{"id":182,"date":"2015-12-21T03:30:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T03:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/blog\/?p=182"},"modified":"2016-07-11T09:13:25","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T09:13:25","slug":"7-it-budget-management-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/7-it-budget-management-secrets.html","title":{"rendered":"7 IT Budget management secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IT-Toolkits_budget-9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1) Share manpower resources:<\/b> Sharing manpower resources is a very effective way to optimize your IT budget. For example, at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a project manager is typically responsible for six different projects, and his cost to the company is shared out between those six projects. So a manager who handles the real-time database is also responsible for managing the business performance management (BPM) system, and so on.<\/p>\n

2) Share common infrastructure:<\/b> Renting your company\u2019s infrastructure to sister concernsis another way to optimize the IT budget. For example, hardware from Bina Refinery, a group company, is hosted in BPCL\u2019s datacenter. It\u2019s a win-win situation for both. The arrangement helps Bina to reduce its infrastructure costs, and BPCL earns revenues through rentals.<\/p>\n

3) Consolidate databases, applications:<\/b> Application and database consolidation can bring down IT budgets considerably. Multiple company databases can be consolidated into one. For example, at BPCL, we have integrated the Manufacturing Execution System (MES), a third party software database, with our homegrown system databases. However, note that since different databases are managed by different teams, effective consolidation will require detailed planning.<\/p>\n

4) Follow standard processes and best practices:<\/b> Following best practices and standard processes is a good way to manage your IT budget. It ensures accuracy and prevents overspending. If the best practices for process documentation and version control are consistently adhered to, a lot of time and money can be saved during project execution.<\/p>\n

5) Leverage the in-house IT talent to create revenue streams:<\/b> Providing IT services to sister concerns can help your IT team to generate revenue. This can be another effective way to optimize IT budgets. For example, 80% of the SAP deployment work at Bina Refinery was done by BPCL\u2019s SAP team. Moreover, the project cost the group only about 60% of what an external implementation company would have charged.<\/p>\n

6) Take a long-term view to infrastructure planning:<\/b> The initial investment for a good hardware and storage network might be high if you are investing from a long term perspective. But this is critical for the smooth running of applications as your business scales up; otherwise, you may end up over-spending on IT components and maintenance later. For instance, an enterprise may consider investing in a fat server with an estimated life span of 10 years, SAN storage network with appropriate backup policies as good long-term choices. Your IT budget is better managed by aiming for long-term benefits rather than short-term savings.<\/p>\n

7) Replicate your learnings:<\/b> Preserve and replicate the learnings wherever you can within your company or group. For example, once a system is successfully implemented at one location, the implementation can be easily replicated at other locations. Since the staff is already trained, it saves time and costs. This is a significant source of IT budget savings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) Share manpower resources: Sharing manpower resources is a very effective way to optimize your IT budget. For example, at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-budget-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/it-toolkits.org\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}