Saving Money Is No Longer Enough Of A Reason To Change Your Technology Services

In Technology Procurement Tags #technology-ecosystem #outsourcing #insourcing #technology-vendor-management Published 2/10/2023

See the list of reasons to change out your technology that do not include saving money. People are the problem. People are the solution. The right people, in the right positions, leveraging the right vendor relationships that is the answer.

Changing your technology services used to be an easy decision simply from the cost savings. A 20 - 50% savings was a common great reason to make a change. But that percentage, reflected in real dollars, was much different five and ten years ago. For example, changing out of a $1,000 circuit to a $700 circuit was a $300 per month savings. Now, changing from a $500 per month circuit to a $350 a month circuit (the same percentage savings), is giving many companies pause because the effort to make the change may not be financially worth it.

Saving money on technology services is still an important consideration for many companies, but it is no longer the only, or even the primary reason, for making a change. There are several reasons for this:

  1. Businesses are increasingly recognizing the strategic value of technology and how it can drive innovation and growth. As a result, they are more willing to invest in new technology solutions that can help them gain a competitive edge. See our previous blog posts on How To Shift Your Business Back To Strategic IT Using Technology Service Providers.

  2. The increasing complexity of technology, including the growing number of cloud services and platforms, makes it difficult to achieve significant cost savings through simple consolidation or optimization efforts. The value is now more in the interoperability of the ecosystem of resources and extensibility via API, than it is saving a few more dollars a month.

  3. The rise of digital transformation initiatives and the increasing importance of data and analytics means that companies are looking for technology solutions that can help them become more data-driven and insights-driven, rather than just looking to save money.

  4. Sustainability and environmental concerns are becoming more prevalent, companies are more aware of environmental impacts of their business, and this has a direct effect in the analysis and procurement of technology solutions.

  5. A lot of companies have been forced to move their operations online because of the recent pandemic, which has led to a stronger focus on security, reliability, scalability and accessibility; thus, companies are looking for technology solutions that can help them improve support their work-from-anywhere needs.

As a result, companies are looking for technology solutions that can provide a broader range of benefits beyond just cost savings. They are looking for solutions that can help them collaborate internally, drive internal and external innovations, improve their customer experience, establish clean data for more effective decision making, enhance security and reliability, and more.

Here are some of the other reasons to change out your technology services besides lower costs

Some are mentioned above, but here is the list:

  • Collaboration

  • Increased security

  • Enhancing customer experience / service

  • Compliance with regulations

  • increased reliability

  • Lowering technical support costs

  • Establishing a competitive advantage

  • Increased productivity

 

People are expensive

 

There is no way around it. Labor, and the associated additional costs, are typically the highest costs for most businesses. Change management requires labor. There are no A.I. options for 'forklifting' out a significant technology from your business. At least not yet.

It takes labor to make changes. Businesses are looking harder and harder at those labor costs when it comes to technology procurement. This is why some services, like helpdesk, desktop support, infrastructure, server management, connectivity management, and cyber security are being outsourced more and more. It's easier to fire a vendor than bring in a new one, and it means the business can leverage a fraction of time from many different skilled resources rather than commit to a single, limited skill set individual.

Once the business has the basics covered with a solid vendor relationship, any further investments in IT will be strategic. Giving the business the ability to leverage the tools they have already purchased like Microsoft Office 365 and its many, many tools. This means that future increased investments in labor and technology should result in a return on calculable return on investment.

We will touch more on this aspect of insource and outsource options in future posts.

 

 

 

If the information above gives you some insight and helps you to want to make changes in your technology, we can help. We are technology brokers. We help businesses of all sizes reduce the time it takes for technology evaluation and procurement. We work just like your insurance broker. We are paid by the companies we represent. Your contract is with the provider, not us. The pricing is the same as if you worked with a direct sales rep, but your experience will be much better. Our financial incentives are perfectly aligned with your business objects. We will also be here after the sale.

Please let us know if we can help your company with:

  • Technology Outsourcing

  • Cloud Communications

  • Contact Center

  • Connectivity

  • Security

  • Data Centers

  • Business Continuity

No cost or obligation. Let us see if we can help you meet your business objectives.