Want to Lower Your IT costs? Simply be Consistent.

Every firm wants to lower their IT costs. In fact, given the current climate of our economy, firms of all types and sizes are taking a good hard look at where they can save money – it only makes sense. The good news is that it’s not that hard to save money on your technology costs this year. Oh sure, projects and new initiatives will have their place, but what I’m referring to is your support costs. Most of the firms I work with really don’t look critically at how their technology decisions affect support costs – at least not until I point it out to them. So what do I tell my clients about saving on their IT support? Keep things as simple and consistent as possible.

Ironically, it’s not the technology that often gets in the way of keeping things simple and consistent on your network – it’s your staff. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat down with law firms that have over 20 applications installed on their network. Over 20 applications!? Egads, that’s expensive! That means that all 20 applications have to be patched, upgraded, maintained, and possibly the most difficult part – they all need to “play nice” together on the same network. When I explain this to the firm and show them how much it’s costing them, they’re always receptive to removing some of the applications – until, of course, the attorneys are told their pet application is going to be removed.

But the problem is usually solvable if it can be quantified into dollars and cents which, in most cases, is just a matter of a little quick math. Does the application provide value to the firm greater than it costs the firm or not? You’ll find some applications really do make a difference to a firm’s bottom line, but many don’t. Get rid of the ones that don’t and you’ll save on the cost of keeping the program updated along with the support costs. Once you’ve been able to weed out many of the applications that are bogging down your network, you should find not only that your support costs have gone down, but your technology will likely run better, too (check out this article from law.com on some of the benefits). Now, if the firm can also standardize on hardware… Well, maybe I’ll save that for another post.

Anyhow, I strongly suggest you take a few minutes to look at your firm’s technology. There is no doubt that if you keep your technology as simple and consistent as possible, you will save real, bottom-line dollars and you’ll probably reap a few performance benefits along the way, as well.

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