What is a Typical IT Budget for a Small or Midsize Business?

Small and medium sized businesses (SMB’s) can struggle to put a figure on their IT budget. There are a lot of factors involved in developing a solution that works, not least the industry or sector, the amount of data and how it is currently controlled, as well as the various types of technology being used.

Most SMB’s have to weigh the benefits of including new technology, the potential risks to their growth if the right measures are not implemented and even their position in the marketplace.

If you are an e-commerce business, your IT requirements are going to be different from an insurance company. A business with 3 or 4 staff will have considerably less IT costs than one with a 50 or 60 or more.

How Much Should You Spend?

A lot is going to depend on the context of your IT supply and what you want from it. The first thing to say is that you should treat IT as an investment not simply the need to have set of tools to keep you safe or enable communication.

Effective IT can have numerous benefits, including:

  • Helping to streamline your business operation, including in some cases automating tasks. Boosting your agility means you are able to respond to challenges in your sector as well as give yourself the best chance of growing.
  • The latest cloud packages allow staff to operate remotely. That means you have more flexibility in your workforce. This in turn means you can encourage greater productivity as well as strengthen your networks.
  • Improved cybersecurity will ensure that you keep data and other important information safe. It will also benefit your reputation with consumers.

For a business that has no internal IT department but has about 40 employees who all rely on IT, you will be looking at an average monthly spend of £2,000-£3,000. This can actually purchase you a good deal of tech support in today’s competitive IT environment.

On the whole across all sectors, the average SMB will spend about 6-7% of its revenue on IT. There are some important areas where you should be concentrating your IT budget:

1. Replacing Old Software

Many businesses stick with the same old software way past the time it has outlived its usefulness. This is generally a false economy especially when it comes to collaborative packages that allow your staff to work more productively. Picking the right time to switch to an upgraded version of a software package or try something new entirely is a huge challenge for SMB’s.

2. Old Hardware and Old Operating Systems

Another decision that can have an impact on your business is the age of the hardware systems that you have in place. Old desktops that no longer update can present a risk not only to that particular machine but your entire network. Vulnerabilities in older operating systems such as Windows 7, which will have support terminated in 2020, can present immediate danger to your business if the hardware is not updated.

3. Cloud Computing

The cloud seems all the rage nowadays and for good reason. Cloud services have changed the way many SMB’s do business. They facilitate more efficient collaboration and access to data which can greatly improve productivity. If your business uses remote employees who work from home or you have sales staff that need access to information on the road, cloud computing is indispensable.

4. Outsourced IT Support

With the advent of cloud services, we’ve seen a substantial rise in remote IT support solutions that are specifically designed for SMB’s. Not only has this allowed the typical IT budget to come down, it’s given many businesses a more level playing field on which to compete.

The good news is that outsourced IT support is a lot cheaper than employing staff on site and can deliver a wide range of expertise. It can also be tailored to your needs at any particular moment, scalable whether you want to grow or if you need to shrink your business model and your IT.

Tips for Controlling Your IT Budget

Compared to larger corporations, SMB’s have to do a lot of work to keep their IT support costs under control while still delivering on their needs. It’s important to make sure that you have the right components in place.

  • Have a regular audit to highlight where your IT can be improved or even rolled back.
  • Be prepared to embrace new tech if it can help reduce your running costs in the long term.
  • Think of IT as an investment not a drain on resources.

At Cyan Solutions, we work with SMB’s across all sectors and industries. If you want to make better use of your IT budget in the future and really deliver transformational results, contact our team today.

What is Your IT Strategy?

Technology has revolutionised the way we do business. It’s so much easier to start up a company in the first place and innovations such as remote working and productivity software are making it viable for business owners to not only achieve their goals but scale up quicker than ever before.

Having new tech at your disposal, however, and knowing how to use it are two different things.

Here we take a look at how developing a strong IT strategy is vital in order to power any business into the future.

What is IT Strategy?

You’ll have a strategy for your business including goals you want to achieve and when you want to achieve them. Your IT strategy is all about the technical support and the tools you require to achieve these aims.

It may be something as simple as your internet connection or the virus security you have in place to protect both your business and your customers. It is likely nowadays to be more complex, including how you use the cloud and software packages together to deliver your services and enable employees to operate productively.

How to Create an IT Strategy

The problem with IT strategies is that businesses don’t often understand how they work and what the benefits are. Whether you are an established company or a new venture, it pays to do your research and find out what you really need.

That includes forming a relationship with an IT provider who not only understands those needs but has access to the latest technology and best practice.

1. Your Business Goals

The first thing that you need to get nailed down are your business goals and how these are going to be implemented in the future. These can include sales performance and targets, growth and action plans for the future and areas where you want to build relationships with other businesses.

You need to align everything in your future business development with an IT strategy that helps you achieve your goals as efficiently as possible.

2. Stakeholders and Your IT Roadmap

The next stage is to develop a roadmap and get individual stakeholders involved. Stakeholders are the managers and technical people in your business who are going to help deliver your IT strategy. They can include the IT company that you choose to bring on board but largely they are the people in your business who will monitor and liaise with that service to deliver the desired results.

3. What Your IT Currently Delivers

Unless you are a start-up, you will already have IT in place. It’s important to look at this closely. What works and what doesn’t?

There are lots of questions you need to ask here, not least what technology you are currently using and how it works for your employees and your business. Are there ways to do things better or does your current provision deliver what you need?

This involves thinking critically about all aspects of your IT delivery. It’s important to identify areas where things can be improved and where savings and productivity can be maximised.

4. Allocation and Software

Next, you need to put together the software that you will be using and organise how this is going to be allocated throughout your business. It’s important to consider how everything fits together with any IT strategy.

It’s no use having different software and IT components that work against each other and the more of an overview you can achieve the better. It’s a good idea to keep all activity and software information together in one spreadsheet where you can see how everything interacts and what it delivers.

5. Measure Performance

The last thing you need is an IT strategy that doesn’t work and fails to meet your requirements. It’s important, therefore, to measure performance. If you’ve done all the previous steps well, this will be a relatively easy process and putting key metrics and KPIs in place should be a formality.

All too often, businesses look at their IT as a fragmented set of tools that are more a marriage of convenience than a bona fide strategy. The true aim of a strong IT strategy is to bring all your technological resources under one umbrella where they work together and deliver real benefits for your business.

If you want inspiring IT solutions, Cyan Solutions can help. Discover how developing your IT strategy will make a huge difference to the growth and the future of your company. Contact us today to find out more.

How and Why You Should Use Scalable Technology Infrastructure

All growing businesses know the struggles and challenges that scalability brings on a regular basis. It can seem like an impossible task to accurately predict the growth rates of your company’s technology infrastructure, especially as the businesses needs and capabilities are changing rapidly.

The last thing you want when your business is in a vital growth phase is for your technology to reach its capacity limits and slow you and your staff down. Even the most robust business plan in the world with the most talented leaders in the driving seat can fail if there is no scalability plan in place.

What is scalability and why is it important?

Simply put, scalability is the capacity for a business to adapt and evolve over time. It is an essential part of any business wanting to grow and expand in the future. Usually, scalability involves growth and the adaption of technology systems to sustain expansions and upgrades. If your small business does not have the processes and infrastructure in place to accommodate growth, then you will be limited in how much you can succeed.

A technology system is often considered scalable if it can increase its output and load when additional resources are added. These additional resources are often hardware, software upgrades or storage space that are utilised to meet the new and growing demands on the business. Scalability can also refer to staffing and employees, as some companies may need the ability to scale their workforce up and down to meet the growing needs of the organisation.

As your business grows, the primary objective is to continue to meet market demands, and this can be a struggle when market demands are continually evolving. To stay ahead of competitors your business needs to be able to adapt its approach to filling the ever-changing needs of customer demands.

Adapting your business

As your customer base grows, your resources and technology need to do the same, and if you have no way of handling these increases, then your efficiency and quality can suffer. An effective, scalable technology infrastructure will help to support these increases and allow you to take full control over your business without the need for additional time and resources.

Scalability is an excellent and cost-effective way to manage your business growth and avoid unexpected expenses, including replacing hardware and software that is no longer doing the job it should be. From a financial perspective, scalability drastically lowers your outgoing costs for technology, even if the initial bill is higher to begin with.

For example, if you have 10,000 customers within your database and invest in a technology system to support 500,000, you will not need to replace that system until you reach maximum capacity. It means your technology will not become outdated and redundant quickly and allows you and your staff to focus on the growth and progression of your business.

Many businesses across the country are focusing their time and efforts on creating a scalable technology infrastructure to support their growth. Toto Energy was founded in 2016 with plans to grow rapidly, they fully understood their need for a scalable infrastructure in their early days and recruited the help of technology specialists Cyan Solutions. The company has grown quickly, gaining 55,000 customers within their first year, and Cyan Solution’s cloud-based hosting system has supported and enabled their growth every step of the way; read the full case study here.

How to implement a scalable technology infrastructure?

Once you have decided to take the leap and transform your IT infrastructure into a scalable one, it can be a struggle knowing how and where to start. The use of cloud technologies is highly beneficial for scalable infrastructures and for helping small businesses to grow.

The cloud allows you and your system to be fully flexible and adapt to various changes as and when is necessary, as well as allowing you to make the most of easy implementation processes. Cloud software will enable you to add and remove software and applications without complicated reinstallation processes, making scalability an easy and straightforward process.

It is normal to want to get a head start and make as many areas as scalable as possible within your business, but it is crucial to properly understand that this may not be feasible for everything. This shouldn’t stop you from moving forward with the scalability where relevant though. It just should be taken into consideration when coming up with a scalable system design and purchasing equipment. It is just as essential to understand and recognise where you can’t change as it is to recognise where you can.

Scalability and migrating to a scalable technology infrastructure is not a simple task to tackle alone, but a worthwhile one if you are serious about growing your business efficiently. Often it is worth enlisting the help of professionals such as Cyan Solutions who can help you to understand where and how your IT infrastructure can be scalable, and the best way of implementing a new infrastructure.

Driving Business Growth Through IT Infrastructure

IT infrastructure is often a practice that is avoided or stepped around, with many companies simply going with the flow when it comes to their IT management. Many businesses will only make changes and upgrades when it becomes necessary due to equipment failures. Operating your IT planning in this reactive, fire-fighting way is not going to support and help your business grow. A good and well thought out IT infrastructure should be aligned with the businesses goals and growth plans.

While an efficient IT plan does take time and careful planning to create, they are worthwhile and will help your business reach its goals and prevent issues and faults. Having a decent IT infrastructure in place can help a company to optimise its resources, save costs, reduce dependencies and improve productivity. On the other end of the spectrum, having a poor or non-existent IT plan can result in outdated systems, digital skills gaps and lack of productivity all of which can affect your bottom line.

It can all be a bit overwhelming with where to start when creating an IT infrastructure for your business, which often puts organisations off. However, if it is done properly, it will pay off in the long run. Architecture and Governance Magazine revealed that some Fortune 500 companies and government agencies had validated returns on investment as high as 700% thanks to their investment in IT planning.

Here at Cyan Solutions, we have the expertise and knowledge to assist you in creating an effective and powerful IT infrastructure that supports your business and its long-term goals with a proactive approach. We do not believe in one-size-fits-all, and so our approach to all projects is considered and structured; we highly tailor every detail to fit seamlessly with your business model. Following a plan, create, maintain model, we work carefully at every stage to ensure we develop a service that truly addresses your individual needs – both now and in the future.

Plan: How to prepare for creating an effective IT infrastructure

A thorough audit of everything your business currently has by way of IT and everything it will need in the future is the best place to start when creating an IT plan. On the surface, it may seem that an IT plan only concerns hardware and software, but there is so much more to consider. It is important to think about the human resources of the business, the cost management involved, and also the risk management.

At Cyan Solutions, we work closely with our customers to undergo comprehensive reviews that will give us a detailed insight into the businesses IT needs and assets. This process provides us with the opportunity to integrate our strategic thinking as part of your team.

Once we have completed a comprehensive audit and got a full understanding of your business needs, we can then help to create an actionable IT framework strategy and plan that covers all aspects of the company. At this stage, we will also ensure that your IT infrastructure is fully GDPR compliant.

Create: Designing and implementing the IT framework

Once the plan has been finalised and agreed upon, we will get started on designing and implementing the infrastructure, while ensuring minimal disruption to the day to day running of your business. We will develop your new IT capabilities through the previously planned and agreed software and hardware. Working closely with all vendors and software providers, we will unlock the potential of your IT.

At this stage we also ensure everyone within the business is happy and fully trained on any new platforms or applications that have been implemented. We use technical architecture to tailor the IT infrastructure to be specific to your business needs while ensuring the highest levels of security, flexibility and accessibility. It is the advantage of proven technology, tailored to your individual needs and goals.

Maintain: Proactive maintenance and performance monitoring

We guarantee a long-term solution and offer the highest level of service with a robust set of agreements. Once your new IT infrastructure is up and running, we continue to work hard to troubleshoot for any potential issues and provide proactive maintenance to help keep your systems up to date and running in the best possible way for your business.

We will implement any relevant patches, monitor overall performance, and keep on top of industry issues. Our expert teams will guarantee your new system is upgraded and adapted where necessary and ensure that your infrastructure is properly protecting your customer’s data and is always fully GDPR compliant.

When you choose Cyan Solutions, you can expect fast and responsive help from a knowledgeable team that is always on hand to help. As a result, you will get exceptional service whenever you need it, as well as total transparency on our performance. With your IT infrastructure taken care of, you can reap the rewards and focus your attention on your business growth strategy.

Start your growth strategy today

If you want to find out more about how Cyan Solutions can help you to plan, create and maintain an IT infrastructure that will support your business growth, get in touch with our expert team today.

You may also be interested in:

How Cyan Solutions Helped Toto Energy drive rapid Growth

About Toto Energy

Founded in 2016, Toto Energy is a UK utilities supplier with a mission to make gas and electricity more affordable.

From the start, the company had plans to grow rapidly. After just one year, Toto Energy supplied more than 55,000 domestic properties nationwide.

Finding a partner for launch – and growth

Before the business was launched Toto Energy considered its IT and the infrastructure that would be needed to power its day-to-day operations.

“We had a good idea of the challenges we would face,” says Jonathan Corbishley, Head of IT at Toto Energy. “We were looking for someone to host a remote desktop platform for us, consolidating everything into one place so we could expand and grow across multiple sites. We knew our growth would be fast-paced and we needed a partner that could keep up.”

To compare suppliers, Toto Energy put out a tender and conducted a detailed comparison of both pricing and service. “Cyan was deemed to be both cost-effective and offer the quality of service we expect as a fast growth business”.

Plan
A partner for the earliest IT discussions

We became involved in Toto Energy’s IT at its earliest stages of planning and design.

This included integrations with a wide range of applications and services, including a specialist billing platform and customer relationship management (CRM) system for the utilities sector.

“Early on we were in discussions with industry-specific software suppliers, so we could handle different types of data flow in billing,” says Jonathan. “It was key that these suppliers were well-integrated with our wider IT, so Cyan came in on the discussions soon after.”

“We got a lot of input from Cyan on whether key supplier services could be hosted in a virtual environment, which had never been done before. Cyan were confident it could be done and, consequently, it has been done. That was a hugely important factor for us.”

We were also involved in discussions about how to best implement a hosted cloud desktop platform, including key considerations like load balancing and scaling.

Create
A proactive approach to IT design

After successfully designing and testing a way to include key supplier services in the hosted platform, we implemented Toto Energy’s full IT infrastructure smoothly and seamlessly.

“There’s always a lot to be done to make sure that everything can talk to everything else,” says Jonathan. “In IT there are so many small things you may not consider when building a list of requirements, but Cyan are always one step ahead. The team’s proactive approach helped us get up-and-running quickly.”

“Cyan go the extra mile to make sure everything is working and functioning before signing anything off. They don’t stop until you’re completely happy and that’s one of the many ways they’re so good to work with.”

Following robust testing, our team delivered a bespoke cloud architecture that gives users the same experience and access to business applications wherever they are located. New users can be added with a few clicks, making it easy to meet the demands of growth. This is all hosted in a tier 4 data centre with the highest levels of resilience and data capacity.

Maintain
A lasting partnership of support and strategy

Following the launch of Toto Energy, we have continued to provide ongoing support and maintenance – both at a helpdesk and management level.

“With our platform, we can adapt very quickly if we have a big influx of staff, for example into the call centre. Cyan can add new servers quickly and we can grow as fast as we want to, without being limited by our IT.”

“Cyan have played an integral role in our success by supporting our IT estate and strategy, at all levels. It’s not a supplier/customer relationship, it’s more of a partnership.”

Empowering Toto Energy’s rapid growth

Toto Energy continues to achieve its ambitious targets for growth through acquiring customers and rolling out smart meters. Jonathan identifies our IT services as an important part of this growth.

“The extent of Cyan’s support and the flexibility of the platform has allowed us to grow very quickly. They’re positive to work with, they’re engaging, and, above all, they’re invested in us – and that won’t change as we grow, which is excellent.”

 

DOWNLOAD CASE STUDY