Cutting IT Costs - Volume 2: Operational Opportunities

'Cutting IT Costs - The Complete Collection' Kindle Book is also Available on Amazon. This compilation of volumes 1-3 also includes additional content not included in the separate volumes.---------------------------------------------------------Last year organizations globally spent roughly 3.5 Trillion dollars (U.S) on the purchase, implementation, and operation of information technology (IT). By 2014 global spending on IT is expected to exceed 4 Trillion dollars. Yet a quick search for books or articles about ways to reduce IT spending returns few results and the results one does receive are heavily focused on the acquisition of even more hardware and software.The reality is unnecessary spending on IT translates into, at a minimum, a missed opportunity to leverage the investment for greater returns in other areas. In many cases however, bloated and avoidable spending on IT represents an anchor that drags the entire organization down. What makes reducing IT spending an often tricky endeavor however is that it continues to represent one of the most important levers of value and productivity for most organizations.Given the criticality of technology to organizational health and opportunity, organizations must take care to operate with precision - to remove fat and avoid unnecessary spending without wounding important areas of technology investment. By understanding where real opportunities to reduce IT spending exist, whether through the result of large-scale change or a series of smaller changes, individuals with even a modest span of control possess the capability to increase the efficiency of IT.To provide greater visibility into the IT spending reduction mechanisms available, 'Cutting IT Costs' is divided into three separate volumes. The first volume, 'Large-Scale Change', focuses primarily on the major levers for reducing an organization’s IT spending footprint by leveraging investments on an organization-wide basis.The third volume, 'Tactical Activities', focuses heavily on simple and immediate ways to reduce the acquisition cost of IT hardware, software, and associated support.This volume, 'Volume 2: Operational Opportunities', focuses to a large extent on opportunities associated with improving the way organizations continuously manage the maintenance and operation of technology.