How to avoid expanding IT costs

Our final blog in this series on the importance of operational continuity and scenarios organizations must avoid addresses expanding IT costs. There are countless possible examples to discuss, but we’ll focus on the typical costs and efforts associated with ongoing maintenance and management of on-premises applications.

In addition to the pressure to innovate and integrate new solutions to the enterprise ecosystem, many on-premises implementations are both blessed and cursed with modifications to address unique requirements. These mods, along with regular upgrades and updates, need to be scheduled and managed. IDG reports that the top two priorities for CIOs in 2020 are investments in additional security and analytics. This list not only represents a fraction of day-to-day expectations of current IT staff but also expanding costs to the organization.

When comparing the operating expense of a cloud solution to the capital expense of an on-premise solution, there’s a much more persuasive argument for the total cost of ownership (TCO) associated with cloud solutions. Organizations that may have wanted to defer on this option in the past may wish to take another look at evaluating your cloud migration options to see if now is the right time to make the move.

In moving to the cloud, one of our customers, Pilot Flying J, consolidated 25 disparate IT applications, which reduced time-consuming, expensive maintenance, and updates to save $1 million annually ultimately.

According to Constellation Research, one of the ways cloud-based software provides big wins to customers is through the ability to receive rapid innovation at scale. While there’s a knowable direct saving associated with the shift from on-premises to cloud, there are also many additional benefits available on a continual basis as enhancements are automatically delivered.

This blog series discussed business-damaging scenarios that can be avoided by replacing outdated IT systems with a cloud solution to ensure business continuity.

Three of our topics (critical system failure, M&A complexity, and legacy bottlenecks), address fundamental structural challenges inherent in legacy solutions. These challenges can put at risk the organization’s data, its ROI, and its ability to innovate.

Another topic addressed the external threat of malicious security breaches, which can damage an organization financially, operationally, and publicly. Additionally, we discussed the internal challenge of ensuring you are not putting your organization at risk by relying too heavily on an individual that alone understands the infrastructure.

Finally, we covered the expanding costs associated with ongoing maintenance and management of outdated IT solutions. Together these six scenarios form a compelling argument to explore how your organization would benefit from a transition to the cloud, and if you find the themes covered in this blog series relevant to your business, we invite you to watch our on-demand webinar where we explore this topic in greater detail with Infor customer Teknor Apex.