How can you save money?
So, your company's day-to-day business relies on IT assets. Apps, data, employee jobs, communications - without all of this you cannot work, but all of this comes at a cost. They are made up of many components, including royalties, cloud subscriptions, service costs, equipment and supplies purchases.
Over time, costs "stick together" into an incomprehensible "gray mass", which is difficult to understand, and to understand what can be optimized is even more difficult. The first step to saving on IT costs is to understand their structure, to create an up-to-date and reliable picture. It is important not only to organize the items of expenditure, but also to find out exactly how they relate to specific IT assets, and, on the other hand, how the assets relate to the services that the company provides to customers, or to internal services.
This is exactly the kind of cost structuring that you can get with the help of Softline's IT asset management service. You will see a clear, consistent cost structure, which is important - tied to business processes. It is already possible to work with it - to find directions for possible savings.
Just remember that cost data must be up to date. Most companies live a dynamic life: infrastructure changes, cloud consumption, new services are deployed and old ones are modernized. It makes no sense to rely on data from half a year ago. That is why IT asset management should not be a one-time event, but a streamlined process.
And asset management as a process makes it possible to look at costs in dynamics, so that at each moment in time you have exactly as many resources as you need, and not to plan at random and not take in reserve.
Seasonal changes in resource requirements are a good example. One of Softline's customers is an agro-industrial company with a pronounced seasonality. For her, our specialists identified the true need for IT resources at different times of the year and helped to establish their scaling in accordance with real needs.
For whom is it relevant?
IT asset management can help save companies of all sizes. The only significant difference is that it makes sense for large enterprises to deploy their own asset management system. Among the benefits of this solution is the ability to integrate with back-end systems such as infrastructure management tools and service desk.
For medium and small companies, it is easier and cheaper to get IT asset management in a service format from an external provider. This eliminates the need to implement another IT system and incur the associated costs. At the same time, the business receives all the information it needs to make decisions to reduce costs.
Let's give a visual comparison. The largest company is a passenger on a regular bus. You need to buy a ticket to move from point A to point B. The trip takes place according to the schedule, and the passenger receives the agreed level of service on the way. The regular bus is not enough for a large enterprise. It will buy its own bus and will travel where it needs and how much it needs. But he will need a driver who knows the traffic rules and has a license of the appropriate category, he will need to refuel the bus and service it.
By the way, to continue the comparison, it should be said that a free bus is available to a number of customers. This refers to the Solution Assessment program from Microsoft Corporation, within which holders of Microsoft corporate agreements can implement one of 10 types of consulting projects in conjunction with Softline. It is important to note that participation in the program will not require financial investments from the client, and the result will be a high-quality report or roadmap for transforming the company's infrastructure, which can be implemented with the support of Softline and Microsoft.