GreenIT Means Saving Green
Adopting “Green” environmental practices is at the forefront of the news today – increasing profitability is at the forefront of priorities for every business owner. In addition to the environmental and marketing benefits associated with going “Green,” businesses can realize a significant greening of their bottom line by making small environment-friendly adjustments to their IT operations.
We have identified five ways that implementing on-demand software services (cloud computing) results in both an environmentally and financially “green” IT initiative.
1. Saves hard dollars through reduced hardware, software, labor, and energy expenditures
The flexibility of cloud computing software applications is attractive to SMB’s for a few simple reasons:
- Affordable month-to-month subscription fees
- Pay only for the licenses you need, as long as you need them
- No software upgrade fees
- No support and maintenance fees
- Reduced requirement for dedicated IT resources
- No dedicated hardware to install, monitor, backup, protect and upgrade
2. Enables employees and customers to operate with greater, agility, efficiency and profitability
Organizations of all sizes are feeling the strain of information overload. People are swamped by the volume of information delivered to them daily. Information that is stored and duplicated in many places -- individual computers, file servers, email folders, content management systems, and elsewhere -- that can be easily lost or corrupted. Workers become less productive and good business decisions can’t be made due to missing or corrupted content, multiple versions of the truth, and an inability to consult with the right people in a timely manner.
Web collaboration tools provide a standardized communication platform to help companies manage information overload. For less than the cost of an overnight delivery package or short taxi ride, these services use the power of the web to simplify collaboration and coordination of people, information and projects. Distributed teams are able to work together by using collaborative technologies that offer the capability to meet with anyone, anywhere, anytime and share documents, presentations, and other applications. This “anytime anywhere” communication increases employee productivity, resulting in visible impacts to the bottom line with improved profitability.
3. Reduces travel with Web conferencing and other remote collaboration tools
Companies are able to minimize the expense, hassles and negative environmental impacts of travel by using realtime, on-demand services like web conferencing and remote collaboration tools. It’s simple to conduct dynamic sales presentations, hold company and shareholder meetings, and offer interactive training sessions with participants anywhere in the world.
Remote PC access tools reduce response times and travel expense by giving IT personnel remote access to company PCs and remote employees and trusted partners access to centralized data and applications. Provide remote training and troubleshooting, transfer files between local and remote computers, and provide helpdesk services.
Improve productivity. Respond faster. Close more deals. Travel less.
4. Cuts down on commuting by providing tools that allow employees to work-at-home
The U.S. white-collar workforce burns more than 583 million gallons of gasoline commuting to work each week. If one average employee teleworked just one day per week, it would save the environment 1,680 pounds of CO2 emissions per year. In addition, repeated studies by companies such as Cisco, American Express, and the US Patent Office have shown that teleworking programs motivate and help retain key employees, with have resulted in increased productivity levels ranging as high as 30 – 40 percent.
By implementing cloud computing services that provide secure, anywhere access to your office systems, files and applications, companies are able to offer telecommuting programs that cut energy consumption and enhance employee productivity. Employees will drive less and companies benefit by reducing office space requirements. A great win-win.
5. Shrinks the carbon footprint of an organization by relying on centralized data center operations using less equipment and energy
The average energy expense to operate an office server is $50 - $100 per month, and typical utilization is less than 10%. In high utility rate areas, the cost of just the utilities to support one, single-use server will exceed the cost of the hardware in less than three years. And that’s not taking into account the cost of depreciation, allocation of office space, and personnel resources to maintain the server.
Using cloud computing services like hosted email and remote backup services enable companies to take advantage of optimized data storage in disaster-proof data centers to save energy and money. You’ll reduce the need for investing in on-premise software and hardware and the expense of maintaining and operating them, plus have the peace of mind that your data can be quickly and easily restored anytime, from anywhere.
Incorporating Green IT initiates is more than just being good stewards of the environment. Its also about enhanced productivity and increased profitability.