How Businesses Recover From COVID-19....Controlling Costs Part II - Using Managed Services To Optimize Expenses

In part one of this series, we explained how the COVID-19 pandemic is putting tremendous pressure on enterprise decision makers to reduce costs. Unfortunately, this could significantly impact workers, with 67 percent of CFOs considering making cuts to their workforce.

Just how serious is the threat on a global scale? According to the UN, COVID-19 is expected to eliminate 6.7 percent of working hours, or about 195 million jobs worldwide, during 2Q20. This is largely because more than four fifths of global workers live in countries affected by partial or full measures.

As we pointed out our previous post, there are ways that enterprises can reduce costs during this difficult time instead of parting ways with valuable workers. This is something that we will continue to explore over the next several weeks.

One way this can be accomplished is to leverage managed IT services.

Let’s explore.

Managed Services: A Brief Overview

Using managed services involves outsourcing tasks to third party providers. Managed services can provide cost-effective coverage for a range of needs, including daily operational support, computing infrastructure, maintenance, network monitoring, and trouble ticketing. Companies commonly leverage managed services to streamline cloud management, cybersecurity, disaster recovery, virtualization, data storage, and so on.

Using managed services is a great way to increase internal staff production, as it can free IT workers to focus on more impactful projects that can save money or generate revenue instead of spending all of their time — including night and weekends — on low level backend tasks.

At the same time, companies often bring in expert architects to design complex environments and hand off management once completed to thier internal teams. This is a great way to reduce project completion time, while eliminating costly learning curves.

The Benefits of Managed Services

According to one study, for every 100 users, about $400,000 can be saved annually — amounting to several worker salaries. However, savings can vary from company to company.

One easy way to calculate the benefits of managed services is to run a simple cost comparison, analyzing how much money the business typically spends on IT expenses each year, compared to the cost of investing in a managed IT services program.

Managed services can provide a variety of additional benefits for an organization, too:

Support during layoffs: As some companies will experience during the next few months, layoffs can be inevitable, even after large spending cuts. When this happens, managed services can be used to offset employee loss, allowing depleted departments to keep functioning.

SLA-backed agreements: Managed service providers are held in check by the information outlined in their service level agreements (SLAs). By signing an SLA, a company can transfer responsibility for certain processes that carry extra financial risk.

Scalability: IT workers can be very expensive to hire, especially when filling top tier positions. In fact, the average IT decision maker salary is now hovering around $141,024. Outsourcing responsibilities to a managed service provider can help a growing company scale its IT team without breaking the bank.

Security and Compliance: Cybercrime is advancing at a rapid pace, with a variety of sophisticated threats coming to market that are too difficult for the average enterprise to combat on their own. Working with a managed cybersecurity provider is a great way to stay ahead of the technology curve, as it can provide access to advanced systems and safeguards that would be too resource-intensive to bring in-house. Many managed IT suppliers specialize in ensuring their clients are compliant in one or multiple compliance requirements, making it much less of a burden to monitor internally.

Tax benefits: Investing in managed services can also be better for tax purposes. For example, a company may lease computing hardware from a vendor instead of buying it outright. In doing so, the cost of leasing can be classified daily OPEX instead of CAPEX — allowing the company to deduct expenses and reduce income tax.

FreedomFire Communications offers a robust portfolio of managed services from leading providers such as CenturyLink, AT&T, and Verizon, as well as smaller organizations with niche offerings.

For more information about FreedomFire Communications’ managed services portfolio....and to take advantage of all the options available to your company.... simply tell us what you need at the link below.

Managed Services

How Businesses Recover From COVID-19....Controlling Costs Part I - Reduce Spending And Maximize Productivity

We are now almost three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, with no clear end in sight. As talks of re-starting the economy take root, global executives will begin feeling the pressure to reduce costs to help keep their companies afloat.

According to PwC, managing the financial impacts of COVID-19 —including operations, future periods, liquidity, and capital resources— are the main concern for 75 percent of CFOs. Executives across the board are growing increasingly concerned about a global recession, reduced workforce productivity, reduced consumer confidence, and supply chain disruptions.

“There is little doubt that the US economy has downshifted into recession after a month of a partial shutdown,” explained PwC in their recent COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey. “Economists are revising forecasts for second-quarter US GDP, with projections from the Conference Board for a contraction in the US economy in 2020 between 3.6% and 7.4%.”

Seventy-four percent of respondents in PwC’s study said they are prepared for a potentially “significant” impact on productivity. And 39 percent claimed that if COVID-19 were to end immediately, it would take one to three months for their company to get back to business as usual.

How are CFOs Responding to COVID-19? 

Sixty-seven percent of CFOs said they are considering canceling planned investments due to COVID-19. Executives anticipate having to make cuts to facilities and general capital expenditures (82 percent), their workforce (67 percent), and operations (55 percent).

What’s more, 53 percent of CFOs claimed that IT investments are in the crosshairs, while 25 percent are looking to reduce or eliminate digital transformation. And 15 percent are considering reducing customer experience spend. Just 2 percent are looking to reduce cybersecurity spend.

Much of this is alarming, especially when considering the overall impact that COVID-19 could have on the global workforce in the coming months. Altogether, roughly 20 million American workers could be laid off or furloughed by July. And in Europe, at least 60 million jobs are at risk —presenting an unprecedented employment crisis.

To put things in perspective, about 13 million Americans were unemployed at the height of the Great Depression in 1933.

Tips for Reducing Technology Costs

The unfortunate reality is that many hard-working people will become laid off or furloughed in the coming months due to COVID-19. In some cases, this will be unavoidable.

CFOs need to understand, though, that it is possible to reduce technology expenses significantly, while maintaining — and even improving —operational stability. Doing so could free more capital to spend on workers, protecting jobs, and to prevent the need to part ways with top talent.

This is where it pays for companies to have access to an independent technology consultant. With the help of a Master Agent like FreedomFire Communications, consultants can identify possible areas of waste and strategically re-allocate funding. FreedomFire Communications can provide access to a variety of key suppliers and technologies to help with this process. Protecting these budgets will determine how companies spend these resources and ensure the best outcome for all involved.

Here are some recommendations that companies should consider during this tough time, and how FreedomFire Communications can help:

Leverage Telecom Expense Management (TEM)

Businesses have a rat’s nest of bills ranging from network, phone, mobile, and everything in between. With complex, cryptic, and hard-to-understand bills, businesses often spend far too much money each month on unnecessary telecom expenses that can be reduced or, in some cases, eliminated. It can be challenging for CFOs to adjust plans and eliminate certain technologies, though, due to limited visibility or insight.

FreedomFire Communications has several suppliers that can help. We have access to TEM experts that can help a company get its digital infrastructure ‘house’ in order by assisting them in identifying waste and prioritizing what they need to be using — making it easier to slash costs.

Throttle Employee Mobile Data for Non-Business Applications

Company-provided mobile phone and data plans are easy targets for finding savings. Data overages make up, on average, over 35 percent of a business’ mobile bill. You can fix this by either modifying the plan to accommodate the higher data utilization, or you can try asking employees to minimize their data consumption. Add to the problem a complete lack of billing transparency (you can’t tell if an employee is using their data on work-related activities or giving their phone to a child who is watching hours of Netflix and YouTube on the company’s tab).

One of the best ways to prevent employees from blowing through their data limits is to deploy CyberReef solutions, a back-end firewall and traffic-shaping service that deploys directly into the mobile provider’s network, giving insight to application use and allowing the company the ability to limit application use to avoid expensive overage penalties without any physical changes to phones or SIM cards. Another FreedomFire Communications provider, VMOX, can provide incredible savings through the management of mobility plan selection, in-depth tracking, and analysis of the overall corporate mobility environment.

Migrate to SD-WAN Where Possible

Far too many companies are still using old, slow, and expensive MPLS connections that limit speed to guarantee quality. SD-WAN can help companies leverage inexpensive and FAST broadband connections to emulate MPLS quality, with massive increases in speed. It accomplishes this by controlling and strategically allocating network resources, for peak performance and maximum cost savings, across an entire global network. In many instances, it could make sense to replace expiring MPLS contracts that companies have with the large telcos with cutting-edge SD-WAN deployments. AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Comcast all have strong SD-WAN offerings that existing and new customers can switch legacy environments to.

In addition, FreedomFire Communications offers global SD-WAN through leading providers such as Aryaka, Cato Networks Claro Enterprise Solutions, China Mobile, Expereo, Mosiac NetworX, Open Systems, and IX Reach. High-quality domestic SD-WAN is available from Versa, Bigleaf, Ecessa, SimpleWAN, and CloudGenix (who was recently acquired by Palo Alto). CloudGenix, it should be noted, also offers a revolutionary product called AppFabric, which allows companies to implement any WAN into a branch office, including broadband, MPLS, cellular, or internet. With the help of CloudGenix, companies can redesign their digital edge and ditch their expensive point-to-point connections.

Consider Upgrading Low Throughput 4G/LTE Internet Plans

We’re also noticing that enterprises are relying on low throughput metered internet connections which also have prohibitively low data limits. If these circuits are ever used outside of a data backup scenario, the overages quickly add up. This problem can be easily eliminated with FreedomFire Communications’ portfolio of wireless 4G internet providers who now offer more gigs of data than ever before. One new FreedomFire Communications provider, For2Fi, recently announced a 300 GB usage plan for $199.

Revisit SIP

For enterprise customers that still insist on running on-premise PBX systems, it’s time to pull out that last bill. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunk pricing has substantially decreased in recent years, providing another easy target for cost-savings.

Explore Mid-Term Renewal

Another way to save money is to lock in today’s rates and by committing to a longer-term with a telecom provider. This is called mid-term renewal, and it’s a strategy that companies tend to overlook because they aren’t aware that it’s possible.

FreedomFire Communications can help negotiate telecom rates, positioning customers for long term financial savings on essential services.

Managed Services

Across the board, IT departments are overworked and exhausted right now — working nights and weekends to keep employees up and running on remote networks. COVID-19 has been a nightmare for IT workers. Yet, most companies can’t afford to hire more full-time IT workers due to the current economic climate.

One approach is to keep a small core of IT workers and augment the IT department with help from third-party managed service providers. Managed services can be used for everything from helpdesk support to network security to WAN management. This is a flexible, affordable, and scalable approach to IT support. FreedomFire Communications offers a wide range of managed services from a robust portfolio of providers such as Synoptek, Magna5, Quest Technology Management, Netrio and Splice.

Save valuable resource time and effectiveness by outsourcing your circuit monitoring. This service allows you to keep IT resources focused on their projects that move your business rather than making sure circuits perform.

Re-think Maintenance Agreements

Telecom maintenance agreements typically arise once every few years. And while they’re necessary for system stability and performance, they’re also costly —and companies tend to pay far too much.

It’s possible to reduce maintenance costs by working with third-party providers like CentricsIT , a FreedomFire Communications supplier that offers physical maintenance at a reduced price.

Deploy Automated Assistants

As we mentioned, CFOs are looking to reduce CX spend to save money. However, this can be risky. Customers still expect reliable service, even during challenging times. The demand for seamless service hasn’t gone away —and certain technologies can boost CX while allowing companies to re-allocate staff members to tackle more pressing needs.

Tasks like answering phones, for instance, can now be automated using virtual receptionists. This is something that FreedomFire Communications supplier Ruby offers. Automated assistants don’t come with any salary or benefits and are available to provide 24/7 customer support.

Explore the IoT

It may seem hard to justify spending money on new connected technologies right now. However, certain IoT solutions can prove to make a big difference in reducing operational costs, especially when deployed on a large scale. For example, a restaurant chain may use connected sensors to monitor and control refrigerator temperatures across all its locations — reducing the need for costly manual inspections.

IoT costs have also fallen in recent years, and connected technologies are now very accessible to businesses of all sizes and budgets. Making a small technology investment now could produce financial savings over time.

Be Innovative

It’s normal during times like these to be conservative. To protect spend and budgets and that is absolutely the right emotion; however professionals that take this catalyst to find new and creative ways to accomplish critical tasks, saving money doing so, and enable their companies to take advantage of new technologies to make them more competitive will have powerful advantages over their competitors that attempt to survive the status quo.

Let’s Get Started

As you can see, there are countless ways for the average to reduce expenses across the enterprise—and we’re here to help.

By re-thinking where your technology dollars are going, you can improve your operations and potentially prevent having to lay off valuable workers. To learn more about all the options discussed in this article....and MUCH more....simply ask at the link below and tell us what you need.

FreedomFire Communications