, meaning employees no longer have to search across fragmented systems and hardware to find the information they need. Doing that in-house is expensive, as it requires the purchase and maintenance of huge physical servers.
Cloud computing has made this not only easy, but also cost-effective. Use of the cloud saves your business money on in-office equipment, such as hardware, physical space, and IT teams to manage this data. Not only that, but cloud computing is scalable. You only have to pay for the data (or software) as-and-when your business needs it.
#3 - Go paperless
On the grand scale of things, the cost of paper, ink, mailing supplies and postage can seem minimal, but it can be a surprisingly large business expense when calculated. Going paperless, by sending invoices to customers through email and filing paperwork on your computer, can help your business to reduce occurring business costs.
Saying that, paperless doesn’t work for all businesses. If physical bills and invoices are important to your company and its clients and you can’t go paperless, try implementing more cost-effective printing processes instead. OT Group’s colour coded pricing plan can help your business save a significant amount of money on colour printing, while printer cost recovery software can help eliminate waste during your printing process.
#4 - Use VoIP to cut costs and improve customer communication
For organizations that are heavily reliant on phones to communicate with either their cutomers or with remote branches, Voice over IP (VoIP) phone systems can represent a huge cost savings. In fact, cost savings with VoIP are significant when compared with traditional phone systems.
With VoIP, your phone lines and add-on services are charged at a flat-rate each month and you will no longer have to upgrade your infrastrucure, or manage and maintain your phone systems. The average savings businesses see after switching to a VoIP system can range anywhere from 30 to 50 percent.
#5 - Don’t forget to get the most out of your current technology!
While smartly investing funds into new technologies will help your business reduce costs and improve efficiencies, it’s important not to overlook your current IT infrastructure. In fact, this represents a huge opportunity for almost every single organization.
Your current IT infrastructure is a great opportunity for cost savings, as long as you know how to optimize it. Partnering with an IT expert who can assess your current office technology and IT infrastructure can help you to better apply your current systems to improve current processes.
Want to learn more about how you can refocus your IT strategy to save your business money? Contact OT Group today. Our team of IT strategy and technology experts would love to help.
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