It’s the 4th Quarter and you know what that means, it’s budgeting season and time to create an effective IT budget! Whether you’re in the private or public sector, non-profit or for, budgets are an essential part of annual planning. Emerging trends such as AI and cybersecurity can be hard to keep up with, let alone tie a cost to. Here are a few things to consider when putting your IT budget together.
Creating an Effective IT Budget enables Scalability
Work closely with all departments to understand the growth objectives in the year ahead. Consider all the associated costs that go along with adding new team members. Think beyond the cost of a new computer. Make sure you consider software and licensing, cloud services, bandwidth demand, and increased burden on your IT team or IT partner if you outsource. If you manage IT internally, understand where your threshold is for adding additional IT staff to support your team.
Accounting & Finance Objectives
IT budgets often include pricy technology upgrades. The Accounting and Finance teams will want to have input on how these upgrades are procured and booked. Depending on cash strategies, you may opt to pay cash for such upgrades or find a partner that can lease or finance the purchases. From an accounting perspective, decisions will be made on expensing certain items or putting them into the Capital Expenditure (CapEx) budgets.
Consider Outsourcing
Building a solid IT team can be expensive. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median IT job is more than double the median wage of all occupations[1]. For a growing workplace, it could make financial sense to consider outsourcing to a Managed Services provider. This allows you to retain expert support, without the investment and commitment to adding personnel.