September 30, 2014 | Charley Powell | Vice President Sales – West
How many times have you been in a position where you have been asked to cut another 5 or 10% out of your IT budget? This can happen before the budget year starts, or at any time your company goes through a quarterly adjustment to the business plan. We have all been there, and unfortunately the easy decision is usually reduced headcount. Letting go of a key resource can cause ill will, distrust, and possible defection from the rest of the team, which is never an enviable position.
In a recent on-boarding meeting, a new customer mentioned that one of the results of their decision to move to third-party support was the ability to save several jobs. While cost savings is certainly a benefit to the customer, whether they are under financial duress or want to redirect budget to other areas, we tend to undervalue the retention of proven resources.
Although replacing SAP or Oracle software maintenance can make perfect business sense, there is often an assumption that jobs will be lost as a result. However, in many cases, jobs are actually saved through the significant savings realized from third-party maintenance. Sometimes roles are added or redeployed to focus on more strategic areas of the organization.
IT cost cutting doesn’t always equate to IT job cutting.
