​If you're staying current with the latest issues keeping CIOs up at night, you'll know that increasing efficiencies and productivity continues to claim the number one spot. A recent article in CIO Magazine, however, cites the results of an Evanta survey, noting an increased focus on the use of technology to help reduce costs. This focus puts even more pressure on IT managers to work even harder to identify tools to help them cut costs, while boosting productivity. Not an easy task made even more frustrating by the impact of things beyond their control such as the prospect of a recession.

Aamer Baig, senior partner at McKinsey & Company notes in the article that, "There's a renewed effort to look at IT costs and think about rebalancing costs in case demand falls. Six months ago, most CIOs and CFOs were thinking about growth and how to meet demand. There are some companies that are still dealing with that, but now there are others who are immensely worried about demand cycles. As a result, that checkbook has gotten smaller, and it might get even smaller; budgets might be shrinking."

One tool that has a proven track record of saving money is "Technology Expense Management" or TEM. TEM has been around for several years. But it has continued to evolve to meet today's needs.

The basics of TEM are simple, but powerful:

While we can't speak for all TEMs, we can say that our WinBill® TEM is known to save companies up to hundreds of thousands of dollars on their annual IT/telecom spend each year.

IT managers should be using a TEM to do all of this at a minimum. An even better idea is to also schedule an annual audit of your network, inventory and service providers. Here is where even more savings can be found. Today's TEMs, such as our WinBill®, easily fit into any IT environment and can be used through the cloud or as an onsite solution. Either way, you are getting a centralized database of all bills and service contracts, replacing those cumbersome spreadsheets and home-grown solutions that have to be maintained manually. Contact us to learn more about finding better ways to save money for your department and organization. We're here to help!