Introduction
In Part I of this two part article I want to cover a number of areas where you can make adjustments in your companies IT operations in 2009. There is no doubt that 2009 is going to be a difficult year for business. You can go into the New Year with one of two mindsets; "We’re going to stay the course and hope for the best" or "We will look at this economy as an opportunity to reinvent ourselves into a lean, agile, flexible, competitor in our market." My goal is to have you see 2009 as a time of opportunity to find ways of doing the same, or more, with less. Make 2009 the year you use IT to make your company become a lean, agile, market competitor.
How many users are you providing services for 2009? - It will be very important to closely work with executive management to estimate the services your IT department is going to provide in 2009. Avoid overreacting to the current economic downturn and arbitrarily reducing IT staff without serious consideration of the costs involved in hiring replacements later. Replacing experienced staff later costs more than having retained the original staff. Layoffs are a last resort. Use them sparingly.
What contingencies are there to fill in the gaps? - If you have already reduced your workforce and find you suddenly have skills gaps, one way is to fill in with contractors. Just be sure to manage them carefully and avoid situations where your contractor’s time gets misused. Make certain that everyone in your organization understands that contractors are there for specific purposes. Keep your contractors on task so they can get your work finished quickly otherwise the cost of a contractor can quickly surpass the salary and benefits of the original staff they are filling in for.
What initiatives and projects are you going forward with in 2009? - Consider your companies needs and think in terms of rapid deployment. Any initiative that takes more than a quarter may need to be re-evaluated and shelved until such time as your company’s economy allows for creating a long-term strategy again. Right now, the sooner you can get a project completed and into production, the sooner your company can take advantage of its benefits. 2009 is going to be about which company’s are ready to take advantage in their marketplace and whether your company will be ready to act when the time is right.
Dam Your Bandwidth - Make sure that your business comes first, ahead of providing access to streaming audio & video, online shopping, etc. In the past, I’ve had clients ask me to troubleshoot a "slow" network that was nothing more than excessive Internet traffic. In one case, there were 16 users with live NYSE steams, 12 more users trying to stream full length movies, and 3 online gamers, all pulling on a single T1. As difficult as it is to limit personal Internet access, reducing personal use to short periods of time after the production day is over is a reasonable solution.
How Flexible is your Network? - Now is also a good time to look at how flexible your network infrastructure is. It is always a good idea to have a migration plan ready that can handle issues like a change in ISP, the relocation of your headquarters, the addition of a satellite office, or the spin-off of a division. Stay ahead of the game by having basic contingency plans drafted well ahead of time. Keep the lines of communication with executive management wide open so you can anticipate changes and are prepared to quickly and professionally adapt in 2009.
Restock Your Website - Take advantage of the New Year by updating your companies website to show the world that your organization is going into 2009 with a fresh new look and a positive outlook. From then on, be sure to keep everything on your company website fresh and informative. Create new reasons for people to want to revisit your site often. Setup links to your industries latest developments or any other links that will bring your current and future customers back to your site to see what’s developing. Use the power of the press release to your advantage by announcing everything positive happening in your company. In 2009, you’re going to need to find new ways to keep your market focused on your business.
Wiki This and Wiki That - A Wiki, the Hawaiian word for "fast," is a webpage that anyone with access can contribute content to. Wiki pages are written in simplified HTML or WikiText. Businesses of all sizes are using Wiki’s. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described Wiki as "the simplest online database that could possibly work." Examples of its use include Intranets and knowledgebase’s. Setup Wikis on your company’s internal network and use them to encourage management, users, vendors, and even your customers. Make Wiki’s a means of collectively defining your company’s direction and progress to everyone within the organization. Use Wiki knowledge to put everyone on the same page.
Summary
In Part II I will explore areas in the data center where costs can be reduced and value added.
Mark H. Jessen
http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/small-business-it-doing-more-with-less-in-2009-part-i-700107.html
February 26th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
when, and by how much, will uncle sam tax you for energy you do NOT use?
reading along, trying to get a grip on what legislation will pass the senate (cap & trade bill passed by the house of reps already at the urging of mr. obama, who refuses to consider offshore drilling for oil until our alternate energy is good enough…), i came across a news article about the state of missouri and how its governor is proudly announcing a new cost to consumers of energy in MO which, he claims, will end up costing missouri businesses and citizens less than what they will be charged… huh, you say? me too:
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1307200.html
how is it that government gets away with making us pay more now and promises that we will recoup those costs in the future? have you ever had any new tax recouped to you? what was it, a tax credit? what good does a tax CREDIT do for you if you go broker every day?
how about the taxes charged on toll roads? that’s a great example! when toll roads were built, everyone paid a toll to use them, supposedly a temporary tax only until the road was finished. but the crooked politicians NEVER stopped, but they did increase, the amount of the tolls that were paid. the tolls are a TAX.
inflation, especially to those of you without a job, is also a TAX. now the governor of MO says that the new energy-conservation tax must be charged NOW and that it will get "recouped" back to businesses, which are going to have to lay more workers off because of the increase that they will pay to the utility companies. when the workers are laid off, how will the utility bills at home be paid?
politicians in DC are getting quite excited learning about the governor of missouri’s ideas to help utility company contain costs, but when our president took the oath, he told us that we’d have to wait 8 months to learn if offshore drilling for oil would be allowed, since, he said, he wants rigs (which take about 2 years each to build) to be powered entirely by alternate forms of energy themselves! i have not heard a peep out of obama lately or within the 8 weeks after he gained the office of president, about offshore oil drilling. huh! the chinese are drilling for it off of cuba, which is actually part of our own eastern continental shelf. oh, yeah, but they are communists (as though that makes any difference)…???
democrats in the house, who control the house, say that cap & trade will only cost the consumer about $100 a year, but republicans say that it will cost (initially) somewhere around $770 per year and more than that, since alternative energy forms and "green industry" is certainly NOT in place now. we really have a long way to go on that. so who cares if the united states becomes the *shining example* of countries that are ahead of the game of conventional energy consumption?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/26/house-passes-milestone-energy-climate-change/
i say, who cares, since if these increased costs (taxes) are going to put you out of a job, how will the federal government pay for more research and implementation of this foreseen, but not yet concrete, plan to run entirely on the new green energy? if you are out of a job, you will not pay income taxes, will you? and won’t you cut back on what you spend in the general marketplace? so, it is another domino effect, just like when the housing bubble broke. do you realize how many small companies have gone under after that? in chicago, i see more and more and more small businesses closing their doors, leaving their storefronts vacant. it is happening here ALL OVER our city of about 2.5 million people! and, it is happening ALL OVER all of the big cities and everywhere in our country, isn’t it?
so, do you think that we will have no federal taxation to offset research and development, as well as implementation of perfected green energy machines? how so?
what will you tell your senator? what will you do to prevent the house of reps and your state’s politicians from pulling the wool out from under you?
February 27th, 2010 at 3:20 am
Why do you have a problem with taxes?
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February 27th, 2010 at 3:22 am
So long as voters continue to be mindless suckers, none of it will stop. Politicians promise anything you want to hear so you will cooperate with them. They are frauds, embezzlers, and extortionists. If I ever get an army together most will be prosecuted for that.
They sucker us to pay taxes for things like roads, then they steal that money and use it for what they want. Tolls on bridges here were up to two dollars and the tolls were about to drop to around fifty cents since the bridges were almost paid off. The racketeer politicians held an election, among people who don’t use the bridge, for buying fleets of ferries. Then the tolls were raised, not lowered, to pay for that and for nearly empty buses running across the bridges. The toll is now four dollars.
We need to wake up the mindless voters and drag the racketeers out of their offices.
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decades studying philosophies, cultures, and social institutions started because of the confusion resulting after my military experience under the shadow of neo-Marxist propaganda disseminated from universities
February 27th, 2010 at 3:24 am
Replace "Uncle Sam" with Barack Obama, and the answer is "as much as he possibly can." He is going to tax many small businesses straight out of business with this, which will result in even more job loss.
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February 27th, 2010 at 3:26 am
uh oh
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