In the modern business world, no organization should settle for the status quo. Least of all those tasked with managing an organization’s IT infrastructure. The tools, strategies, and information available today provide organizations with everything they need to better manage IT spend above the status quo.
Let’s dive into the status quo of IT management, why it doesn’t work for evolving organizations, and how the right automation can give teams a critical edge over the competition.
What is the Status Quo of IT Management?
Most of the time the status quo is reflective of the idea that what has been done all along is sufficient. Sometimes it’s a person with that belief system; more often it’s the organization at large that is reluctant to adapt to change. It is not a sustainable model and technology will pass you by if you’re sticking with outdated modes. Furthermore, as technology and processes continue to evolve, staying the same will leave you even further behind the curve.
For example, too many organizations use spreadsheets to manually track IT expenses, invoices, inventory, accounts, support tickets, and more. That means thousands upon thousands of data points that must be manually administered. IT management suffers with zero automation or a lack of focus on efficiency and business continuity. There is no clear way to track the accuracy of costs, or the quality of service being delivered. The organization is a the mercy of the vendor, too many of whom have notorious reputations for incorrect billing.
Without a methodology and process in place to ensure the accuracy of the data in that spreadsheet—validation that the costs are legitimate for instance—organizations will overpay potentially by thousands each month.
The status quo is a recipe for failure. From an IT spend management perspective, professionals are taking on unnecessary pain and problems. Choosing negligence and living in the same outdated models is no longer sustainable.
The issue many people face is making effective changes on their own. Many collect data to improve processes but struggle with using it successfully. They need efficient platforms and IT support managers who can take data and turn it into insights and action.
How vCom Challenges the Status Quo
Challenging the status quo can be complex. Let’s look at why. To begin, the lifecycle of an IT asset—ANY asset—requires nine different jobs to be done:
1. Design the solution
2. Source the solution asset(s)
3. Contract for those assets and manage the ongoing contract
4. Install/manage the order
5. Inventory and continually manage the asset
6. Support and service the asset
7. Pay the invoice
8. Allocate it to the right cost center
9. Report back on all of it
Let’s reiterate: every single IT asset needs to go through these nine phases in order to be procured, operate efficiently, be paid for, and prove it’s doing its job. This is an impossible task for IT and finance professionals if they don’t have visibility across the entire lifecycle. That lack of visibility causes leaders to fly blind, making decisions without the crucial data needed to inform them, and organizations to lose money from both hard and soft costs.
Empowering IT Teams
With economic unease and increasing reliance on digital tools and solutions, IT departments are under more pressure than ever. As a result, teams are expected to be heroic and provide ever more services with less money and resources.
IT teams can only do this with the right platform and experts at their side. Most departments rely on automated systems. HR isn’t clamoring to write out paychecks anymore: they love the automation associated with automated payroll. Yet, IT professionals are hanging onto their manual spreadsheets and don’t have the tools and team to do their jobs effectively. It doesn’t have to be like that anymore.
The New Status Quo
IT management needs systems and SMEs; they need to leverage automation in the new status quo to improve efficiency and quality. Teams can eliminate time-consuming, tedious tasks, gain critical visibility into costs to spot expensive inaccuracies, and so much more. Leaders get accurate data for valuable insights when they make decisions and look to the future of their companies. In this day and age, organizations that don’t use automation will quickly fall behind the competition.
Outsource the Heavy Lifting with vCom
vCom gives IT organizations their own software platform, vManager, to address the multiple jobs involved in managing the lifecycle of an IT asset. No more searching spreadsheets looking for a needle in a haystack. Every IT asset is tracked and tied to every single order, contract, service ticket, and invoice. Network, mobile, cloud, collaboration, SaaS, and hardware asset can be centralized in one place, no matter the vendor. No more searching thousands of spreadsheet lines for one item.
Plus, vCom’s Managed Services work behind the scenes to do the heavy lifting. Subject Matter Experts work as an extension of your team to do the things you shouldn’t have to do: from sitting on hold with carriers to disputing charges to managing projects and overseeing installs. vCom empowers IT organizations to focus on areas of strategic need by taking the mundane, repeatable, and time-consuming tasks off their plates.
vCom doesn’t compete against perfection. Instead, we empower customers to compete against the status quo and get an edge over the competition.
