Growing your business almost inevitably means growing your IT infrastructure – and growing your IT infrastructure almost always means spending significant amounts of money.
At least, that’s what people think.
There are countless businesses missing out on lucrative growth opportunities because they think they’ve got to spend a small fortune on the equipment or software that’s needed to make it happen. In actual fact, virtually every IT growth requirement can be done cheaper today than has ever been possible before.
Whether you’re looking for equipment, software or IT professionals – we’ll walk you through exactly how to do it at a fraction of what you think it might cost.
Finding the right people
If your growth plans involve an IT expansion, there’s a good chance they’ll also involve expanding your team in an effort to support that IT.
I’ve you’ve done some initial research, you’ll realise this is an expensive part of the process. It’s likely that a quality candidate with the relevant experience and training will cost more than virtually any other basic wage in your business – which can be especially frustrating if they’re primary role is to react if anything goes wrong. What’s more, you’ve also got to go through the process of actually finding and recruiting the right person too – an often arduous slog that costs a huge amount of money and resources itself.
Now, don’t misunderstand, having an excellent in-house IT team is important – and can be vital when you’re a larger company, but you shouldn’t let a limited wage budget hinder your plans for growth.
An excellent way around this cost problem is to use a managed service provider – or MSP. An MSP is essentially an outsourced IT team – but one that never takes a holiday, never resigns to work for a competitor and never calls in sick. What’s more, the service level agreement that you have in place with them can extend to whatever your business requires – including 24/7 support, site call-outs – and much more.
Whether you need a small operation that’ll cover some startup basics – or a larger managed network provider with a global reach, with a bit of careful research and some recommendations, you’ll find someone who gels with your company perfectly.
Getting the right software
There comes a time in any growth plan where you have to accept that a spreadsheet and email aren’t going to cut the mustard going forward – and you need some dedicated software. What that entails will be different for everyone; perhaps it’s accounting software, CRM systems, payroll processing applications, project management tools – or even specialist industry requirements.
Whatever your software of choice, it’s likely to be costly – but it doesn’t have to be.
The big software manufacturers have so much money to market their products, it makes alternatives pale into insignificance – but there are some incredible options out there, and many of them are open-source.
Open-source is a way of creating software that leaves the source code open to distribution and development. So, Microsoft Word doesn’t offer you a feature you need? – Tough luck. But, if you’re opting for an open-source program, you’ll find a developer who’ll make it work for you.
Open-source is an entirely different world of software – and it’s all free. You may need to pay a developer to make the fine tunes that you need – but in reality, there’s such an enormous selection of off-the-peg open-source software choices, you’ll probably find something that meets your needs without any adjustment.
If you’ve got a software requirement – or you’ve got an idea that needs a specific piece of software to run, then check out some open-source options if the price of licenced software is a little hard to swallow. A good place to start is SourceForge.net – it’s one of the earliest and biggest open-source platforms and has an active community of people who are passionate about open-source.
Using the right infrastructure
If you don’t already know, taking a look at the cost of IT networking infrastructure can be an eye-opening experience. The biggest pieces of the jigsaw are the servers that operate the core functions of your network – and they’ll cost thousands, if not tens of thousands – depending on the size of your business requirement.
Then you’ve got the end-user devices needed, the infrastructure to put it all together, the incidentals like printers and copiers… and, well, I won’t go on – the short story is this – networking is expensive, and if you’ve got a network already set up, you might not want to dip back into the coffers to expand it to accommodate the growth you’re hoping for.
The good news is, the tech giants also know this – and, keen to get their hands on your business’s money anyway, they’re happy to provide some cash-flow-friendly alternatives, going by the name of IaaS.
IaaS stands for ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ – and it’s a concept made possible by cloud-computing. Essentially, a rapid internet connection means there’s little different between an email server that’s sitting in the corner of your office – or one that’s sitting in a Microsoft HQ building somewhere. Since there’s no different, Microsoft are happy to let you use that service remotely, paying only for what you need.
Unless you really want a series of servers in your building, you can significantly save on the setup costs of a huge range of larger infrastructure devices that you might need to scale around your project. Need mega-amounts of secure storage? You’ll find a provider who can offer it remotely. Need some sophisticated security measures for a sensitive project you’re taking on? You’ll find someone who can build an IaaS service into your network.
The speed of modern internet connections makes it possible to create huge network virtually – and when you do, it makes it even easier for a good managed service provider to help you manage your systems – since they’re designed to be handled and configured remotely – so your MSP never needs to visit your site and roll their sleeves up.
