IT Leaders Reshaping their IT Priorities In this New World

CIO magazine recently ran an article on how CIOs are reshaping IT priorities in wake of COVID-19 and it reflects the reality we’re seeing across our own clients and the entire industry. The current pandemic is a health crisis. But for most businesses, many of the changes they needed to make to support stay-at-home directives had significant technology implications. Companies like this union benefits provider and this insurance company had to pivot, and they had to do it fast. Regular business-as-usual processes, evaluations, and controls for new technology acquisition and deployment were suspended in favor of speed-to-activation. It was what had to be done in a moment of crisis, but it’s not an effective strategy in the long term.

New challenges are piling onto the existing ones.

As the article notes, there’s “no clear timeline for a return to ‘normal’ business.” And even when we do get there, we don’t know what that will look like. This makes it pretty darn hard to plan for today, let alone the future. On top of that, budgets are stagnant or shrinking while technology initiatives are accelerating. This leaves you with two imperatives:

Optimize for efficiency.
Act with agility.

Here’s the problem: Efficiency and agility require two distinct paths. You get to maximum efficiency by eliminating unnecessary costs and efforts for a known set of operating scenarios. Maximum agility, however, requires you to quickly respond to unplanned operating scenarios. Sometimes the two can conflict. Locking yourself into a technology or process can improve efficiency for the status quo but make it harder to adapt. Building in extra capacity or flexibility gives you more freedom to adjust as conditions change, but it could cost you more money. The good news is there are options to help you balance efficiency and agility—especially as you chart a path to an as-yet-unknown “new normal.”

Maximize efficiency today and better plan for tomorrow with Technology Expense Optimization

It’s never been easy to get your arms around all of your technology commitments, usage, and spend—let alone ensure you’re operating at peak efficiency. Some of your previous investments may no longer be serving your current business requirements. You’ve got to untangle those commitments, which may be complicated by the fast moves you needed to make during the crisis pivot, and then create long-term strategies that will support your new, still-evolving needs. There are tools available to help you streamline the management of technology expenses. That’s useful, but these traditional TEM tools simply automate the invoicing process for the commitments you have. Technology expense optimization goes much further, enabling you to better manage your expenses and also resolve issues and find opportunities to lower your technology costs. Not only are you optimizing for increased efficiency, but with up-to-date information about all your technology contract terms and actual usage, you’re in a better position to make decisions about changes to meet shifting needs.

Adapt faster to changing internal and external conditions with Managed Solutions

Managed Solutions offer a lot of benefits, including lower CapEx, reduced burden on your IT team, and improved security and compliance, to name just a few. But another major advantage is agility. You can scale without having to acquire and provision hardware and software, and you can often adjust capabilities with relative ease. There are managed solutions for virtually every aspect of your IT infrastructure, including connectivity, voice, cloud, security, Microsoft Office 365, and more. And when you work with a provider that prioritizes your business requirements over specific technology offerings, you’ll have a partner who’ll help ensure you have the flexibility you need while maximizing the efficiency of your investment.

BCM One Can Help

No one has all the answers right now. But at BCM One, we offer a client-centric, product-agnostic methodology. We start with your needs and build a technology solution from there—and then support you as your business evolves. Contact us if you need help navigating your organization’s shifting IT priorities, whether that’s increasing your efficiency, your agility, or both.