Turning Your Unused End-of-Year IT Budget into a Strategic Advantage

Do you know what one of the most frustrating budgetary issues you run into is? One I’ve heard about quite a bit is the rush to spend every allocated cent in the IT budget before these funds are redistributed to other departments.

While the instinct is understandable, we want to reinforce that you should never make IT purchases solely to meet a spending benchmark. Instead, all invested funds should be directed so that you see returns.

When we work with businesses in Oklahoma City, our priority is to look ahead and use any remaining budget to stretch an organization’s capabilities to the maximum. Here’s how:

Smart Investments a Small/Medium-Sized Business Should Make

The distinction between investments and expenses is important. While your expenses provide a single unit of value in exchange for your hard-earned capital, an investment continues to deliver value over time and ultimately generates ROI. As such, you want as much of your IT spending to serve as an investment as possible.

Fortunately, there are quite a few investments that can prove particularly beneficial to your business, such as…

Improving Security Protections

It can be hard to see the value of security precautions because their primary benefit is often invisible: they prevent larger issues from arising in the first place. A few such precautions include the likes of:

• Implementing MFA (multi-factor authentication) wherever possible.
• Utilizing EDR (endpoint detection and response).
• Leaning on consultants for penetration testing and other objectives.

The enhanced security these safeguards provide is well worth the investment… especially since many of them are requirements for various compliance obligations, which will help prevent you from being fined by regulatory bodies.

Team Training

To maintain operational security, your team members must be taught not to be a vulnerability, but instead serve as another layer of defense. This has to be addressed proactively, so make sure you prioritize training them regularly. Tools like phishing simulations and other random checks can help ensure your team is on the ball while alerting you to any security gaps in a controlled manner.

Planning Ahead for the Future

If you reach the end of the fiscal year with spare funds left over, these should all be dedicated to any upgrades you intend to implement in Q1. This early action helps you lock in prices and diminish the impact these improvements will have on your budget over the next year, allowing you to improve without making undue sacrifices.

What Can You Upgrade to Boost Your Business?

There are a few simple things you can do, in terms of the tools and services you invest in, that are worth your investment. For instance:

You can boost your business management. Tools for centralized monitoring, asset tracking, and documenting your IT can all help streamline your operations over the following year.

You can catch up on data hygiene maintenance. It’s essential to keep your business’ data well organized and relevant to your operational needs, so it will likely be worth investing in some services that would otherwise be pushed off. These could include cloud migration services or a data cleanup project.

We’re Here to Help

One of the most effective ways to ensure your budget goes to good use is to enlist the services of a trustworthy team of professional IT experts, like the one we have here at Aspire Business Solutions. The time to plan these investments is here, so reach out to us to find out the path we’d have you take. Give us a call at (405) 494-0828 today!