Home › Unternehmen ›
Reduce Costs - Manage Your Client Base for Maximum Value
Seite drucken
Companies around the world are looking more closely at the potential value that technology can deliver — both to their customers and to their employees. And as companies begin to "unwire their business," they're realizing the cost-savings and productivity benefits of replacing aging desktop PCs with wireless notebook PCs based on Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology. Despite these benefits, many companies continue to scrutinize their IT spending, seeking additional opportunities to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) within their computing environment. Companies are making smarter IT purchasing decisions that enhance security and increase end-user and organizational productivity — two key elements that contribute to increased revenues, decreased costs, and overall marketplace success.

How Can Spending Money on Technology Save Money?

The evidence is overwhelming — cutting critical IT spending to save money doesn't work because above all, IT is a value center, not a cost center. Cutting IT costs must always take place within a framework that emphasizes delivering value to the business. Skipping a PC refresh cycle or two does delay the initial cost of purchase. But eventually those costs catch up in the form of increased system downtime and IT support costs, and decreased end-user productivity. Moreover, the purchase price of a new PC accounts for only 20 to 30 percent of the total cost of owning that PC.◊ And support costs rise substantially for older systems, driving up the operational expenses that comprise most of the other 70 to 80 percent of total costs.** This is why simply delaying PC acquisitions rarely has the desired effect of reducing TCO.

Three Ways to Reduce Costs

Reducing costs in your computing environment is dependent on many factors, such as following a long-term IT strategy, implementing established IT processes, and staffing the right personnel to implement and deploy your corporate IT plan effectively. Here are three proven ways to keep IT expenditures under control:

  • Limit the Number of Hardware Configurations and Software Images in Your Environment. Take advantage of the Intel® Stable Image Platform Program to deploy more stable configurations and maintain consistent software images for a full 12 months. This reduces platform diversity and volatility and can lower qualification and support costs. Recommended configurations also target enterprise needs for performance, manageability and security, providing strong support for industry-standard tools and technologies.
  • Plan and Implement a Regular PC Replacement Program. Adhering to a regular PC refresh cycle is one of the surest ways a company can proactively manage the PC lifecycle process. A planned PC refresh program eliminates enterprisewide upgrades, and consistently ensures every employee a quality PC to help them stay productive. Although the length of the PC lifecycle can vary depending on function and usage, IDC recommends a 2-3 year lifespan for notebooks and a 3-4 year lifespan for desktop PCs. Moreover, IDC recommends that companies budget sufficient resources to replace anywhere from 25-50 percent of their installed base, depending on the mix of form factors and how the systems are used.*** For more information, explore the following links:
  • Follow IT Best Practices. The standard computing model is changing. The proliferation of wireless computing and the convergence of computing and communications are two very real examples of the changing IT landscape. Given these and other new computing models, following IT best practices is more important than ever. Adherence to best practices can help IT ensure that the client base helps increase end-user and organizational productivity while simultaneously decreasing overall TCO. To help, Intel created the PC Best Practice Series, a set of six best practices for managing the business client. Simple yet powerful, these tools can help your company reduce TCO, enhance security, and exploit the power and improved productivity benefits of the latest technologies.
◊ Gartner Research (June 2003). For details, see Linux Desktop TCO: An Overview (COM-19-8811), Gartner, Inc. June 19, 2003.

*** Linux Desktop TCO: An Overview (COM-19-8811), Gartner, Inc. June 19, 2003. Note: This paper compares TCO in a Linux* operating environment with TCO in a Windows* operating environment, and provides metrics for comparing the benefits of a well-managed environment for both. 
    Seitenanfang