EDITOR ’ S QUESTION

BHARANI KUMAR KULASEKARAN , PRODUCT

MANAGER , MANAGEENGINE

CIOs and IT decision-makers face the impossible task of curbing costs while keeping up with the transforming digital landscape .

However deep cuts in ITOps spending can make businesses fall behind their competitors in the race to digital transformation , innovation , and resilience . In such a competitive landscape , it is essential to balance cost-saving with progress toward digital goals .

A pragmatic approach to cost-saving starts with ITOps cost analysis . CIOs and IT decision-makers can control costs by inspecting current IT spending , evaluating benchmarks , assigning business-impact-appropriate expense priorities , and identifying cost-cutting opportunities . For instance , analysing the ROI of ITOps expenditure helps with making informed decisions on IT investments and resource allocations .

Hardware procurement and software tool licensing offer a margin for cost-optimisation as well . CIOs and IT decision-makers should adopt cost-conscious approaches to hardware procurement , including selecting low-cost vendor partnerships , renegotiating existing partnerships , customising hardware specifications as per business needs , and ensuring expert inventory management with complete visibility .

On the software side , CIOs and IT decision-makers

should revisit their licensing expenditures . Decisionmakers should identify areas of overspending in the currently licensed components and downscale their paid software licensing accordingly .

Existing infrastructure should be optimised for cost savings . This calls for tactical decisions such as consolidating IT , leveraging economical options for platform change without engineering effort , rationalising the tools portfolio , and evaluating the scope for cloud migration .

Automation is another irrefutable cost-saving factor . It helps businesses improve operational efficiency and quality of service while lowering costs and the need for IT procurement . Also , the improved IT consistency , standardisation , and enhanced efficiency achieved with automation are conducive to cost savings .

New projects should be carefully evaluated and taken up based on their criticality and business impact . We are seeing an increasing trend of low-business-impact tasks and fewer critical projects being managed with open-source tools . CIOs and IT decision-makers implementing newer projects or technologies with less business impact and criticality should also consider outsourcing and cloud options .

With these options offering scalability and technical expertise of the outsourced contractors , businesses can ensure cost savings , including the reduced total cost of ownership , TCO . However , decision-makers should carefully consider the cost per unit of service , CPUS , ROI , and service level agreement , SLA terms before making this decision .

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