Does Virtualization Save You Money?

Virtualization is one of the biggest trends in IT today. Gartner accurately points out it is the single most important technology for IT departments in 2010. As more and more organizations hop on the virtualization bandwagon, the question that should be asked: Does virtualization really lead to significant cost savings? Most IT and finance managers…

Understanding the ROI of Value Creation

Despite the apparent economic recovery, many companies continue to focus on cost-reduction and, in the process, persist in demanding reduction of already-stressed IT budgets. In this environment, creative approaches are required to ensure availability of funding for critical IT services and initiatives. One way IT executives can safeguard their IT budgets and preserve funding for…

How to Sell the CEO on Change

In this second article in a six-part series, we look at why a converged infrastructure may make sense for your organization and provide some guidance on how to sell your decision in-house to the business folks. Most IT departments spend 70 percent of their time putting out fires and only about 30 percent responding to…

4 Proven Strategies to Move from Capex to Opex

My first column talked about why CFOs want to shift more IT costs from large capital expenditures (capex) to ongoing operational expenses (opex). Practically speaking, this means swapping IT asset ownership with monthly rental payments. Costs, as a result, become more affordable, predictable, and aligned with the sales rhythm of your business. That’s soothing to…

From Strategic to Commodity – Managing the Transition

Technologies change constantly. When a technology becomes ubiquitous, i.e., it’s only noticed when it’s not there, it’s become a utility and probably a commodity. What happens when a technology moves from being a strategic direction to being a utility? How can you tell and how do you measure and manage it? A strategic technology is…

Finding Funding for New Initiatives

Depending upon who you talk to and what segment of the market they work in, you’re likely to get very different views on the economic recovery and what it means to their organization. Some have indicated signs of recovery, while others are still talking about continued weakness and decline. Given this, “conventional wisdom” would suggest…

7 Ways to Cut Costs without Firing Your Employees

CIOs are used to be told to “do more with less”. It’s an annoying, frustrating cliché, yet it’s one CIOs must live up to. Budgets can only be slashed so far, though, and in a terrible economy like this one, jobs are a cost center that sometimes can’t be sustained. Or at least that’s the…

3 Common Sense Strategies for Managing Financial Data

While it has always been vital for entities handling financial information — account identifiers, investment records, account balances, transaction fees, payment card information, credit reports, and the like — to take appropriate privacy and data security precautions, never before has it been quite the pressing concern that it is today. The rapid deployment of innovative…

Why CIOs Should Shift from Capex to Opex

There has been a longstanding tradition in most IT departments to want to own the technology they deploy. Changes in both the economy and technology in recent years, however, are putting pressure on this tradition. CFOs, in particular, want to shift more of the costs associated with IT from the capital expenditure (capex) budget to…

Traditional Offshore Outsourcing on the Skids

Offshoring appeared to make sense in pre-recession days when customers were viewed as commodities and local job preservation as little more than a quaint notion. Then along came a global recession that made cost-savings a grim necessity and offshoring neatly fit the bill. Post recession, consumer behaviors and opinions are shifting radically and offshoring is…