Those who do IT right know that it can be a powerful driver of long-term cost savings. Less known, but equally as true, is the fact that good IT creates the opportunity to generate revenue as well.  And like any other revenue generating unit of your business, it begins with an effective management strategy.

Investing in your IT strategy is more than just a requirement necessary to optimize processes and performance so your business can make money.  If that’s ALL you think IT is about you’re missing a huge – and potentially profitable – step: the value of the IT infrastructure itself and how that can be managed to drive revenue..  If you’re an IT lead, now is the time to lean in, because implementing and proving these revenue generating IT scenarios is your ticket to taking that next step in your career.

Build Attractive IT

Depending on your industry and the volume at which you operate, your IT strategy has the potential to be a thoroughfare of information in a way that is valuable to others.  And no, I don’t mean this in a sleazy “sell your data to the highest bidder”-type of way. Rather, you can position yourself as a “data transportation” hub of sorts, where people clamor to use the IT infrastructure you built because you’ve established the most efficient and cost-friendly way of doing it.

The medical industry is just one example where spend management tools, like vManager, can help clinics better find affordable and efficient third-party solutions to safely and reliably transfer sensitive patient records.

A large regional hospital uses vCom Solutions and our vManager platform to support their IT spend management.  It allows them to discover, implement, and manage third-party software that makes their health records more easily accessible across all 50 of their medical clinics without the worry of putting too much stress on their network or juggling endless invoices.  Because vManager streamlines the universal implementation of these services, this successful health care company became an even more attractive destination for clinics looking to be absorbed by a larger parent organization, which creates opportunities for new revenue streams.

Scale Earlier Where Needed

IT is a great indicator of where your organization’s traffic is occurring.  If you’re a nationwide organization with regional offices, that means you can identify where to scale faster; you won’t need to wait for finance to crunch the sales numbers.  

With tools like vManager, businesses gain visibility into their communications usage, allowing them to clearly and easily see if pre-transactional activity is higher in certain offices than others.  Are more calls being made or are more telecommunication conferences taking place in one region than another? That could be a sign of a market on the rise. If so, the company can proactively staff up and take advantage of increased volume.

Cast a Wider Net

It’s easy to go on about the cost savings obtained by using IT to mobilize your workforce, reduce office overhead, control T&E, etc.  But having the capability to efficiently and cost-effectively work remotely also means you can scale not only in size but geographically, as well – going from a local business to regional, or regional to nationwide – becoming more attractive to customers that were once out of your reach and resulting in the creation of new revenue.  

A well-managed and cost efficient IT strategy not only enables a remote workforce but can also scale a business geographically, as well – allowing them to acquire customers regionally, nationally, or even globally.

This is only possible, however, if you have a solid IT infrastructure in place and a budget-conscious spend management strategy that encourages a profitable return.  Being able to leverage a platform like vManager will help your organization implement the best IT options – from telecom to networking – at rates that support the potential to turn a profit on the increased volume from new territories rather than simply breaking even.

Increase Your Value

Adding a proficient IT layer to your business will further establish your marketplace credibility and reputation, which means you’ll become a more valuable commodity.  By extending the benefits you experience from your IT strategy to your customers and leveraging the cost efficiencies of spend management, you can increase the value of your product or services. You’ll not only cover the costs of your IT, you’ll surpass it.  

In certain industries, you can use your IT maturity to generate revenue by offering proprietary education – whether it is by leveraging more robust communications to widely offer certification surrounding your services or providing insight on how to better perform in your industry based on the data you’ve garnered, weighing it against public knowledge in a way that your customers would find intriguing and insightful.  Either way, everyone is always looking to be further educated, and your IT infrastructure could be a source of teachable value.

From webinars to white papers, by implementing the right IT strategy, you could utilize the data to formulate valuable education for your customer base that can be additional revenue or help drives sales of your existing product.

At the End of the Day… Just Get Creative

While these are just a few examples of how to turn your IT strategy into revenue, they definitely aren’t the only ways.  Companies that make the effort to analyze their existing or potential IT infrastructure will often find methods that they can uniquely apply to drive business in completely new ways.  Those a-ha moments of clarity, however, can only occur if the IT strategy is organized, cost efficient, and easily malleable – and spend management is the first step in working towards that potential.

To find out how spend management can lead your business to more IT-driven revenue, or to schedule a demo of vCom’s vManager, please fill out the short form below: