IT Budget Guidelines and Best Practices

Planning for growth?

• Set up two categories – one for ongoing support and one for new IT investments.
• Calculate the maintenance and support expense of existing equipment.
• Determine budget for any new technology initiative.
• Include new projects or major system upgrades that support business development beyond normal operations.
• Depending on project complexity, budget for testing, possible downtime and unexpected delays.

No major changes ahead?

• Use your IT costs from last year for your forecast

Recommendations that Keep IT Costs Down

Bring in a Trusted Technology Advisor

• Choose an outside IT team or hire qualified staff that will recommend solutions based on business requirements, not the latest trends.
• Request a technology plan that supports a fixed monthly fee or a predictable monthly budget.

Take a proactive approach to support and maintenance

• To limit the need for IT support, choose a managed service model that includes monitoring, management and notification tools.
• This approach ensures that upgrades and security patches protect your assets and that hardware or applications issues are identified and resolved before major failure.

Automation

• Implement automation tools that allow your IT team to replicate routine tasks such as software updates to your systems.
• Time required to manage your infrastructure can be greatly reduced, which saves on IT support expense.

Standardization

• Creating standards for IT infrastructure reduces costs.
• For example, a standard template for user desktops that includes all required software and settings will streamline upgrades and replacements.

Redundancy

• Implement restoration capabilities such as automated data and desktop image backups.
• Consider Virtual Desktops and Cloud Services to further reduce IT support costs and offer affordable, built-in business protection.

Return on Investment

Our goal is to help you maximize the return on your technology investments. Your IT budget should align with short and long-term objectives. Our clients know they can count on a predictable, ‘no-surprises’ budget for IT support and project implementations.