Experts

Managing Director, Bullseye Small Business: Pedro da Palma Rosa

It’s difficult to feel enthusiastic when you wake up each morning to more bad news about the economy. Like many businesses, you may be tightening your belt and looking for ways to reduce expenses without reducing customer service or employee morale. One area for potential savings is IT. Although IT is indispensible, there are a number of ways to cut costs and increase efficiency in your organisation. Here are some tips that I recommend to clients.

1. Review your internet connection expense and compare offerings. There can be large price variations between ISPs. Comparing providers and matching the right plan with your needs can result in substantial savings.

2. Evaluate your telephone and mobile plans. After comparing your current plan with others in the market you might find that you’re paying too much. Show your landline, mobile and internet bills to several providers and let them make an offer. This way you’re putting your business out for a competitive bid for the best price and conditions.

3. Look at bundling your landline, mobile and internet bills for better pricing. Many providers offer a flat discount – for example, 10 per cent – if you combine services under one bill. This can also save you time by dealing with one supplier for a number of services.

When considering the first three tips, it’s important to look closely at the plans being offered. Read the fine print to make sure you are comparing similar services. You can end up paying less, but not get what you need. It’s also a good idea to avoid long-term contracts in case you want to switch again in the future.

4. Consider VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) for telephony. With VoIP you get free calls between your office locations and much cheaper call rates for local and STD calls. There are substantial setup costs, so you have to have a high volume of calls to make it worthwhile. Compare the set up costs with the potential savings before you make a decision.

5. Consolidate your IT applications. If you have multiple applications that perform the same function you can save money by consolidating them. There are several reasons for this:

Reducing the number of vendors and contracts will result in lower licensing costs and simplify your portfolio of applications. A narrower range of IT skills is needed when fewer systems must be supported. Reduced processing requirements can reduce the number of servers needed, resulting in lower expense on hardware, operating systems and licensing. Fewer applications will increase productivity because users won’t need to be trained in so many applications.

6. Implement a virtualisation strategy. One way to do this is server consolidation. This is when a software application is used to partition a physical server into several virtual servers. An application running on the virtual server sees the virtual machine (VM) as a physical server. Virtualisation delivers cost savings by requiring fewer physical servers and less space to house them, lower maintenance costs and less energy for cooling.

7. Consider cloud computing to save costs. Cloud computing is where you use the internet to access centralised hardware and applications on servers. In effect, you can outsource storage, memory, processing and bandwidth with cloud computing. One type of cloud computing is SaaS (Software as a Service). This is where a software application is hosted as a service and accessed by customers through the internet. This can reduce your software maintenance, operation and support costs. Also, with SaaS you pay as you go instead of having a large upfront expense to purchase hardware and/or software. One example of SaaS is Google Apps which offers messaging, collaboration and email security applications over the internet.

8. Upgrade your existing PCs instead of buying new ones. If your computers are running slowly they may only need to have more memory installed and unneeded software and files removed. This can extend the lifetime of your computers.

9. Plan for your future needs when buying hardware. If you get the lower-end computer or server to save costs now, you might need to upgrade sooner than expected. Paying more now can save you money by extending the useful life of your hardware.

10. Shop around for the best hardware prices. Once you know what you need, you can compare costs online to find the best deal. There are several websites where you can compare the prices of many vendors at one time.

11. Keep your IT gadgets longer. Do you really need to upgrade your Blackberry each year? Is the latest iPhone a genuine ‘must have’? Look closely at the costs and benefits of your IT gadgets. The benefits of upgrading regularly might not outweigh the costs. (If you’re a gadget person you’ll need to contain yourself to satisfy your Sensible!)

12. Save energy and reduce wear by turning off your computers when they are not in use, especially at night and on weekends. You can also choose settings that automatically switch the computer monitor and hard disks into sleep or standby modes when they haven’t been used for a set amount of time. Also, consider providing employees with laptop computers, since they use up to 90 per less energy than standard computers.

About Pedro da Palma Rosa

Pedro has over 13 years experience in servicing and providing Information Technology solutions into the SME sector. He has made a significant mark in the desktop/server applications area, delivering Information Technology solutions locally, regionally and globally.

Working at MAUS Business Systems, CCH Small Business, RAN ONE Global (Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific) and now Bullseye (Asia Pacific), Pedro actively pursues a career focus in the IT / SME market sector, and has accumulated a formidable expertise in the management of software development, network administration, website development, online marketing, and business management projects. In that time he has been involved in the development of over 15 different software titles used by over 40,000 SMEs throughout Australia.

Instrumental in Bullseye group’s RAN ONE business, Pedro contributes to the design and development of project planning, HR profiling, performance review, OH&S, KPI monitoring, quality assurance and customer relationship management solutions. In other arenas he drives the web development team for SME online business solutions.

Pedro is a rare IT executive. Having been involved in multiple business audits, mergers, establishing an off-shore development centre and integration of acquisitions into existing businesses, and combined this with personal experience in the management of a highly successful inner city retail sector business, Pedro has delivered presentations on IT issues to SME business workshops, and is acutely aware of the financial, change management and people management aspects of a successful growing business.