New report highlights common challenges that hamper profitability and explores how organizations can align IT investments with desired business outcomes.
McLean, Va., January 24, 2024 – Expanding on its growing portfolio of exclusive market insights and decision guides, ARG announced the availability of the Cost Optimization Market Insights & Decision Guide. Created in partnership with Nitel and Tangoe, the report identifies factors that prevent businesses from deriving the maximum value from their IT investments and explores ways in which they can align their technology expenditures with desired business outcomes.
“In recent years, businesses have undergone significant changes that have led to inefficiencies and waste, said Jim Begley, Chief Technology Officer at ARG. “The shift to remote and hybrid work, coupled with the growing adoption of cloud-based collaboration and connectivity tools, led to technology sprawl and rising costs. With global IT spending estimated to increase by more than 8% in the coming year, it is imperative that businesses examine their IT investments more closely to assess their true impact on profitability.”
Driving better outcomes with vendor consolidation, asset management, and automation
The Cost Optimization Market Insights & Decision Guide is a comprehensive report based on a survey of 1,500 ARG clients. It focuses on identifying how businesses can maximize their IT investments and allocate expenses effectively to the right departments and initiatives. The guide covers multiple areas, including:
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- Overlapping Tools and Licenses. 29% of SaaS software spend is underutilized or wasted, according to a recent study by Flexera. Consolidating vendors saves costs, reduces management burden, and enhances capabilities. Working with fewer providers also ensures better visibility, standardized SLAs, and fewer payments to manage. This helps save costs and avoid late payment charges and unexpected outages.
- Overprovisioning and Lack of Governance. A Zesty survey found that 42% of CIOs and CTOs identified appropriate resource utilization as their top challenge. Tools are available today to optimize public cloud usage by continuously overseeing cloud spending, monitoring cloud service usage, and putting checks and balances around cloud budget/cloud financial management practices.
- Controlling Configuration Drift. CloudZero reports that only 30% of organizations can accurately track their cloud spending. ITEM solutions offer increased visibility, enabling organizations to manage items more aggressively and allowing for tighter asset management.
- Managing Demand Spikes and Slumps. Augmenting staff with artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) eliminates repetitive tasks and allows teams to focus on more meaningful work while increasing efficiency and often lowering costs. Fractional labor or Business Process Automation (BPO) can reduce overhead and increase staffing flexibility. Further, the Internet of Things (IoT) can reduce repetitive tasks such as equipment checks with monitoring sensors that track environmental conditions as well as safety and security.
Eliminating the burden of cost optimization through outsourcing
Understanding a vendor’s ability to execute against business objectives and achieve their cost optimization goals when investing in technology solutions is the difference between making the right choice and a project that misses the mark.
“ITEM and other tools provide data but still require action to decrease spending,” said Jason Assaly, Vice President, Consulting, ARG. “The easiest way to optimize technology spend is by leveraging an outside resource, like ARG. This improves outcomes in multiple ways. The organization can avoid the cost of constantly researching new technologies, gathering requirements, bids, and pricing, and building the business case to support IT investments and instead focus on core business needs.”
To help organizations optimize their technology expenditures, ARG follows a well-established framework that identifies optimal solutions that map to desired business outcomes so that organizations can make the most of their existing IT investments. With a vast client base, organizations can benefit from valuable insights into negotiating better deals with suppliers, reducing procurement costs, and improving vendor management. ARG can also manage the entire life cycle of your procurement, service management, and vendor and account management at no additional cost.
“Having an outside team like ARG involved in documenting decision criteria and capturing inventory can provide a backup, ensuring that if a key employee leaves, the institutional knowledge is retained,” added Assaly.
Click here to access the Cost Optimization Market Insights & Decision Guide. For ARG’s entire resource library, visit https://www.myarg.com/resources/.
About ARG
There are two problems in the IT market; the first is the overwhelming choice, and the second is the pace of change. Companies are afraid of making the wrong choice, or not choosing the latest technology because they are simply not aware of it. For over 30 years, ARG has helped over 4,000 companies make the right choice from thousands of options and bleeding-edge new products. We call it IT Clarity – our clients call it brilliant. To learn more about ARG, contact info@myarg.com.
Originally published by GlobalNewswire.