HOW SOFTWARE INTEGRATION CAN SIMPLIFY IT AND REDUCE PEREMPLOYEE SPENDING

HOW SOFTWARE INTEGRATION CAN SIMPLIFY IT AND REDUCE PEREMPLOYEE SPENDING

- Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer, Zoho

How much does a company spend per employee on IT software? The question itself is simple, but it can be surprisingly complicated to come up with a real answer. What do we consider “software” or “IT?” It’s easy to spot things like per-user subscriptions and industry-specific programs, and probably email clients or website hosting. But what about website maintenance? Do you count the salaries of anyone doing that work, and, if so, what proportion of their salary?

In addition to the challenges of calculating true software/ IT cost, there are factors that can drive up per-employee spending. Some software is licensed on a per-employee basis. Some is licensed on an organizational basis, making the per-employee cost higher for a small company than for a large one. As a company keeps adding software for its different business needs, the number of licenses proliferates, along with employee logins, necessitating management and integration. With each new piece, the IT cost—the per-employee spending—increases algorithmically.