Save Money, Think Outside the Box

IT Strategy

CNN recently covered a report that the U.S. Government could save hundreds of millions a dollars a year just by switching their typeface from Times New Roman to Garamond. It was quickly disputed by experts at Fast Company, but the conversation that this idea started is an important one. Just thinking differently, or an outsider perspective, can help you re-evaluate business ideas that could save you a significant amount of money.

How do you handle all of your document distribution and archiving? Paper copies and filing cabinets? Why not reduce postage and storage costs, along with access issues, with a cloud-based solution? You don’t need to worry about going to the office or leaving the couch when you need files because they’re accessible everywhere. You’re also not susceptible to fire, flood and natural disaster events. You might not even need filing cabinets anymore. When you do need to collaborate or interface with a client, it’s as simple as sending the file digitally.

Cost savings of server virtualization could be in the realm of 50%.

What about infrastructure virtualization? When you reduce the amount of physical servers on premise you reduce data center footprint, hardware and labor costs, failure rate and power utilization. Southwestern Illinois College published a report on Energy Star that estimates the cost savings of server virtualization could be in the realm of 50%.

Then there’s the ever important advertising / marketing budget. You could go broke spending money on paid ads, engagement services and subscriber lists. If you improve your search engine optimization and your web presence, those expenditures can be re-allocated.

We’ll talk about all of these specific technology and process improvements in the future, but the most important takeaway is: