It’s All About The Money!

Getting financial sign off can often be described as ‘getting blood out of a stone’. Do you find yourself banging your head against a brick wall when trying to get the boss to sign off the budget for your new data centre? In fact, IT decision makers cite obtaining budget as the one of the top challenges to implementing fit-for-purpose IT infrastructure. However, the reasons for this perspective is often fuelled by several myths. Myth #1 The person who holds the purse strings just wants to cut costs and limit spending It’s not that black and white! Ultimately having the financial responsibility for the company means that they are charged with investing money wisely and need to show Return on Investment. So, what can you do to make sure that you stand out from the others and become a priority spend? When approaching them for financial sign off consider focusing on how the investment will create business value as well as the financial consequences of downtime for the company. If your data centre is integral to life saving services, calculate the cost of the negative impact to lives and on communities. How much is an hour of downtime? Lost business costs! Myth #2 Investment in a data centre must be a capex cost Untrue. You may be mistaken and assume that budget-friendly monthly payments are only available as a leasing option and that the ownership of a data centre requires an upfront cash payment. Workspace Technology offers a finance option whereby you could purchase a data centre and maintenance & support contract on a monthly basis and still own the asset. Therefore, when speaking to your budget holder discuss the company’s cashflow requirements and consider how innovative payment options can provide flexible terms of ownership. Myth #3 Everything is moving to the cloud so there is no point in investing in an on premises data centre Far from it! If you have short term business plans, then it could be understandable why you might believe this myth. However, if you have longer term business plans and are looking for control, security, and cost-effectiveness then an on premises data centre is the solution of choice. By owning your own data centre, you can easily increase and decrease data storage as well as being easier to move should you want to relocate to another part of the country or even overseas. Ultimately everyone wants a slice of the cake, but budgets as we know are not limitless. Having a strong business case for your investment needs goes a long way in convincing the purse holders to make a favourable decision. By pointing out the financial consequences of not updating or replacing you data centre should grab the correct attention and get the budget approval you require.

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