Career Talk JDR

During a recession, it is inevitable that companies start looking to cut costs.  Oftentimes, when senior executives begin to get nervous, IT investments end up on the cutting board.  This economic anxiety has resulted in what we currently see, with mass layoffs within many organizations and major business changes.  However, few departments have the impact on the business that technology can foster.  So, before cutting your IT staff, consider the alternatives to reduce costs and better align the business for future growth.

Targeted technology investments are essential to increasing operating scale, making processes more efficient and automating manual processes.  Ignoring this fact can be counterproductive.  Downturns give companies an opportunity to increase their IT investments, producing efficiencies and revenue growth that will be greater than those received from the usual cost reductions.  Take advantage of this time to have your business and IT staff review your systems and processes for insights that could add value.  By evaluating data, your IT staffers can identify spots of revenue leakage or unproductive expenditure.

Across industries, technology can bring potential opportunities for short-term gains in the areas of

·         Sales and Pricing- development, marketing and sales

·         Sourcing and Production- manufacturing, fulfillment and billing

·         Support processes- contact center and field services

·         Back-office- finance and human resources

·         Overhead and Performance Management- risk, legal, facilities, information technology

Examples of areas for further optimization include

·         Further automation

·         System enhancements

·         Enhanced information tracking

·         Consolidation of information/Integration of information flows

·         Information analysis to discover unnecessary expenditures and losses

·         End-to-end view of sales processes and histories for strategy modeling

These are just a few examples of how you can ‘think outside the box’ and return your company to utilizing technology as it was meant to be — to increase knowledge, production and revenues.  Next time your company comes looking to slash IT investments, create a plan to show how you can reduce costs, without reducing your staff.  Not only can you improve profitability, but when business picks up, you will be ready to get ahead in the better economy.