WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY TO REDUCE YOUR TECHNOLOGY COSTS
Saving money for your small business without sacrificing quality is not easy, and the modern office equipped with technology is no exception. How to save money without sacrificing quality or valuable time? This report will reveal 7 money-saving strategies and ideas that will help you bring down the cost of running an efficient office for your small business.
1. Save with e-Logistics
Mailing and shipping costs continue to rise. Most of the household names such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS are increasing shipping rates yet again in 2011. Growing in popularity, online postage sites like stamps.com can offer savings and convenience. In addition, if you invest in a small postal scale, you can take the savings even further by precisely calculating the weight of your envelope or the package, and print custom-priced stamps. Here is a reality bite: we regularly mail envelopes to Canada, and sticking 2 stamps to “cover” for the international difference was a common practice. Once we started utilizing stamps.com, we realized that we overpaid on average 17 cents per envelope; and we are now saving about $150.00 a year just on this one mailing address! How many addresses do you mail to that may need the postage to be revised on? Do you math and keep the difference.
2. Minimize Office Equipment
Printers are the common offender. It is easy to be tempted by the promise of the Increased Productivity and have a printer on every desk for your staff. Unless you are running a large corporation, cutting on walking time to distant printers may not reduce your costs after all. Limiting the number of the equipment to a number that you and your teammates can share will save you money. Save hundreds or even thousands on hardware by connecting your computers to fewer printers and fax machines on your network. In addition, you will save on the add-on equipment, such as cables, surge protector units, service and maintenance time and labor. Top that with cutting down on the electricity costs, and you have a nice Savings plan in action. As an additional benefit, employees gathering around the printer would be more likely to talk about work rather than engage in gossip near the cooler
3. Reduce Printing Costs
Save on supplies and reduce your paper and toner cartridges costs by limiting printing to what is truly essential. Such essentials include paperwork that requires further hands-on action, such as legal signature or notary seal. Most of everything else can be kept and distributed via electronic means. Consider this: most of the accounting software has “send to email” option – you can send invoices, work orders and receipts directly to your clients without wasting paper, envelopes and stamps. Same goes for proposals and other materials you would traditionally send to the clients and contacts; most of the times, only the last page is needed for the signatures, so you can print 1 page instead of the 25, and use others in the electronic format, and then scan the signed paper to save along with your original document. Saving trees will help the Earth – and help you feel better about doing your part, too.
4. Use Freely Available Software
Think Open Source. There are many free applications worth your while. One of the examples would be saving hundreds of dollars on word processor license fees by using OpenOffice.org, the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. Because it creates and saves all your data in international open standard format, it works on all common computers, and its products are compatible with most major word processing software available. In other words, if you created a document in OpenOffice.org, you or anyone else you forward the document to should be able to open it using Microsoft Word, and vice versa. OpenOffice.org office software suite can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose at http://www.openoffice.org. Yes. Sometimes free means free – to you. Just make sure that what you are looking to acquire will not require a major overhaul in your current operations in terms of spending on new computers, etc. to keep the cost to a minimum.
5. Stop Wasting Money on Gadgets
There are definitely some tech products out there that help you make more money, but if you’re spending your money on something because it makes you look cool, or solely because it’s new, it’s time to revisit your business budget priorities. It is nice to have new toys, but sometimes your business’ bottom line would be better off without them. Take a good look around your office and see what you could’ve done without. Consider “price-per-wear” method. Did you buy a cool netbook and now collects dust, because in the end you stick to your laptop and your smartphone? Weigh in the “nice haves” against “must haves” carefully before investing for your business. And remember those pieces with tags still on next time you want to splurge on something you may not need after all.
6. Invest in Newer Technology
OK, this may sound contrary to the previous advice, but think of this: just like with any closed, one-in, two-out strategy may pay off if you plan carefully. Consult with you trusted IT advisor, describe to them your needs, your current operations and vision for the future, and set a new technology rollout. If you invest in the number of netbooks for your crew, and encourage and enforce use of new technology, you may not need to keep the desktops, the printers and other gadgets – if the netbooks give your staff access to your intranet, your documentation, and their sales or production software – if you host it in the cloud, you do not need to connect to your local network. You will save on outdated or unnecessary technology, electricity and maintenance costs.
7. Consider Telecommuting
Allowing employees to telecommute (work from outside of the office) has multiple advantages First, environment will thank you for reducing the harmful emissions of greenhouse gases and use of fuel. Reduced overhead costs will not be fully realized if your employee telecommutes only part of the time. When employees telecommute full time, will you be able to free up office space, facilities maintenance and some costs associated with support staff. Your IT Company should be able to set you up with VPN connection and service your telecommuters’ hardware by remote access. Overall, it has been proven by many studies that employees are more satisfied with their jobs and their production levels are higher when they are allowed to work at home. Of course, a communications protocol and measurable job performance standards must be in place for the employee to be allowed to work at home, in order to ensure acceptable productivity. Telecommuting can also allow you to broaden your talent pool to hire from, and have greater flexibility in compensation negotiations.