Many small-time entrepreneurs can’t afford to use all of their resources into business IT solutions, no matter how crucial these might be to their operations. These days, most small businesses utilize IT resources for maintaining their infrastructure even if their IT department is responsible for growing and supporting their business.
That said, the supply chain optimization of IT resources, which involves improving how businesses acquire and implement tech resources, just might be the thing to reconcile these oftentimes opposing business objectives and enable businesses to free up necessary funds to finance the ever-evolving role of their IT department.
Below are practical ways to help you make better IT investment decisions and allow enhanced innovation:
1. Evaluate What Your Business is Using
Determining all resources that your team uses is the first step for streamlining your supply chain. The current market is adopting a more consumption-based model in which they only spend for stuff that they actually use, instead of a seat-based or licensing-based approach that requires an investment upfront regardless of what they consume.
Before, businesses overprovision their licenses or procure unnecessary resources, purchasing unneeded functionality because they’re already bundled in technology suites.
Business owners could use management tools for identifying who’s utilizing which resources to get a more accurate sense of what they truly need. This way, they can limit, shift, or completely cut out what their company doesn’t use. Additionally, it’s no secret that small businesses are resource-constrained, and proper evaluation of immediate opportunities and resources is an excellent method to invest in true organizational transformation.
2. Leverage The Cloud and Personal Devices
The cloud is a great avenue for small businesses looking to integrate new business IT solutions into their current IT strategy. The most cost-efficient approach to this is through software-as-a-service (SaaS). With this model, you can purchase individual licenses for using the software rather than the software itself, or the platform as a service so you can access a prebuilt foundation for developing and operating apps without the need to build and support the platform.
You can likewise permit your employees to use their personal devices for work. When going this route, however, you need to have a strict security policy in place, including security requirements regarding what your employees can use for connecting to the office network, as well as preinstalled security solutions and mobile device management for supporting all your new efforts.
3. Consider Managed IT Services
There’s an immense value that can be obtained when you work with a managed IT services provider that can give you counsel on supply chain optimization through the use of various tech tools. Your chosen provider could give you more advanced management solutions for both software and hardware, which can accurately assess the size of your operations, offer recommendations according to your specific needs, and help measure anticipated utilization and consumption.
Software-based tech tools have evolved in such a way that small businesses can evaluate their IT needs more accurately in order to make more informed choices for streamlining their tech investments. Ultimately, optimizing the IT supply chain of your business can drive enhanced business transformation and growth.
