Cost Effective Technology Budgeting

IT Budget Guidelines and Best Practices

Planning for growth?

  • Set up two categories – one for ongoing support and one for new IT investments.
  • Calculate the maintenance and support expense of existing equipment.
  • Determine budget for any new technology initiative.
  • Include new projects or major system upgrades that support business development beyond normal operations.
  • Depending on project complexity, budget for testing, possible downtime and unexpected delays.

No major changes ahead?

  • Use your IT costs from last year for your forecast

Recommendations that Keep IT Costs Down

Bring in a Trusted Technology Advisor

  • Choose an outside IT team or hire qualified staff that will recommend solutions based on business requirements, not the latest trends.
  • Request a technology plan that supports a fixed monthly fee or a predictable monthly budget.

Take a proactive approach to support and maintenance

  • To limit the need for IT support, choose a managed service model that includes monitoring, management and notification tools.
  • This approach ensures that upgrades and security patches protect your assets and that hardware or applications issues are identified and resolved before major failure.

Automation

  • Implement automation tools that allow your IT team to replicate routine tasks such as software updates to your systems.
  • Time required to manage your infrastructure can be greatly reduced, which saves on IT support expense.

Standardization

  • Creating standards for IT infrastructure reduces costs.
  • For example, a standard template for user desktops that includes all required software and settings will streamline upgrades and replacements.

Redundancy

  • Implement restoration capabilities such as automated data and desktop image backups.
  • Consider Virtual Desktops and Cloud Services to further reduce IT support costs and offer affordable, built-in business protection.

Return on Investment

Our goal is to help you maximize the return on your technology investments. Your IT budget should align with short and long-term objectives. Our clients know they can count on a predictable, ‘no-surprises’ budget for IT support and project implementations.