IT maintenance loses out in recession

There are just a few places to save money in your IT shop, and one of them is cutting back on IT maintenance. To help save money, IT groups are being asked to cut back on maintenance contracts with vendors. And that often means cutting the open-ended, gold-plated contracts that you can use anytime if your IT system gets sick.

Forget about the 24/7 contract, some companies are getting used to a 24-hour turnaround, just hoping the customer doesn't notice the lag time.

Jim Milde, executive vice president of global services for Boston-based IT services company Keane Inc., tells Computerworld.com that of his largest customers--in pharmaceuticals, insurance, finance, government and transportation--around 10 percent of them are cutting maintenance costs in various ways.

Lauren Whitehouse of Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass., tells Computerworld.com that companies "have to do what they have to do" to get by today. By cutting or renegotiating maintenance pacts, companies trim costs so that they can perhaps avoid or reduce layoffs or still have money to spend on innovative new projects that will help grow the business when the economy does rebound, Whitehouse said.

Here are some tips on how to cut maintenance costs without feeling too much pain:

• Cut maintenance agreements for lesser-used applications, to impact fewer users.
• Reduce the frequency of turnaround time--from, say, four hours to 24 hours or even longer.
• Cut weekend and late-night service levels.

Make sure you do not slash and burn because that would be like cutting off your nose in spite of your face. Instead, nibble around the sides and spread the pain as broadly as you can.

For more on cutting IT maintenance costs:
- check out this Computerworld.com article

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