As the recession deepens, every business is thinking of new ways to cut costs and the IT department’s role is becoming more and more important in this process. A large proportion of annual expenditure goes on ‘maintenance’, but sometimes a more efficient use of internal resources can help reduce this financial drain. It’s time we became a bit more self-sufficient. I’m not suggesting we panic and go back to the ‘make do and mend’ mentality, but sometimes it’s possible to be a bit smarter about how we use what we’ve got.

Modern businesses are entirely reliant on functioning IT equipment, and a fair amount goes out on hardware maintenance contracts. However, rather than pay out for maintenance year after year, it is often significantly cheaper to purchase and hold spare routers, switches and servers, and utilise technically competent in-house staff to swap hardware.  For items which you choose to keep on maintenance this year, a contracts database can be a useful tool to remind you of pending renewals three months in advance, so that every year you have time to reconsider, before automatic renewals kick in.

Careful management of software and communications contracts can also result in significant cost savings. Renting software packages rather than purchasing outright can help create a healthier cash flow and reduce the need for large one-off payments, and companies can also realise cash flow benefits from using software-as-a-service applications.

Additionally, as laptop and mobile technology continues to advance rapidly, remote working is becoming an increasingly attractive option. As the communications industry becomes ever more competitive we should be able to negotiate better contracts every year, with less money for more bandwidth to make this even more viable. To continue to get the best deal, a two-year contract should really be the maximum, preferably with a review against the market built in halfway through.  Costs can also be saved in land-line and mobile phone communications, but the IT department should be responsible for both sides. This avoids any conflict of strategy between land-line and mobile use, and also increases opportunities for the take-up of voice over IP and its inherent cost savings.

Most IT departments will be adopting these or similar, maybe better strategies already.  Perhaps it’s now time for some evangelising to the rest of the business about taking a hard look at recurring expenditure, and ways to cut it down to size without reducing service levels. By clearly aligning its strategies with the financial focus of the business at this time, the IT department can demonstrate that it does understand what’s going on, and can make a positive contribution to the situation.

Over the past few years the growing influence of the generation of ‘digital natives’ has started to impact the way companies use technology. The ‘consumerisation of IT’, as Gartner describes it, is challenging the old established order of centralised development and control.

Whether it’s using instant messaging to communicate with colleagues, suppliers and customers, setting up corporate Wikis to manage internal projects, or trying out advertising concepts on YouTube, the digital natives amongst us are creating a counter-revolution using tools and methods that are often under IT’s radar. It’s not that they’re ever likely to storm the data centre and burn down the servers, but they do have a rebellious tendency to bypass the traditional command and control approach to IT management.

But rather than using baton-wielding IT cops to suppress the insurgency, companies should look to embrace the new ideas and methods born out of Web 2.0.

For example, enhancing productivity through facilitating collaboration has always been a challenging business goal for the IT department. Yet digital natives in their home lives are already part of thriving communities and social networks which are highly efficient channels for sharing and communicating.

Of course it’s not all a one-way street. The proliferation of consumer devices in the workplace and the inherent risk of having unknown assets connecting to the corporate network can create real security breaches. But with the increasing mobilisation of the workforce, the problem of securing moving endpoints needs to be tackled in any case and having a flexible security infrastructure that satisfies both corporate needs and those of gadget junkies will ultimately lead to a better working environment.

So rather than fearing the loss of control which is brought by the consumerisation of IT  we should not be afraid to seek out and  put the best aspects to work for our businesses.