If you are asking yourself this question or if your leadership is telling you they are, then you can be assured they are. The truth is that unless you are continually managing your IT assets, there will always be savings to be found. 

Welcome to Part I of my five-step approach to finding the financial waste in your IT budget. 

Reducing the cost of your IT assets can be a one-time event via some quick wins, but preferably it should be a continual process to ensure you are not spending money unnecessarily.  After all, the use and the business value of an IT asset will continually change over time. 

Addressing your IT Assets costs can be overwhelming because every IT organization has a massive number of assets they are responsible for.  Because of this, I find it easier to think about assets from several different perspectives:
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           1. Reviewing the IT Asset management processes from beginning (Purchase Order) to the end (Disposal) 

This will highlight areas where the people or processes are immature or completely missing.  Each area of weakness is an area where dollars can be lost through: Asset disappearances, pricing errors, labor waste, duplicate purchases, licensing violations, improper disposal…
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2. Doing a detail review of both the Finance and IT Asset Management databases 

This will expose assets that are at their end of financial life and/or the end of the supported life.  These assets will be more expense to operate, be less secure and be less reliable. In addition, look for duplicates.  Are two or more assets doing essentially the same thing?  If there are, it is time rationalize them to reduce your spend./
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3. Analyzing the capacity and demand for each IT Asset 

Unneeded capacity is causing excessive service cost, depreciation, and support costs.  Save money by reducing the size, accelerating depreciation, or writing an asset off that is not being used.
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4. Reviewing the IT Assets looking for uniformity vs variability 

Costs will increase as the variability increases, in contrast standardization will reduce purchase prices, lower labor & maintenance costs and increase reliability.
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5. Completing a walkabout of the data center(s), wiring closets and/or co-lo facilities 

Like #3 above, doing a walkabout will quickly expose where you have equipment that isn’t being used, excess floor space and U’s in the racks.  All of this is costing you money. In addition, you will see if you have poor network & power wiring along with inadequate security and inefficient cooling.  This may not look like it is directly impacting your operational cost, but it is guaranteed to lower the reliability of the business services using the environment.
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Do you need some help to make this happen or want to learn about more ways to save money so you can reduce your IT budget and/or find monies to invest in new IT capabilities? Schedule time to chat with me and discuss my offerings.  I’ll be happy to talk.  Calendly – Andy Smith