Each year as EOFY approaches, I, and other CEO’s, CFO’s and department heads alike, will revisit unspent IT budget to determine what’s remaining and how we can most effectively spend it. For IT departments with potentially tens of thousands to invest, this time of the year means our team are highly sought after by customers on the hunt for budget-fitting last-minute initiatives.
In respective to this FY24, I can tell you that the following questions are what Azured, and our customers alike, will be answering to make sure every dollar of remaining IT budget delivers maximum ROI.
1. What small business problems can IT resolve outside of the IT department?
One of the first places to cast an eye over are problems in the broader team. You’re looking for a small problem to tease out that a targeted project could resolve. This is a great way to build future sponsors from within the business as most departments outside of IT won’t be aware of the skillset that IT can bring to bear on a problem. Perhaps it’s a friendly chat with finance to understand what urks them, then aiming at an issue that falls within the sweet spot in the ven diagram of “something small enough IT can quickly solve”, and “something that will make a meaningful impact in finance’s life”.
By focusing on these key problems across the business, we get the satisfaction of having done something proactive that leaves the business in a better state than we found it. It could even result in winning over a key stakeholder to support a future initiative or simply be more open to asking for IT’s help. Often, it’s a knowledge gap that keeps people from approaching IT – other departments don’t know what we can do.
2. What other IT solutions are available for my current (or near-future) problem?
The next might be a focus on something topical for this year. In previous years, conserving funds for an unknown pandemic future was important. This year, with Broadcom’s purchase of VMware and the subsequent absurd pricing decisions that followed, many on-premises VMware customers are left unsettled and disgruntled.
If I was forced to decide between which initiative to allocate my remaining budget dollars AND I was one of the unfortunate few blessed with a heavy reliance on VMware virtualisation, this would be my focus. I would explore simple VMware alternatives such as Azure VMware Solution, migrating to another IaaS platform (such as Azure), standing up a Hyper-V cluster or migrating to a private cloud alternative. Moving IaaS is relatively straight forward so you are spoilt for choice in terms of destination.
In general, it’s a key time to assess other likely solutions to anticipated problems. As a long-time cloud specialist, I wouldn’t be doing an exhaustive style assessment. Most of the time organisations have a reasonable view of where they’re likely to land with their next migration or technology choice whether it be due to in-house skills, a close alignment with a vendor (such as Microsoft) or simply deep-seated relationships in the industry.
Therefore, there’s no point pretending to be objective if you can pick the destination from the start. Skip to the end, make the choice you were always going to make. You’ll then want to invest some budget in putting together a Proof of Concept (PoC) if you’re unsure whether your workloads are suitable in the new environment or a migration assessment if you simply want an understanding of what your costs are likely to be.
3. What does Artificial Intelligence (AI) mean for my business?
A third safe area to explore would be understanding “what this AI thing means for your business”. Whilst there may not be a transformative AI-shaped silver bullet, there are some useful industry or business-specific use cases that will grant most businesses some reasonable efficiency gains (in the vicinity of 10-15%) for a small outlay.
I’ll be the first to admit that IT is prone to falling for the “next big thing”. Be it “VDI will solve all your desktop problems! (rather than shoving your costs into the Datacentre)” or hyperventilating over technology (how’s that “land” you purchased in Meta going lads?) and just outright scams (95% of NFTs).
However, AI has such dramatic ramifications that avoiding it simply isn’t a viable strategy. Even if 10% of the promise of AI is true, every business stands to gain significantly through a considered adoption of AI. Simply from a balance of probabilities, some action needs to be taken to ensure your business isn’t left behind.
For some organisations, this first step into AI could take the form of data governance and security engagements centered around Purview. For others, it may be a PoC targeting deployment of OpenAI private models in Azure, providing new and novel ways of engaging with HR documentation. It may even be as simple as gaining a more complete understanding of the current state of your environment and the challenges you may face in integrating AI. Either way, a step towards harnessing the potential of AI for your business is a pragmatic and reasonable one.
The beauty of all the above is that it can be done cost-effectively with small budgets whilst addressing some of the largest challenges – and all without losing sight of the smaller battles that exist within your environment. Ultimately, my message is simple; never underestimate the power of a little left-over budget in advancing your IT strategy.
If you would like to discuss how to maximise your investment in Microsoft with The Azured Team before EOFY, feel free to book in a discovery call here.
