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IT Costs, Roadmap for 2013

Rapid growth of Information Technology (IT) has changed the whole scenario of business planning, handling and its development. No enterprise can avoid smart Phone devices these days, if any enterprise wants to stand in the market. IT not only provides ease of work but it increases productivity which results in increased ROI. Let’s find out what role IT has to play, financially in your business or enterprise.

How did IT enter in this circle?

Mankind has seen several revolutions and ages while growing to present time. We have seen a long agricultural age where labor was seen as a key parameter to measure performance and success. Time has passed, and we saw a Renaissance in industrial age which eliminated labor at various levels. The most critical resource and key performer in industrial age was capital. The more capital you have, the more speedily you reach the heights of success.

However at this present time, i.e. post-industrial age, we are seeing that capital is no more a key role player in business or development. Most critical resources in today’s scenario is – Information. Growth, Survival and Success of any organization today is determined by how it manages information intelligently. In fact organizations have started a top level management post, i.e.Chief Information Officer (CIO) in their organizational chart.

For managing and accessing information, we have to start using devices whose primary operations which were based upon processing information. These all came into action with the use of primary calculating and communicating devices like a calculator, telephone, fax and early stage computers. In the beginning of this age, it was still capitalists, who could afford the luxury of computers. Time passed, and computers became more powerful tool for development. The discoveries have changed the computational accuracy, its time of operation with its size.

It first entered with roles in primary billing and then in stocks and inventories. For a long time, computers remained in back office operations. The computer has limited role or financial implications were only assigned to them; until we entered into the era of the Internet.

The Internet has paved IT sector an important place in corporate and business circles. Starting from simple mail checking and file sharing procedures, we are now in the time where corporate giants are adopting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. Nothing of these can be done if it is not passed through a comprehensive planning and processing, which includes financial planning too. Hence, it is unavoidable to assign a significant role in IT sector in your financial strategy for next year.

Why IT has a Key Role in Strategic Planning today?

We all live in a time, where we cannot afford to lose. It’s a fast era. And to stand in the competition, we need to stay in loop of advanced business tactics. There are various reasons because of which role of IT is changing in business these days. Discussing them in brief here will help us understand the scenario in a better manner.

Competition:

Intense level of competition in any business these days are forcing companies to be more and more productive and promising. Information Technology equips the companies to get an edge and provide them with efficiency and effectiveness in any work.

Globalization:

Business operations like procurement, manufacturing, marketing and sales are becoming global day-by-day. Time and space are not the constraints to any business now a day as it can get global recognition with the help of Information Technology.

IT Revolution:

We get better performance and smarter device for the very least amount of financial investment. Information Technology has enabled a mass of people to use smarter devices which has taken the customer or client closer to the business holder.

These are merely some points highlighting on very basic fundamentals about the increased importance of IT in every business – small or big.

Information Technology – In Today’s Perspective

If we look at the core, IT entered the business sector and enterprises with some selected workloads like data management, print sharing, email , networking and collaboration, identity and access to the use of computers, network and terminals. However, basic definitions remains same, today these operations have taken a large role and some additional factors have also influenced corporate giants to adopt the latest technologies.

Mobility:

If you think of IT today, and try to emphasis on the last big feature it has gained, what would you be your answer? It's nothing but Mobility. No more information is locked in a local terminal nowadays. All these started with portable computers, laptops and now tablets and Smartphones. IT has reached to large masses – individuals and organizations. Hence, to strengthen IT it should reach more people today.

E Commerce:

Another big aspect is to consider is an Internet. It is not a source of informational exchange. It is one of the business constituents via online shopping and eCommerce facilities. Banking online and annual average financial transactions are increasing day by day due to unveil of eCommerce. Hence, your IT backbone can certainly bring more amount of money in comparison to what you save by avoiding it.

Increased Capabilities:

With time passing, technological devices are becoming more and more capable and efficient. Both hardware and software are becoming smarter day by day. For example, a lot of physical drawing trials for constructing a building have been replaced by high end Computer Aided Design. And with hardware and software becoming stronger and efficient, you can now easily have a 3D view of the drawings which was not possible earlier. External device integration allows computational devices to be more powerful and performing.

App World:

Other than advancement in software, small sized website and mobile applications have changed the way we perform little tasks with much time and effort. Now they are merely a click away. This not only saves time but also provide solutions to some really critical issues. Apps being in Smartphones and tablet PCs, they can solve a lot of the organization’s problems while also increase efficiency and productivity.

The example is pocket sized Smartphones which are more powerful device than early giant computers in terms of functionality, usability, and many more.

Social Media:

Social Networking has a lot of advantages over classical e-mail communication. Increased use of social media sites and networks has changed the way of communication and has also made a lot of enterprise tasks like looking for and hiring some skilled personnel, advertising or spreading a message to a mass, etc. possible and easier.

What IT can do for my Organization?

A beginner’s approach to use Information Technology in any form for the organization will be cost control. This is achieved mainly by automation of certain roles and functions. This part of IT can mainly provide your organization a data processing help.

Thinking higher prospects, the next step is to automate the inter-organizational functions like supplies, sales, and delivery. This involves intranet or basic internet facilities with functional standardization and some external hardware integration.

Think of IT as a Smart Investment – Road ahead for 2013

You invest some money and you get it back with a certain amount of profit – a simple most phenomenon for every business. This implies one straight forward fact, that you get more profit if you invest more. These definitions have changed their structure since last couple of decades due to rapid development in Information Technology (IT).

Since Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have changed definitions by using IT from cost saving to growth, a need for efficient and cost effective IT strategy has raised. On the other hand, spending freely on IT is also not advisable. Many of the organizations have innovated their IT best practices for minimizing the cost and its efficient use in Present IT Solutions. And most importantly, these best practices seldom require new hardware or software but only require effective planning from whatever is present.

Some of the points, which an organization should take into account while defining IT cost for the next few years, would be –

The next approach is where the most of our companies stand today, to reach end-user directly or indirectly. This is possible only due to merger of telecommunication industry with IT. A lot of financial interfaces and higher security standards are needed. However, at this level, a promising ROI starts building up and whatever has been spent on IT starts coming back.

Now, as a roadmap for 2013 and for the years to come in this decade, IT is lot more than whatever is described above. Whatever, we talked till now is directly related to sales and ROI of the company. However, new strategies focus less upon costs and sales related uses and more upon IT as a key business parameter and show-runner.

Using the IT resources reduces production cost and decrease the market price that ultimately attracts customers to your business. With the availability of mobile devices, you can provide excellent service with financial accuracy to the customers which increases customer satisfaction ratio and retains your customer for a long time.

One important parameter which most of us miss is to use IT in the standardization process for giant corporate houses. This standardization removes a lot of barriers between the two organizations and drastically decreases the chance of errors, which sometimes may cost a lot. Some of the procedures where this standardization will be useful are –

Market Driven Reorganization

Mergers and Acquisition

Downsizing and Consolidation

Security and Crisis Management

With IT, as a competitive advantage factor, where every organization has to rethink upon technology adoption at their level. IT has to be associated with growth and progress as major objective and not cost saving. Too much cost Control in IT can be really harmful for the development of the company.

Do not think of IT as a cost, think of it as a smart investment and a strategy maker and then allocate a budget. This will be laid a foundational stone for any organization to grow and flourish.

About Softweb Solutions

Softweb Solutions is itself a brand among IT strategy planners. We provide hardcore IT services like enterprise mobility, business needs and industry specific solutions. We are serving on every technology in demand today, like .NET, Java, Sybase Unwired Platform, CMS, HTML 5, iOS, Android, and a lot more. Contact us on

or visit our website for more details.info@softwebsolutions.com www.softwebsolutions.com

Align all the business units on single IT infrastructure or platform. With experts on the panel, decide which kind of IT combinations would best suit your business or organizational functions. However, compatibility must also be answered.

Assess each and every level of your present IT infrastructure and improve where it is necessary. Spending too much without proper assessment is not a wise idea to follow.

Optimize IT infrastructure for your company all kinds of operations. Implement best practices. This will improve efficiency and will allow present resources to be useful on strategic activities.

Review your policies once again, whether your company can implement a strong Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy or not. Many organizations have started implementing best practices for BYOD policies. This saves a lot of cost, increases employee satisfactio, enhances the sales force, and creates new mobile workforce opportunities. By 2017, more than 38% of the companies will have their strong BYOD program and will stop providing devices to the employees.

Focus on both internal and external parameters. Hire some good strategy for internal operations and inter-organizational standards. On the other hand, leverage your capabilities for external exposure of your brand on web world as well as tablets and smartpones with mobile apps and device compatible web applications.

There are always professionals available who are ready to take challenges. You can think of collaborating with a professional IT firm, which can help you out in building state of the art infrastructure. This provides a professional touch to everything you ave and frees a lot of your company pressure for IT implementation.

Seeing the overall picture, we can construct a solid roadmap for 2013 with IT costs as a major objective. This is not about the IT marketing campaigns but it is all about IT implementation into your enterprise. It is about having IT strategical implementation – a cost effective technique. An optimized IT strategy can promisingly increase growth rate and efficiency of your organization. It’s time to move from Just an IT innovation to core business strategies.