7 Top Tips to Reduce Spend on Energy for your IT and Telephony Infrastructure
Until recently as a business you have probably not given your energy bill a second thought. However, both personally and within our businesses we are all facing a steep increase in our bills due to the current supply and demand challenges on the global wholesale market.
We all have a long list of other tasks to fulfil, meetings to attend, clients to engage with and cutting energy has probably been towards the bottom of your priority list until now…
With electricity bills soaring, keeping an eye on your efficiency is worth shuffling up the to-do list as reducing your energy spend on IT can help create some significant savings.?It also plays a part in increasing your sustainability and, in addition, helps you highlight your green credentials.
Follow our 7-point plan in this article to help you take action today:
1. Implement company policy on switching off equipment
Some businesses struggle to implement policies on switching off equipment overnight, but it should most definitely be considered as it can make a real difference.?Over the course of the year a single desktop computer and monitor will cost you up to ￡10.00 from being left on in standby mode, multiply that by 100 members of your team and you are off to a good start with an annual saving of ￡1,000.
Make it a policy to turn things off when they aren’t in use. In many offices, computers, equipment, lights, and more are kept on when they aren’t being used. This can increase energy consumption substantially and can raise energy costs more than you realise.
Start with a conversation – you might be surprised at the proactive ideas that your team can think of that will help you with your overall goal to reduce your energy costs.
2. Migrate your telephony to the cloud
Cloud Telephony?has lots of green benefits, but it can also help you save money on your energy bill.
3. Review lifecycle of your equipment
Another way of cutting energy spend that business owners might not be aware of is by providing your team with energy effective equipment. Laptop computers, for example, use up to 90 per cent less energy than a desktop computer/workstation.?Opt for equipment with an A+ energy rating, and you can expect a saving on your energy bills — helping to offset the initial purchase price.
Have a chat with your?IT Support Company?on the best way to manage the lifecycle of your equipment and implement a plan to ensure you are being as energy efficient as possible.
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4. Introduce flexible or remote working
Before the pandemic remote or flexible working felt unachievable for most with just a lucky few reaping the benefits of this.
Leap forward to the ongoing global pandemic, and remote working is something that a vast majority of employees embrace.?Understandably, such a seed change has been out of necessity, but long before the pandemic, it was advertised as a way of creating a more energy-efficient workplace.
With fewer members of your team in the office meaning less IT equipment to switch on (not to mention far fewer cups of tea and coffee being made!) it’s certainly a useful move for enhancing efficiency and after 24+ months of working from home it looks like an initiative that is here to stay.
5. Get employees engaged
This all starts with education and independent studies by the Carbon Trust help evidence that if your team are engaged and educated the UK workplace could save more that ￡300 million per year on your energy costs.
6. Consider migrating your IT infrastructure to the cloud
IT efficiency and sustainability are becoming increasingly important priorities for businesses.
Cloud infrastructure has become a key element of small and mediums businesses IT Strategy over the last 5 years, enabling flexible resources and workloads to scale up and down as required without the need to buy install and manage new hardware.
There is an additional potential benefit that cloud computing can help with, and that is?moving to the cloud?can dramatically reduce your energy costs.
An increase in efficiency comes about due to businesses de-commissioning their inefficient servers and switching to cloud providers such as?Microsoft Azure?who have the resources and knowledge to eke out every bit of efficiency to be able to offer you the most competitive pricing.
7. Old equipment in the rack, decommission, remove etc.
Undertake a review of your IT Rack – do you have any old equipment that you are no longer using that can be decommissioned.?Can you undertake a consolidation review???We all know it is important to minimise your single point of failures and have a clear recovery objective for your infrastructure, but it is a possibility this could be achieved with less physical equipment to power and, with the average server costing ￡500.00 per year to power up, this could quickly bring you some savings.
Corbel based in Ipswich are your local IT support expert offering services covering?IT Support,?Cyber Security,?Cloud Telephony?and?Business Continuity?to businesses in Ipswich, Felixstowe and Suffolk and beyond.