Every project starts from the metrics. Do you know how much cost your whole IT department? Do you want to pay less? Let’s start from the beginning. In our projects we have such lines:
If you haven’t measured your IT costs yet, make a 1-month experiment. Count all the lines precisely, especially manager and admin time. To count your workers time you can choose any online timesheet software (BeeDo, Harvest etc.). Next step is to make a report and mark “Top 3” expense groups. Now it’s time to work on them.
How to deal with biggest IT expense groups
The biggest expense groups in almost every IT department are:
- Manager and admin time costs
- Hardware and colocation costs
Solution for problem #1. Take a deep look in to the timesheets you have filled. Analyze and group them carefully. In the report you should choose “Top 3” most “time-eating” task groups. Now you need to plan how you deal with these tasks more effectively.
Solution for problem #2. Check for alternatives vs. what you have now. Keep in mind long-term business perspective: what kind of hardware load you have now? Are you growing? How much you will grow in next 1-2 years? It can be that buying hardware can save you 50% hardware costs. Or maybe now you should invest a few days working on hardware optimization: check server loads, optimize databases and etc.
Summary
We have saved 20% of our total server costs, kept system stable and growing, when working in such way.
Real life examples shows that this process is endless. You learn, work, grow and then again. If you need help to deal with your server problems fire off an email to info@beedo.net
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