We asked a panel of IT experts about saving money. Find out what they had to say about cutting corporate costs and how to get the best out of your IT investment.

“Cut out travel and accommodation”

So says David Tebbutt, Programme Director at Freeform Dynamics and author of Green IT For Dummies: “You can substitute a lot of travel with collaborating using a shared white space.” There are loads of ways companies can do this. For example, they could consider unified communication tools like IP Multimedia to make collaboration across sites much easier. Or they could use VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), protected using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or IPSec (Internet Protocol Security), to give remote workers secure access to the internal network.

Embrace social networking

David also uses social media tools to form and maintain relationships, breaking the usual ‘face-to-face-first, email-later’ communication pattern. He strongly advocates this approach, which can be particularly suitable for companies with younger employees already familiar with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Of course, newcomers to social networking may not ‘get’ this approach right away, and not everyone will accept such communication changes without question.

Creating a team of volunteer advocates for new tools like these is a no-cost way of encouraging uptake and providing support for new users. IBM has adopted just such a tactic for its own in-house social media project. “If you start today you’re probably five years out from it becoming commonplace,” says David. But how do you discourage people from face-to-face meetings and start encouraging them to converse online? “You could do it as simply as telling everyone, ‘you’ve got to travel cattle class’”, David suggests.

Get mobile through IP Multimedia

IP Multimedia is a fully managed, network-based service. It offers an IP-based voice and video communication platform boasting a range of messaging capabilities (from virtual whiteboards to video conferencing). This makes it the perfect choice for large or dispersed organisations looking at initiatives like hot desking and homeworking. Alistair McKinnon, Senior Product Manager, Virgin Media Business, says there’s a strong business case for IP Multimedia, despite the initial outlay. When you take into account the cost of running your own PABX (Private Automatic Branch eXchange) or IP PABX system, and compare that with IP Multimedia, you’ll find the latter is easily comparable if not cheaper. Moreover, the cost-savings from a managed network service could be felt across the organisation. Supporting flexible working initiatives, for example, can reduce staffing costs and widen your recruitment catchment area by supporting homeworking. It can also help a changing business minimise the cost of relocating staff.

Make your VoIP heard

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has a great potential to reduce costs, and can be embraced relatively cheaply, believes Mark Neild, Managing Consultant and communications cost reduction expert at PA Consulting. As a well-established technology, you’d think everyone would’ve already adopted it, but over-caution often means they don’t. In order to extract the greatest benefit, advises Mark, be sure to educate staff on how to use the new phones.

Put a cap on CAPEX

Capital expenditure is currently an issue for some organisations. For these customers it’s important to ensure the payback period on any investment is very short, advises Alistair McKinnon. Virgin Media Business will help with this if they can, he says, to ensure minimum CAPEX is spent. “We’ll show as much flexibility as we can,” he says. Communicate openly with your account manager about what you would like to put in place regarding telecommunications, data or convergence, as well as any current finance restrictions. “Don’t assume you can’t afford to do whatever you’d like to do. We may surprise you, and help you put in place the means to make further savings.”
 
For example, many UK contact centres and multi-site organisations could benefit by reducing their reliance on customer premise equipment, which is costly, time-consuming and often hard to manage. Many contact centres are now moving to network-based solutions that allow them to concentrate on their core business. Because managed contact centres are available for an affordable monthly rental charge, you won’t tie up any capital in set-up or maintenance costs. There’s no CAPEX required and you don't need a dedicated in-house team to manage the solution for you.

Consult your staff

“If there was one word of advice I would give,” says Mark. “It would be to ask employees their views on how they could work smarter. In the vast majority of organisations there is a lot of fat, yet in many cases people are working incredibly hard.” He advises asking questions like, ‘How do you think we should do this?’ or ‘What can we do to help you not have to work so hard?’ “These usually get a very positive response and we often find we can cut out things that people don’t value, and which don’t make any difference to the customer.” This means you can deliver pain-free cost reduction without affecting the services you deliver or the morale of those who deliver them.

Don’t over-virtualise your server virtualisation

Server virtualisation is another mature technology that can lead to cost-savings and greater flexibility, says Alastair McAulay, cost reduction expert in PA Consulting’s IT group. However, beware of unrealistic expectations. Some vendors sell this solution based on laboratory results, whereas the reality is less black and white. One danger, believes McAulay, is ‘server sprawl’. This happens when organisations set up a raft of virtual servers rather than making the best use of each. It’s easy to get carried away like this when the servers are so easy to set up. “In the old world, an organisation would be managing, say, 500 real servers,” says Alastair. “Suddenly they’re managing 1,000 virtual servers sitting on top of 300 real machines.”

Face Facebook and tame Twitter

Another great idea is to embrace the social networking phenomenon both inside and outside your company. The next generation, high bandwidth networks provided by Virgin Media Business give you the option of using networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to boost internal collaboration and reach out to customers and potential employees. As a source of entertainment, these sites can become a time-sink; used professionally they can build strong customer relationships.

For example, a corporate Facebook page or Twitter feed can alert users to new products or offers. They can also advertise job vacancies to those interested in your sector, gather feedback and answer queries from both existing and potential customers. Where you successfully establish a Twitter presence, you can gain incredible word of mouth. These users are ‘hyper-connected’ influencers, according to Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research. In March 2009, 30% of Facebook users were aged over 35, so by employing this networking tool you’ll be reaching beyond the student audience you may expect to find.

You’ve made the effort, now measure the results

A dedicated monitoring agency, such as Radian6, can deliver real-time reporting of company mentions on Twitter. They can also act upon these mentions quickly, perhaps supporting someone who posted a complaint or offering discounts to those with something favourable to say. Of course, where customers and clients are involved, you’ll need a dedicated resource to respond professionally to any communications, which will incur costs of its own. To counter this, ensure you put in place methods that measure the achievements of your Twitter efforts, perhaps in terms of satisfactorily addressed customer issues and repeat business.