THE SOFTCHOICE ESSENTIAL GUIDEto Finding Savings in your IT Environment

Among organizations we work with, there was a clear initial focus on business continuity and stability. Ensuring people could work safely and the business could continue to operate were distinct priorities. This meant enabling remote access to work applications, introducing modern collaboration tools and maintaining security as cybercriminals looked to exploit the confusion – all in a matter of weeks.

From here, the focus shifted to mitigating the economic impacts of the crisis. Revenues declined as many sectors of the economy shut down temporarily. Many organizations froze new hiring and spending, while some made the difficult choice to reduce staff.

Against this backdrop, customers and partners have told us, “We need to maintain stability while reducing costs.” In fact, a survey of 1,000 North American IT executives found 1 in 5 of those surveyed have already paused IT deployments and new projects.1

IT departments have a new mandate to support and protect the new environment while getting a bigger impact form IT investment, all with fewer resources than they had before.

While this requirement for efficiency isn’t new, it has taken on a new sense of urgency.

Laying the Foundation for the Road to RecoveryIn the new reality, IT departments are looking to improve short-term financial performance by reducing costs and increasing return on existing assets and investments.

However, while difficult today, streamlining software, IT operations and infrastructure will set up efficiencies that support a strong recovery. Nonetheless, every organization has its own financial needs and pressures that impact technology spending. Many will be looking at new models of consumption, including subscription, financing and leasing.

In this guide, we examine 4 measures you can take to control costs in your IT environment:

1 Stop over-spending on software

2 Find short-term cost savings in your cloud or data center environment

3 Add new applications and workloads to the environment at minimal cost

4 Onboard strategic partners to extend IT capabilities without hiring

In the new reality, cost efficiency is a matter of survival

In the immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, IT leaders confronted the question, “Are we ready to enable remote work for most or all our employees?”

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1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2020/03/20/five-things-to-expect-cio-it-budgets-coronavirus/#40d4e45a49b1

For IT departments large and small, software is among the biggest expenditures. In fact, the Spiceworks State of IT Report 2020 found that software and cloud-based SaaS services account for 51% of IT budgets.2 As such, software represents one the highest impact areas for potential cost savings.

The ChallengesHowever, competing IT priorities, the growing complexity of vendor licensing vehicles and a lack of relevant consumption data all make it much more difficult for IT leaders to make headway.

Take a guided approach to reducing and restructuring software costs for short-term budget impact.

Stop Over-Spending on SoftwareS E C T I O N 1

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Lack of Time & Resources

Limited resources and unplanned projects or priorities delay efforts to consolidate software spending.

License & Contract Complexity

Adjusting vendor agreements requires specialized knowledge to avoid breaching compliance or risking audit failure.

Limited Usage & Cost Data

Lack of accurate or complete application usage data renders informed decision-making and cost control near impossible.

2 https://www.spiceworks.com/marketing/state-of-it/report/

Discover: Take an inventory of all the traditional and cloud software in your environment and measure actual utilization against licensed consumption. Many enterprise-grade measurement tools are available for free, allowing you to start without using internal resources or budgets.

Categorize: Sort your software by function, identify redundant spending and prioritize the areas for greatest potential cost savings. By doing so, you can quickly pinpoint applications or services that duplicate core functionality or that have been acquired through shadow IT.

Select: Develop selection criteria based on your needs and select applications to eliminate based on an informed evaluation. It’s also important to ensure the people in your organization use the tools you plan to keep by implementing an effective adoption program.

Restructure: Find the most cost-effective licensing options for the applications and services that remain and restructure licensing agreements. Making sure your products and licenses can scale up or down as your needs evolve is vital to sustaining efficiency on the road to recovery.

Maintain: Take a proactive approach to reviewing and re-evaluating your overall software licensing strategy on an ongoing basis. Going beyond a “one and done” approach to adopt a structured, programmatic strategy helps convert short-term savings into long-term efficiency.

Monitor: As an extra step, always be on the lookout for quick win opportunities to cut costs. For example, many organizations fail to take advantage of licensing options or free services they may already be entitled to or didn’t know were available.

Stop Over-Spending on Software (Continued)

To overcome the challenges, identify redundant or unnecessary software spend and convert those opportunities into cost savings, we recommend the following steps:

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Softchoice Software Rationalization Program: Get the tools, processes and expertise to identify immediate software rationalization opportunities, refactor licensing agreements and establish a go-forward management program to ensure business sustainability.

Tackle immediate opportunities to optimize on-premise or cloud infrastructure to reduce or offset costs.

Like software, IT infrastructure has a high potential for short-term cost savings. For example, public cloud customers waste an average of 30% of their budgets due to redundant resources3. At the same time, inactive data accounts for 50% of total storage capacity, taking up valuable space.4

The ChallengesIn the cloud, lack of visibility and formal governance make it harder to find savings. In the data center, the need to avoid new CAPEX costs heightens the need to free up capacity to support new projects.

Find Cost Savings in Your Cloud or Data Center Environment

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Managing Cloud Costs

Poor visibility and ineffective cloud governance make it much harder to understand and control costs in the cloud.

Extending Data Center Investments

Failure to optimize VMs and storage capacity in the data center leads to unnecessary capital expenditures to support new projects.

S E C T I O N 2

The following actions will help you pinpoint cloud resources that are driving unnecessary costs and reclaim wasted data center capacity to extend the life of existing assets.

Find Cost Savings in Your Cloud or Data Center Environment (Continued)

Softchoice Cloud Cost Assessment: Analyze your existing public cloud workloads to uncover immediate cost-savings opportunities and improve visibility into cloud cost drivers.

Softchoice Data Center Technology Review: Pinpoint opportunities to optimize infrastructure with the goal of freeing up existing capacity to offset future capital expenses. The review targets server, storage, virtualization, hybrid cloud, backup and file systems.

Softchoice Cloud Data Tiering Accelerator: Identify inactive data stored on-premise that could be moved to lower-cost public cloud storage to free up on-premises capacity.

Remove idle or over-provisioned resourcesIdentify low I/O cloud resources that can be removed with minimal impact.

Automate cloud scalingScale resources up or down as needed to avoid paying for peak capacity.

Implement a cloud management platformTrack usage and enforce policies across one or more cloud environments.

Optimize cloud storage capacityAutomate categorization of active and inactive data into performance and capacity tiers.

Adopt formal cloud governanceBetter understand cost structures and enforce accountability for cloud costs.

Use reserved or scheduled instancesTake advantage of public cloud discounts for reserving cloud instances ahead of time.

In the cloud: Capture quick wins to improve cost visibility in the cloud and reduce current spending.

In the data center: Free up capacity and move inactive data to the cloud to offset future capital expenses

Optimize virtual machines (VMs)Right-size workload placements and VM allocations to reclaim wasted capacity.

Tier inactive data to low-cost cloud storageExtend the life of existing on-premise storage to defer capital costs to support new projects.

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Assess current cloud and on-premise infrastructure to make the right decisions about future capacity.

While consolidating assets and cutting costs are priorities in the short term, the need to add applications to the IT environment won’t disappear. Taking the right approach to workload placement helps to offset CAPEX investments and shift suitable workloads to more manageable OPEX models.

The ChallengesWithout a solid plan in place, adding new workloads in the data center leads to unnecessary waste. Moving unsuitable applications to the cloud results in cost overruns and performance issues.

Add Future Applications to Your IT Environment at Minimal Cost

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Understanding Application Profiles

Without complete and accurate documentation of application profiles and dependencies, determining the best placement for a given workload becomes a much bigger challenge.

Predicting Costs in the Cloud

Not every application is a good candidate for the public cloud. Without assessing the technical feasibility of migration, the results may be higher-than-anticipated costs in the cloud.

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Taking these steps to optimize your infrastructure will allow you to reduce or eliminate the cost to add new workloads by optimizing the on-premise data center and moving the right workloads into the cloud.

Add Future Applications to Your IT Environment at Minimal Cost (Continued)

Softchoice Workload Assessment: Evaluate the technical feasibility and cost of migrating and running application workloads in the public cloud based on usage, performance and technical characteristics of existing workloads to identify application dependencies, total cost of ownership and cost management considerations.

Softchoice Public Cloud Accelerator: Leverage an operating expense (OPEX) model to meet new workload needs by reducing the risk of deploying workloads to the cloud and mitigating cost overruns based on proven experience earned through hundreds of cloud engagements.

Take a comprehensive inventory: Use data collection tools to build a holistic picture of your current environment and analyze usage data to find opportunities for greater efficiency.

Defer data center refresh costs: Where cloud migration isn’t an option, take advantage of discounts or deferred payment options for hardware that’s end-of-support (EOS) or end-of-life (EOL).

Consolidate the data center: Assess the business value of consolidating multiple data center sites and moving backup and disaster recovery to lower-cost cloud alternatives.

Optimize the On-Premise Data Center

Move the Right Workloads to the Cloud

Assess suitability and migration risks: Analyze all applications, data and dependencies to identify the best candidates for cloud migration and flag potential performance risks upfront.

Plan and migrate: Determine the ideal strategy and sequence to migrate suitable workloads with minimal risk.

Conduct RCO/ROI analysis: Use the data gathered in the above step to define the infrastructure requirements to run applications in the cloud at optimal cost and performance.

Assess cost-benefit of cloud vs. on-premise: Build an accurate estimate of the business impact of migration versus running a given workload on-premises.

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Consider using automation and managed services provider (MSP) partnerships to augment your IT staff.

Economic pressures have cut into IT budgets as much as 30% across the board. As organizations restrict spending, hiring for open IT roles and adding vital skills becomes more difficult. Meanwhile, help desk requests have doubled in volume as people adjust to remote work and new collaboration tools.

The ChallengesThe global health crisis has stalled some digital transformation efforts, while many organizations rethink their approach to resourcing as the economic impacts amplify existing budget challenges.

Onboard Strategic Partners to Extend IT Capabilities

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Adding the Skills to Support New Tools & Technologies

Recruiting for the skills needed to support new cloud, remote access and collaboration deployments may be cost prohibitive in today’s climate.

Freeing Up Resources for High Value Projects

Lean IT departments struggle to free up resources to focus on transformation projects while “keeping the lights on.”

No Time for Effective Cost Control Efforts

The extra support needed in the new all-remote work environment directs effort away from cost reduction and optimization activities.

S E C T I O N 4

Onboard Strategic Partners to Extend IT Capabilities (Continued)

Softchoice Managed Collaboration: Leverage a complete support model for collaboration tools, including a 24x7 helpdesk support for operational management and end-user support.

Softchoice Managed Cloud: Regain control over public cloud costs with fully managed cloud operations and governance model to improve cost control, efficiency and security.

Softchoice Managed Workspaces: Receive round-the-clock access to expert guidance for Windows 10 and Microsoft Intune covering the full suite of capabilities, including security, governance, incident response and technical escalation.

Softchoice Managed Data Center & Network: Get enterprise-grade data center and network management to reduce operating costs and refocus IT staff on strategic initiatives.

Automate & Out-Task Low Value Activities Remove the need to manage repeatable, mundane operational tasks by automating IT infrastructure and

“out-tasking” to external partners.

Stabilize New Technologies with Critical SkillsAcquire the skills you need to manage and drive

adoption for new cloud, remote work, security and collaboration technology without hiring.

Refine and Optimize Operations to Cut Costs Gain better visibility into cost drivers in your

environment and access ongoing mentorship in cost optimization best practices through a specialized MSP.

Following a lean IT approach based on strategic managed services partnerships will allow you to reduce operational costs and integrate critical new skills while recruiting remains cost prohibitive.

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Nonetheless, it’s important to keep these considerations in mind:

Adjusting contracts or licenses without the right vendor-specific knowledge could create compliance issues and result in costly audit failure.

Working with an incomplete understanding of cost drivers or applying the same approach as in the traditional data center often leads to over-spending in the cloud.

The cost to continue operating an owned data center will be negligible compared with taking on new cloud instances but the right cloud migration strategy can improve long-term efficiency.

Many IT departments don’t have the time or resources to spare for building or retraining for internal skills to support new cloud, remote access, security and collaboration deployments.

Reducing IT costs and restructuring your environment in support of recovery may require the help of an experienced and specialized solutions or managed services provider.

No matter where you are on your path to recovery and the next normal, our team of experts and specialists are positioned to help you regain control of costs and refocus on transformative projects.

If you’re looking for help to understand your financial options for cost effective purchasing or continuing to provide core IT services under budgetary pressure, connect with a Softchoice expert.

About SoftchoiceSoftchoice is one of the largest IT solution and managed service providers in North America. Every day, thousands of organizations rely on Softchoice to provide insight and expertise that speeds the adoption of technology, while managing cost and risk.

Through our unique points of view, we challenge leaders to think differently about the impact of technology on their employees and customers.

Softchoice enables organizations to realize the full benefits of public cloud and a modern IT infrastructure through solution design, implementation, asset management, and assessment services, as well as ongoing support and mentorship through managed services.

With access to one of the most efficient and cost-effective technology supply chains in North America, Softchoice also ensures products get to our customers quickly and trouble free.

Conclusion: Regaining Control Over IT Costs

With the right approach and the right guidance, organizations can overcome the challenges presented by new budget pressures and start on the path to a robust recovery.

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