Dec, 2015 : What Should you Consider for your IT Budget?
📅 - Have you looked over your IT budget to see how you did this year? With the end of the year here, it's a good time to look things over and see where we did well and where we could have better maximized our funds. Where can we more carefully plan for next year?
It's a good time to sit down and start planning on doing better next year and look at areas you may have overlooked this year. IT managers and CIOs should do this at the end of each year to see how their budgeting went for the year and how next year can be improved. Here is a look at what you should consider when it's time to look over your IT budget.
Where to begin
A good place to start is to meet with your company's IT pros to look over the business's budget. Perhaps you plan on expanding the business this coming year which will require you to expand your IT department. Since IT professionals can cost a pretty penny, it's important to find the right areas of the budget for these new hires.
For example, paying for their expertise is going to be expensive but supplementing it with your HR budget may make it possible for you to get the new hire in. Look at your other budgets to see where it makes sense to supplement this expense.
Then, you'll need to consider where the funds for training will come from. With an evolving technology, your IT department will need to have a way to keep up with the new changes. There needs to be money in the budget to keep up with technology, improvements, and security. Make sure your professionals know how to keep your data secure, the technology efficient, and that training is always available.
What else to look for in the budget
When it comes to your IT budget, you'll first need to look at new hires and proper training, but then you'll need to take a look at your licensing. Every new hire will need licensing. Look at your HR and take a headcount to determine what this should calculate to while adding some padding. For example, those use the Windows infrastructure will need to account for the costs of the operating system, productivity software, Exchange licensing fees, antimalware toolkits, and other licensing fees for your staff's daily operations.
After you've handled licensing and Infrastructure-as-a-Service needs for disaster recovery, you may need to get the cloud for sharing files with your staff. Consider how much your business uses it. It should be mobile, while before that would be a luxury perk, and make sure you've left room in your budget considering how much time is spent on it between all of the laptops, desktops, and mobile devices among your staff. Make sure you have a connection that is fast enough, a high enough bandwidth to use it, and other factors related to using the cloud are considered in your budget.
Lastly, look into how your data center is doing from the proper hardware to the best practices being in place. Sometimes hardware needs replaced so have a fund in your budget for emergency costs. Make sure you've considered backup solutions with backup to multiple locations. A recovery and disaster solution should be in place. This would be a part of the IT budget and even part of the corporate strategy budget.
This is a general guide to setting up your IT budget and making sure you remembered items like backup solutions, broken down hardware, and the proper bandwidth to cover your cloud usage.
It's a good time to sit down and start planning on doing better next year and look at areas you may have overlooked this year. IT managers and CIOs should do this at the end of each year to see how their budgeting went for the year and how next year can be improved. Here is a look at what you should consider when it's time to look over your IT budget.
Where to begin
A good place to start is to meet with your company's IT pros to look over the business's budget. Perhaps you plan on expanding the business this coming year which will require you to expand your IT department. Since IT professionals can cost a pretty penny, it's important to find the right areas of the budget for these new hires.
For example, paying for their expertise is going to be expensive but supplementing it with your HR budget may make it possible for you to get the new hire in. Look at your other budgets to see where it makes sense to supplement this expense.
Then, you'll need to consider where the funds for training will come from. With an evolving technology, your IT department will need to have a way to keep up with the new changes. There needs to be money in the budget to keep up with technology, improvements, and security. Make sure your professionals know how to keep your data secure, the technology efficient, and that training is always available.
What else to look for in the budget
When it comes to your IT budget, you'll first need to look at new hires and proper training, but then you'll need to take a look at your licensing. Every new hire will need licensing. Look at your HR and take a headcount to determine what this should calculate to while adding some padding. For example, those use the Windows infrastructure will need to account for the costs of the operating system, productivity software, Exchange licensing fees, antimalware toolkits, and other licensing fees for your staff's daily operations.
After you've handled licensing and Infrastructure-as-a-Service needs for disaster recovery, you may need to get the cloud for sharing files with your staff. Consider how much your business uses it. It should be mobile, while before that would be a luxury perk, and make sure you've left room in your budget considering how much time is spent on it between all of the laptops, desktops, and mobile devices among your staff. Make sure you have a connection that is fast enough, a high enough bandwidth to use it, and other factors related to using the cloud are considered in your budget.
Lastly, look into how your data center is doing from the proper hardware to the best practices being in place. Sometimes hardware needs replaced so have a fund in your budget for emergency costs. Make sure you've considered backup solutions with backup to multiple locations. A recovery and disaster solution should be in place. This would be a part of the IT budget and even part of the corporate strategy budget.
This is a general guide to setting up your IT budget and making sure you remembered items like backup solutions, broken down hardware, and the proper bandwidth to cover your cloud usage.
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