Understanding how your business is spending money is essential if you want to be able to save money. In our previous blog post, we discussed how important it is to review both OPEX and CAPEX costs. Now we will go over the importance of reviewing discretionary and non-discretionary costs. Both discretionary and non-discretionary costs are vital to look over if you wish to help your company save money. Furthermore, understand how your company spends these expenditures will help your business in the future as well. Discretionary and Non-discretionary Costs When it comes to saving money, it is important that you review all expenditures your business has. Usually, discretionary costs are the first ones to get cut, however, we encourage you to dig deeper when cutting costs. Looking at non-discretionary costs, such as infrastructure. Looking towards usage, service, and consumption levels is vital to making sure you are able to save money and cut spending on your IT department. Therefore, when cutting costs, make sure you inspect all your expenditures. It is vital to leave no stone unturned if you wish to truly cut costs. However, we understand that this can be quite difficult at times. Especially if you are unsure as to what is vital to the department on not. How Hammett Technologies Can Help We understand the difficulties many business owners face when dealing with their IT departments. It can be extremely difficult to determine where to cut costs and what to leave alone. However, with our help, you will never have to worry about that again. Hammett Technologies works with you to make sure you never have to worry about whether or not your business is wasting money on non-important items. Hammett Technologies walks with you to ensure that you understand all the ins and outs of how we are building your IT department.
When it comes to saving money, it is important that you focus your attention on the right areas. Last time, we spoke about how taking a holistic approach, covering both operational and capital expenditures were essential to making sure your business is efficiently saving money. However, at times, it can be difficult to decide where one’s attention should be focused when downsizing. Focusing on Rapid – Reductions Rapid reduction implies the idea of rapidly reducing the spending and cost of your IT department. In order to do this, one must refocus their attention away from already spent money. Instead, focus your attention towards areas that can be immediately downsized, such as hardware or software licenses. Downsizing hardware and software can result in immediate savings, allowing your company more breathing room. However, while it is important to focus on rapid reductions areas, this does not mean to ignore sunk costs completely. As we said earlier, taking a holistic approach to saving money is the best course of action. When reviewing the IT department, do not leave any stone unturned and review all possible avenues to save money. Therefore, even those the money has already been spent, ensure that you still review these sunk costs, inspecting them for possible termination in the future. Hammett Technologies Helps Your Business Reduce and Reuse Hammett Technologies understand how to help your business save money. We reuse your old hardware, upgrading and fixing issues to bring them up to date. We review and revise how we work with your company, ensuring you know exactly what you are paying for, and work with you to make sure you get the most cost-efficient payment plans. Through this, we strive to ensure that your company is able to stay up to date and secure, without breaking the bank.
Hammett Technologies is quite familiar when it comes to uncovering hidden fees and costs in contracts with third parties. We have, on multiple occasions, been brought in to assist a company whose IT department was failing them, leading us to discover that their previous IT department was poorly managing their security, hardware, and software. Therefore, it is important that, after hiring any outside sources, you regularly review the contract you have with them. You may uncover that they are not living up to their promises, something Hammett Technologies finds deplorable. Targeting and Reviewing Contracts When it comes to saving money, businesses must keep a close eye on contracts they have with third parties. If you are the owner of the company or department, consider investigating and renegotiating current contracts your business has. Doing so may lead you to uncover hidden charges or fees or may lead you to finding out you no longer require their services. It is important, especially today, to keep track of every dollar that is spent by your company. During unprecedented times, ensuring your company is able to save money where it can be vital to surviving as a business. Therefore, when it comes to saving money, we recommend reviewing contracts for renegotiation or possible termination. This is where you can expect to save the largest sums of money for your company. How Hammett Technologies Can Help By choosing Hammett Technologies as your IT department and business partner, you are ensuring your business is able to save money and remain secure digitally. Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to provide cutting-edge, professional IT support without hurting your business economically. We review out contracts with your company on a quarterly basis to ensure that you are kept in loop regarding how we are interacting with your business. Through our upfront, honest behavior, to our professional team who are determined to help your business with all its IT needs, Hammett Technologies is a partner you can trust.
Hammett Technologies understands how important it is for businesses to save money, especially during a global pandemic. Remember that when it comes to cutting costs, it is vital to remove expenses that will not only permanently bring down the company expenses, but also ensure money is being saved. Hammett Technologies hopes to be able to, as a partner to your company and as a reliable source of information, guide you and your business on the road to saving money when it comes to your cybersecurity, efficiency, and accessibility. Cash Reigns Saving money and cutting costs can be difficult. It is hard to find areas where you can remove expenditures from your company without compromising departments and their ability to provide services to your company and your customers. However, in order to ensure that your company is able to save money where it can, it is necessary to remove expenses that are either no longer needed or seem unnecessary. While most businesses focus on removing hardware expenses, when it comes to cutting costs around the IT department, focus your attention to software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IasS). SaaS and IasS are expected to grow 17% in the coming year, up from 227.8$ billion in 2019, according to Gartner. Therefore, if you are expecting to make a dent in your business’s expenses and begin to cut costs. How Hammett Technologies can Help When it comes to saving money, Hammett Technologies is the king. We understand how expensive it is to run a business, and on top of that, run an IT department. Therefore, with both business experience and IT experience, we perfectly grasp how much it takes to run a secure, efficient, and accessible IT department. We never cut corners but always ensure that your company never feels a heavy hit when the bill comes. Hammett Technologies ensures that your company’s IT department runs smoothly, discussing and explaining every potential purchase with you to make sure that you fully understand and know you are not wasting money.
As an MSP, Hammett Technologies understands how important it is to save money without degrading the quality of service. However, when it comes to saving money, businesses often aim to “freeze” current subscriptions for a short while, going without services for a short time in order to save money. What is often overlooked is that this is a short-term money-saving strategy and will ultimately do nothing to help your business. Instead of “freezing” assets, look for areas in your IT department that can be reduced and cut back on permanently. Similar to our last post discussing how your business should target immediate impact areas, it is important to assess the importance of anything you are “reducing” from your business. Don’t Freeze, Reduce When it comes to saving money, it can be easy to cut back on some subscriptions and licenses that are not immediately necessary. However, this tactic often overlooks that that money-saving strategy only solves your business’s monetary concerns for a short time. You are not removing those subscriptions from your docket, rather you are “freezing” them. This means that, unless you are able to increase your business’s monetary income substantially, by the time it comes to renew those subscriptions and licenses, your business will be seeing red again. Hammett Technologies recommends that you begin to look for areas in your IT department that can be reduced and removed completely. This strategy, while more difficult, will result in your business being better able to track its profits and losses without worrying about “frozen items”. We understand that it can be difficult to track down and eliminate areas your IT department may not need any longer, but in order to ensure the safety of your business and those who are working for you, you must be able and willing to reduce, not only freeze assets. A Business Partner You Can Trust Ensuring that your business can stay afloat through pandemics, economic crises, and other serious situations is not only important to you, the business owner but to Hammett Technologies as well. As a family-owned, self-started business, we understand the lows and highs of the business world. We want your business to succeed, and we believe that by following these tips, it will not only succeed but thrive.
Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to offer businesses a cost-effective way to manage their IT department. Each of our technicians are trained professional who managed, assist, and guide you and your business on ways to increase security, functionality, and efficiency, without breaking the bank. We wanted to share with our readers ways that you can help your business cut down on IT costs. Over the next few weeks, will we outline ten (10) useful tips that will help you save money, without degrading the quality of the IT Department. Target Immediate Impact When it comes to cutting costs and saving money, the first thing CIOs should look for is unnecessary costs and subscriptions. It is relatively easy for businesses to overlook these small subscriptions, some of which may only come in at $100+ a month. However, when there are multiple subscriptions, the costs can be staggering, often without one realizing. Therefore, your first step to cutting down costs of your IT department should be to look for subscriptions or quarterly licenses that are no longer needed. While doing this it is important to not go overboard. If the removal of said subscription or license could result in weaker security or possible corruption of data, do not, under any circumstance, remove those programs from your expenses. If information were to become corrupted or stolen, the cost of having the data restored or dealing with the fallout of a lawsuit is far more expensive than keeping the software in the first place. Why Hammett Technologies Hammett Technologies prides itself on its ability to maintain a healthy, state-of-the-art, IT Department without cutting corners and without breaking your business’s bank. We ensure that your company is only spending what it needs to spend for its IT Department, with no hidden costs and complete transparency. We break down every payment and all your options so that you, not only know what you are paying for but also understand how it will impact and improve your business. Hammett Technologies is a team of dedicated individuals that want to help you, and your business, grow and thrive.
Picking the best version of Office for your business can be overwhelming. Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) and Office 2019 offer pros and cons that can difficult to see when browsing on Microsoft’s website. The plans offered by Microsoft 365 can also be overwhelming to look at if you do not entirely understand all the features that come with it. Let’s dive deeper into what each package offers so that you can make the most accurate decision! Microsoft 365: Business Standard Hands down the best option if your business needs access to all the applications Microsoft has to offer. Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based subscription service, with yearly or monthly renewal times. Microsoft also pushes continual updates to all the applications on Office 365, ensuring you have the latest, fastest, and most secure builds of Office applications, at all times. If you encounter issues with any updates or applications, Office 365 comes equipped with Customer Support features to assist. For businesses, Microsoft365 comes equipped with features such as: Teams (cloud-based chat platform for your company) Exchange (email) One Drive (cloud-based storage) SharePoint (similar to one-drive but offers more in-depth customization) Many of these applications are must-haves for businesses, but these added features come with a price. While the Microsoft 365 subscription begins with a $5/month fee, this package only comes with access to Teams, Exchange, One Drive, and SharePoint. For full access to all application (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Access, etc.) Microsoft 365 requires a monthly payment of $12.50. It is important to note that while Microsoft 365 does offer support for Windows and Mac OS, Access and Publisher are PC applications only. If you are a Mac user, you will have to resort to these applications’ web versions, if needed. However, with so many applications built into Microsoft 365, there is the likely-hood that you may wind up paying for features you never use. There is also the possibility that Microsoft’s services may be down at some point, possibly preventing specific applications from functioning correctly. Microsoft 365: Business Premium For businesses that need more security and management opportunities for their workflow, Business Premium may be the option for you. This plan comes with all the features of Business Standard, but also includes: Intune – A program that allows for mobile device management, giving you the ability to decide how your businesses’ mobile devices (tablets, laptops, phones) are used. Azure Information Protection – A program that assists in protecting sensitive information such as emails and files. This process can be defined using labels and handled automatically, manually, or a mixture of the two. Benefits and Drawbacks from Microsoft 365 Business vs. Microsoft 365 Home vs. Office 2019 When choosing the best version of Office for your company, it is essential to weigh all your options. Microsoft 365 Business has multiple great programs that any business can stand to benefit from having. Its multiple plans allow companies to make informed decisions on what they want and gives them the ability to upgrade or downgrade. Furthermore, the business applications (Teams, One Drive, Exchange, and SharePoint) offer businesses with more in-depth customization options and a chat platform. Microsoft365 Family may look promising to some companies that are looking for a cheaper option. Microsoft 365 Family may be best for smaller businesses that do not need access to Teams or have their storage solutions. Office 365 Family comes equipped with all the base application Microsoft 365 Business Standard has (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, OneNote, Outlook, and Publisher). However, as stated, it leaves out Teams, OneDrive, Exchange, and SharePoint. Possibly the biggest, and only, advantage Office 365 Family has is the pricing, allowing for six (6) individual users under the same license. Microsoft 2019 is another great platform, but only for companies that are just starting. The primary reason is pricing differences. Microsoft 2019 costs one payment of $150, giving access to the most popular apps (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook). However, that is about where the benefits end. Office 2019 is not regularly updated with patches and bug fixes; instead, only security updates are pushed out. Confused? If you are feeling overwhelmed or confused, don’t fret. We know this is a lot of information to take in and try to grasp. If you are worried you are not making the right purchase, consider giving us a call or sending us an email! Hammett Technologies is here to help with any and all your technological needs, no matter how big or small they may be.
When you get a bill in the mail, many of us think little of it and pay the amount due without reading too much into it. However, scammers do not only exist virtually, but they also claim victims in reality. Whenever you are asked to send money or pay something, you must read carefully, and if anything suspicious sticks out, you must use extreme caution. Consider calling the company that is listed on the letter or email to confirm the bill is legitimate and avoid being scammed. For example, take this fake I.R.S bill: Scammers will attempt to steal your money any way they can, but there are usually ways to tell the real letters from the fakes. Pay close attention to the wording used and if something causes concerns, call the company who issues you the mail immediately. It has been said that the I.R.S will never call or email to obtain money, but it will send letters. Until recently, this method has worked to avoid scammers for the most part. Obviously this has now changed, and scammers have begun sending fake correspondence demanding money from people. It is easy for I.R.S employees to spot the differences in the letters being sent, but for the average individual, it is not. Therefore, consider reading the I.R.S’s post about how to avoid scams! They outline several helpful tips that will help prevent you from becoming a victim!