Tag: IT consultancy

Worried About Managing IT Costs in 2023 Due to Economic Downturn?

Worried About Managing IT Costs in 2023 Due to Economic Downturn?

by Aman Rawat

Is your business failing to stay within budget? Are you also worried about the recession hurting your business?

You are not alone, as 74% of consumers are also concerned about the recession in 2023. The fact that the real global GDP is below pre-pandemic due to the global downturn supports this perception. 

Did you know that this grim outlook is expected to cost over  $17 trillion, or roughly 20% of global income? However, getting through the recession could be much easier if you construct a solid plan and stick to it. How’s that you ask?

Just read through and watch your problems diminish one by one.

How to Tackle Recession in 2023?

  • Continue Your Projects

Do not stop your operations. Completely shutting down or restricting projects is a temporary getaway.

Check if your company budget allows projects to continue. If so, don’t stop, since your spending is eventually going to put the economy back on track. 

 

Products launched during a recession have both higher long-term survival chances and higher sales revenues. That’s partly because there are fewer new products to compete with. 

But it also comes from the fact that companies maintaining R&D have focused the investment on their best prospects — which may explain why products introduced during recessions have been shown to be of higher quality.

Researches show that the best period to launch a new product is just after a recession’s mid-point. This period means customers have started thinking about non-necessities, maybe even expensive products, like cars. 

Launching a new and innovative product shows hope that the economy is healing, and consumers may soon be able to afford it.

  • Customer and Employee Vision

Reevaluate your vision, as customers and even your employees are doing so.

Reimagine what you are about to offer your customers and employees. Are your customers seeking quality products or cheaper prices? Have they switched to other products? If yes, why so.

Repeat the process keeping employees in mind. Do they prioritize stability over monetary benefits right now? Show them that staying with you is the right decision. 

Do so and you can accelerate your production while addressing customer needs. 

  • Try Autonomous and Predictive Tools

Being in the IT sector, we can assure you one thing – there are always tools to help you.

Investing in autonomous and predictive tools will make your organization quicker and more efficient. It will streamline your operations, from product development to decision-making. What’s more, is that you can rely on the tools to assess how the market dynamics are going to change.

Employing autonomous tools to perform mundane and repetitive tasks will also help you save resources. Integrate this saved manpower in areas where a human touch is needed.

  • Study Your Digital Metrics

Funnel your metrics to measure digital initiatives and assess the progress. 

It ensures you stay focused on the few that are rendering valuable outcomes. The more you study, the better insights you will fetch. Working on these insights only mean one thing, better decisions, and improved revenue.

 

  • Make Trade-Offs

Here starts the tough part, you need to start making trade-offs.

Start by creating a list of the resource trade-offs you can afford in budget and cost management. Establish a distinct narrative that sheds light on your thought process. Make sure that this can be translated into something that your stakeholders understand and buy. 

  • Enters Cloud Migration

Heard of cloud migration? Of course, you have. It is time to experience it as well.

Accelerate your movement by shifting to the cloud. Making the cloud a part of your purposeful digitalization serves several critical business needs. It unleashes potential opportunities while reducing the impact of surging energy prices. 

In addition, it supports your infrastructure, making room for a more nimble and adaptive approach.

  • Build your IT Digital Maturity

Whatever your strategic goals or associated plans are, ensure that your initiatives are chosen carefully. 

Your goals should not spread the company’s focus and resources thinly. Achieving enterprise ambitions is only possible when CIOs invest in these four capabilities: 

  1. Strategy
  2. Governance
  3. Architecture 
  4. IT Delivery 

Utilize diagnostic analysis to identify your IT function’s maturity level in these capabilities. Align your target level and program based on the overall ambition for the best result.

Now comes the million-dollar question – How can you cut down costs during a recession without affecting productivity? Let’s see.

Here’s How to Cut Down Costs During a Recession Without Losing Productivity 

  1. Reach out to additional IT vendors to check if someone provides similar value for a lower cost
  2. Discuss with your vendor if they can reduce hourly rates
  3. Hire IT experts to conduct effective fund and project management.
  4. See if vendors are willing to provide a milestone-based fixed cost for your project
  5. Freezing all discretionary non-essential spending – this includes costs that are not essential for the operation of the business
  6. Connect with partners and negotiate for lower 90-payment terms
  7. Request payment deferment or special terms during the crisis
  8. Look at options like extended leave without pay, furloughs, or exchanging workers with other employers

Now that you have gone through the tips, you must have a better idea of your standing and how to progress. If you are still confused or want more information on the subject, we are here to help you out. Reach our IT experts to understand how to manage costs and survive during a recession.

Top Reasons Why Companies Go Over Budget

Top Reasons Why Companies Go Over Budget

by Aman Rawat

Budgets are always a challenging factor for both clients and managers. According to statistics, every project goes over budget in some way in at least 85% of cases.  These situations usually occur due to unforeseen events and some unnoticed factors while managing a project. Fortunately, if you are aware of what might go wrong, you can tip the scales in your favor. You can reduce the likelihood of running out of money by building a contingency plan.

  • Poor Communication

Good communication is the key from planning to completion. Good communication improves your resilience in the face of unexpected change – and almost every project changes in some way between planning and completion. Along with the client, it also entails coordinating with organizations or people who will be directly involved in the implementation, such as suppliers, experts, and the rest of the project team. 

Poor communication can lead to a lack of understanding of the project, goals, scope, objectives, deadlines, and cost. It is highly important to have constant interaction between clients and among team members at each step of the process to ensure the project is on the right track and will be completed within the estimated budget.

  • Lack of Proper Planning

Contingency in planning is crucial to identify the risk factors that affect the budget. Ignoring the planning process or giving less attention can cause a huge burden on the budget towards the project completion. Project managers use their contingency plans when plans need to be adjusted to ensure that deliverables will be accomplished without withdrawing finances from other areas of the project. 

  • Poor Resource Allocation

Planning resources carefully helps in more precise cost projections and simpler budget management. If poor resources are allotted for the project, it can result in financial difficulties and even the entire cancellation of a project. To keep the budget in control and the projects on schedule, ordering good-quality, reasonably priced flooring and appliances would have been a better option.

  • Unexpected Damages

Damages and malfunctions can occur which will be totally unexpected and it may cause a severe loss and may demand more budget to complete the project. To keep the project moving forward when important equipment breaks down on the job site, gets damaged during installation, or performs sub-optimally, it must be ordered again, replaced, or repaired. It would be better if a percentage of each project budget is set aside as a precaution.

Every company’s reputation depends on the satisfaction of the client and it occurs only when you complete the project with the efficient use of resources and budget. A trustworthy project management application that integrates data on your resources and the project budget can be an asset for the successful completion of a project.

Do you wish to implement your business dreams into reality? Contact our team at SubcoDevs, we are here to turn your ideas into a profitable business.

Is IT a Bottleneck in the Growth of Your Company?

Is IT a Bottleneck in the Growth of Your Company?

by

IT or information technology is a sector that has grown substantially in the past decade. The domain has accrued a massive 5.3 trillion dollars in spendings alone during 2022. 

As the third industrial revolution is peaking, the industry is expected to rise even more. While IT can help a company flourish in the market, its ineffective execution can lead to disasters. Over our 8+ years of market experience, we have come across multiple companies whose growth had been hindered because of their IT infrastructure.

Do you want to know how IT can slow down development of a million dollar product? Are you curious about how it can become a bottleneck in the growth of a company? Are your IT operations restricting your progress? Have you been struggling to deploy new technologies, systems, and app features?

Read through to gain valuable insights regarding everything IT and its prevalent related issues. 

Common IT Issues Faced by Modern Companies 

IT Unaligned with Product Goals

Surprised to hear a department as crucial as IT can deviate from product goals? It happens, and more often than you’d expect. Read through the given situations and see if they seem familiar:

  • Imagine a situation where IT has little too much stake in deciding what features are built in the upcoming quarter.
  • The focus on IT is derailing goals set by the Product Team for the quarter.

This situation gives imagery of a boat where each rower is not rowing the boat in the same direction.

Want to know where we are coming from? We experienced this issue with one of our clients, where the Tech Lead heavily influenced the Product team. This led to IT becoming the primary rower in the company. 

As expected, it enabled uneven results, leading to even worse revenue and growth. Such situations can cost a company the opportunity to leverage available opportunities. It can also delay the deployment of app features, causing strife among stakeholders.

Misplaced Coordination or Capability Issues

Three of the most common hurdles we have witnessed in most companies’ IT infrastructure are:

  1. Capacity bottlenecks
  2. Going over budget 
  3. Overcommitment

An incompetent or misdirected IT team will lead to one thing, failures. Similarly, if IT processes are not streamlined, the results will remain unsatisfactory. In this fashion, overcommitting to certain features or processes can also spell disaster for a company.

Such issues can only be removed after a thorough assessment and revamping of the existing processes.

IT Department not Following Processes

Another common mistake conducted by several IT teams is not following guidelines or processes. In some cases, companies have failed to execute segmented frameworks like Agile or Scrum. This causes friction, resulting in a productivity downfall.

Lack of Agility or Communication

While handling complex product decisions, it becomes crucial for everyone to be on the same page. This is true among in-built teams and clients as well. You must address their concern and expectation with proper communication for a smooth process. 

At the same time, ensuring that the team is flexible enough to execute upcoming changes is also critical. Besides this, implementing a software without proper architecture also counts among common issues faced by companies. Tools like Slack, Clickup, Trello, or even Google Docs and Sheets, etc. can address such issues. 

Note: Remember that the chat tools such as Slack, Skype or Telegram aren’t project management tools.

Heavy Documentation without Follow-Up

While documenting a project’s activities counts as good work ethics, too much documentation can cost unnecessary resources. In addition, not following the comprehensive documentation during the development process can be drastic.

Poor Risk Management

Like it or not, every project comes with risks. It falls on the IT department whether it can forecast and mitigate it or not. And while minimizing risks is important, being completely mundane without trying new methods is not advised either.

An expert IT team understands to take calculated risks that lead to better results.

Lack of Domain Knowledge

A lack of market knowledge or resources is an unavoidable issue for many organizations. As expected, such issues cost the company tremendously. Under such circumstances, it is ideal to look for third-party IT experts, like SubcoDevs, to maintain your operations. Doing so can save your time, efforts, and resources.

In Conclusion

IT can make or break an organization, especially in today’s digital world. That is why carrying on with an ineffective IT infrastructure is bound to impose heavy growth restrictions. Thus, our IT experts have curated a list of common issues faced by companies worldwide.

We have encountered and solved such issues for many clients successfully. The result? We have helped clients establish a unified IT infrastructure from a system that failed to deploy features for months. Take a look at what the client had to say about it here.

Want to resolve your IT issues or wish to learn more about the topic? Let’s meet over a quick call.