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Optimizing Costs

For most enterprises, optimizing costs remains a high priority. For Microsoft, optimizing costs is a holistic approach to technology that spans your IT and business departments. It doesn't just mean cutting costs. Undertaken at both strategic and tactical levels it can support enterprise efforts to produce results, improve competitiveness and increase performance.

Watch the video to see how KCOM recognized tangible savings in mileage and hotel bills as well as other travel costs, saved on mobile phone expenses and reduced software costs - all while increasing productivity.

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How I Reduce Server Hardware and Software Costs

“Our savings come primarily from reduced hardware costs... which are driven from reduced operating expenses needed to support the servers as well as the capital expense needed to replace them. Overall, we observed a cost saving of 40 percent.”

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Server sprawl is costly. By re-architecting your environment and consolidating servers, you can reduce server sprawl and maximize the utilization of your current hardware. Driving efficiency by building a private cloud and optimizing databases, can also help reduce related labor, maintenance and support costs. Building a private cloud can help increase your rate of server utilization and reduce the need for physical servers, helping lower associated costs and reduce the burden on your IT staff. Database optimization using the latest database platform can help simplify your database architecture and free up IT resources.

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How I Minimize IT Labor Costs

“Our App-V experience has been very positive. … Packaging, testing, and delivering applications is so much faster, and by enabling zero-touch deployment, App-V helps us realize significant monetary savings.”

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Streamlining IT deployment and management activities can reduce the time and cost involved. Maintenance and operations consume a significant portion of a typical enterprise's IT resources - and therefore budget. And time that your IT staff spends managing your infrastructure is time not spent on more strategic projects. Tools and features, such as centralized systems management and application virtualization, are designed to streamline IT deployment and management activities can not only save money, but free up resources to support a more agile, responsive organization.

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How I Reduce Power and Cooling Needs

“The implementation of the Sprint Mobile Workforce has resulted in [U.S.]$30 million a year in net savings simply because we need less square footage, so a reduction of 1.5 million square feet times an annual rent of around $20 per square foot equals $30 million.”

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Energy is a prime target for cost cutting. A private cloud can help significantly reduce energy consumption, as the majority of energy consumed by a server is consumed when it is idle; increasing utilization and decommission underutilized servers effectively removes this power overhead. PC power management tools, and power management capabilities built into the operating system, can also help dramatically reduce an organization's power consumption.

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How I Reduce Data Protection Costs

“Thanks to MED-V, we could upgrade all computers to Windows 7 to take advantage of the latest technology. And with … App-V and System Center Configuration Manager, we were able to meet our two-month deployment deadline.”

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Data security strategies are essential to help protect against the consequences of a data breach. With an increasingly mobile workforce plus a growing number of data storage devices in use in enterprises - approved or otherwise - data protection has never been more important. Increasingly, enterprises are executing encryption projects and driving to encryption strategies. These can be costly prospects. Built in encryption capabilities help you avoid expensive, separate licensing fees.

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How I Maximize Efficiency

Microsoft's optimization models and approach enables proactive IT management and can help you deliver cost and risk reductions. Some key areas where customers have realized cost saving benefits include reduction of server hardware and software costs, cutting power costs, minimizing IT labor costs, and reducing data protection costs.

How I Save on Travel and Communications Expenses

“With ProtonMedia and Microsoft, we can differentiate our services for our customers, showing that we can achieve better results more quickly and at lower cost than our competitors.”

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Travel less. The potential to reduce business costs using technology can be significant. Providing online alternatives to travel can reduce travel expenses and improve productivity. Unified communications technologies - specifically web and video conferencing - can reduce the need for travel and related expenses. It can also reduce your communications expenses - helping to lower long distance and mobile phone charges, consolidating e-mail and voice storage and solutions, and eliminating the need for expensive PBX systems.

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How I Eliminate Non-profitable Projects

“After implementing the EPM Solution, we are now able to provide the leadership at BD with deeper visibility into our $400 million R&D fund.”

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Invest strategically. Project and portfolio management can help enterprises gain visibility, insight, and control necessary to get the maximum value from their project investments - and can help enterprises identify and eliminate non-profitable projects. With comprehensive project and portfolio management enterprises can identify and eliminate redundant work, identify potential schedule slips and cost overruns before they occur, evaluate and rank work based on the value it returns to your organization - and gain early visibility into underperforming projects and initiatives, so you can identify and cancel problem projects before you spend additional money.

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How I Minimize Real Estate and Facilities Costs

“The implementation of the Sprint Mobile Workforce has resulted in [U.S.]$30 million a year in net savings simply because we need less square footage,” says Woodrome. “So a reduction of 1.5 million square feet times an annual rent of around $20 per square foot equals $30 million.”

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Reduce workspace requirements. In addition to helping with recruitment, employee satisfaction, and even productivity - teleworking or remote working, desk-sharing and other alternative workspace strategies can help reduce office-related expenses while providing complete computing resources wherever workers work. Remote working can help lower over costs for items such as workstation space, common office space, insurance, utilities, maintenance and parking - when you support remote working, you reduce the need to accommodate full staff numbers at the office. Technology - such as unified communications to help offsite workers stay in contact, collaboration technologies to help offsite workers work efficiently from a distance, and infrastructure to make it much easier for remote workers to access internal corporate resources - plays a vital role in supporting telework.

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How I Lower Cost

The potential to reduce business costs using technology can be significant. Technology can help business to reduce travel and communications expenses, minimize real-estate and facilities costs and eliminate non-profitable projects by getting a better view into your project portfolio.

Cut Upfront Operating Expenses
Save with Strategic Licensing Choices

How I Cut Upfront Operating Expenses

“We initially examined an upgrade to the Lotus Notes system, but that appeared to be too expensive, largely because of the additional server and licensing costs.”

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Cloud computing delivers cost advantages. While the cloud offers a number of benefits, including increased agility and scalability, one of the primary reasons for its growing popularity is cost. With public cloud services enterprises often can transfer significant capital expenses to lower operating expenses. With public cloud services you don't need to invest in the supporting infrastructure, you pay on a subscription basis - and only for what you use, and you should have substantially reduced ongoing administrative costs - all helping to reduce your overall costs while providing the latest and greatest.

How I Save with Strategic Licensing Choices

“ Standardizing on Microsoft was the key to our success. We used the Microsoft tools and efficiencies to master the challenges that the business gave us—I think better than any of us had anticipated.”

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Reduce acquisition costs. Vendor consolidation, volume licensing, software subscriptions and solution financing all offer potential financial benefits in software acquisition. Consolidating vendors can reduce overall licensing costs and streamline processes - and often as you concentrate your software investments on fewer vendors you will find opportunities to gain additional value through volume licensing. Software subscriptions offer an alternative way to acquire software - typically reducing upfront costs. And solution financing can help you free up cash flow and align payments to when you start realizing the benefits of your investment.

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How I Invest a Little, Gain a Lot

Enterprises can further optimize costs by making alternative choices in how technology is acquired and provisioned. Taking advantage of public cloud services for some capabilities helps to save upfront costs and reduce ongoing operating expenses. Exploring different licensing options, helps you get the most for your money.