EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
DESCRIBE THE APPROACH CIOS AND IT DECISION MAKERS NEED TO ADOPT TO REDUCE THE COST OF IT OPERATIONS ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE AND IT ORGANISATION ?
Managing IT costs and IT performance in a normal year is tough enough . But in recessionary years this causes even more stress on IT decision makers , especially because business growth and IT investments are usually closely linked .
SAP research has shown that business priorities include leveraging IT solutions to cut operational costs while simultaneously lowering the cost of IT investment .
Serving these opposing objectives requires IT leaders to put on their sleuthing hats and identify areas where budgetary bloat has gone unchecked . Start by reviewing contracts and suppliers , where possible , with the view to reduce the running cost of IT . Most contracts tend to be renewed year-on-year with a simple , cursory review .
Every IT leader need to be looking more closely at the usage of services they run and the contracts that sit support these services . Be cautious with license allocation and scale down on unused licenses . This exercise will uncover services where the cost to impact equation is difficult to justify .
Another option is to look at service contracts . Do you really need a high-end support contract ? There can be a significant difference in costs and often , if a solution is running long enough , your in-house IT resources will have built up technical competence to address most occurring issues themselves .
SAP research has shown that business priorities include leveraging IT solutions to cut operational costs while simultaneously lowering the cost of IT investment . Last year , SAP found the highest priority for executives was increasing process efficiency and visibility , as it had been in the previous year . However , lowering the cost of IT operations saw a significant rise in prioritisation , rising from 36 % in the previous year to being a priority for 50 % of respondents .
Existing SAP on-premises ERP customers who wish to move to the cloud over time , modernise their processes and take advantage of cloud qualities are prime candidates for RISE with SAP . GROW with SAP is designed for mid-market customers who want to adopt the benefits of cloud ERP and industry best practices . Executives from Endava , SAP , ServiceNow responded .
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