Business is open. Business is closed. Business is open again. Most businesses are suffering from whiplash as they navigate the Covid-19 crisis. When times were good, growth was king. Now survival is key and a major element of business survival is cost control. Here are some things you can do immediately to curb expenditures while still being operational.
Are You Paying For Things You Aren’t Using?it seems obvious that nobody would pay for something they don’t use, yet both consumers and businesses are guilty of just that.
Get your phone bill and some pens and highlighters. Now go through it line by line. Consider yourself an old time prospector looking for gold. That gold is in the form of expenses that don’t provide value.
Are you currently using every line that comes into your business? How about lines to buildings that were offices and are now storage? Fax lines not connected to fax machines anymore? Old burglar alarm lines or extension phones? Old data lines that aren’t being fed by anything anymore?
What about mobile phones? Each phone should be currently used by an employee. Are there leftovers from departed employees that haven’t been reassigned? What about features that nobody is using?
Every line, every feature, every device should be assigned and preferably be in-use. Now, get on the phone with your carrier and delete everything not being used.
The same goes for equipment rentals. If you are not using it, send it back and stop the bleeding. When things pick up, reacquire the resources you need then.
While you were doing your survey, I’ll bet you found a bunch of equipment squirreled here and there. Routers, switches, PCs, phones, adaptors, and even boxes full of software. Have someone who is not otherwise engaged look into selling this stuff on e-bay. True, some has little value and should be just recycled. Sell anything that is worth the time and shipping cost to unload. This could turn into a cash cow and justify an ongoing job assignment.
Pay Less For The Same Value
I feel pretty safe in saying that you are paying more than you have to for your telecom lines. That’s because deregulation and new competition have driven down the cost of bandwidth year over year. You may be finishing a 3 year contract or be paying month to month on an expired contract. There’s high value-added in figuring out how many lines of what performance you need and getting a new competitive price quote .
T1 lines are still popular, but they cost a fraction of what they did a decade ago. Same lines, much lower prices. The fiber optic services from DS3 (45 Mbps) and OCx to 10 Gbps and more are largely being replaced with Carrier Ethernet. It’s more compatible with today’s equipment, bandwidth is scalable, and costs are much, much lower. Fiber is king these days, but there is also Ethernet over Copper and wireless services. MPLS networks are a better deal than multiple point to point lines. SD-WAN is replacing MPLS for even greater savings.
How do you sort all of this out? You need to work with a good master agency like Telarus that has relationships with dozens and dozens of suppliers. A knowledgeable agent will get you multiple quotes and help you decide on the best options for your situation.
Don’t Invest, Pay As You Go
You’ve heard that the cloud is taking over everything. Well, there’s a good reason for that. We’re past the time when every company needs to maintain telecom rooms and server rooms. All of that goes bye-bye to the cloud, which is nothing more than one giant data center with full time staff to maintain everything. You concentrate on your business and they take care of the constantly changing infrastructure. Cloud centers can also provide cybersecurity and stay on top of evolving threats? Do you really want to be saddled with that?
Moving to the cloud does two things for you. It avoids capital expense (capex) and allows you to pay as you go (opex). Paying as you go these days can be really helpful because you can scale both up and down rapidly as business goes on a rollercoaster.
Don’t forget to consider bandwidth that can also be easily scaled both up and down. If you get a fiber optic service with a GigE or 10GigE port, you can run any bandwidth level you like and pay for just that. Some services even let you upgrade and downgrade online instantly. It’s a far cry from the old days of nailed-up telco circuits.
Are you busy adjusting to the new normal and concerned that you may not be able to afford your ongoing business costs? Don’t let networking and telecom drag you down. Get competitive quotes and expert advice now and reduce your costs ASAP.
