2. Double-Check the Details of Service-Level Agreements
Service-level agreements govern third-party services such as telecommunications, cloud provision and software licensing. But over the past nine months, many of these agreements have been neglected as banks prioritize services over savings.
As a result, it’s worth checking the details: Are these agreements still in force? Are banks and credit unions paying for services or solutions that aren’t useful in current conditions? Confirming these details lets businesses drill down and identify the services they need while eliminating costs for solutions they no longer require.
3. Consolidate IT Vendors to Cut Spending
Vendor sprawl has become a real concern as the IT market has diversified. Many banks now leverage different providers for security, cloud computing, telecommunications, data storage and disaster recovery services. While this ostensibly offers the benefit of service specificity, it also increases the training time necessary in order for staff to use each solution. Meanwhile, more vendors mean more risk; every solution provider layered onto financial IT frameworks creates another potential vulnerability that could be exploited by malicious actors.
Consolidating IT vendors reduces both staff learning curves and total risks while simultaneously opening the door for volume-based pricing discounts and longer-term technology relationships. While concerns around potential data lock-in and compliance remain relevant, vendor consolidation offers a substantial savings opportunity.
MORE FROM BIZTECH: Learn about the 5 financial services tech trends to watch for in 2021.
4. Assess Cloud Options to Slash Costs
Banks are moving to the cloud, but which cloud framework is the right fit? While public clouds excel at resource availability with lower overall costs, private options improve control — with higher costs to match. Hybrid solutions combine the best of both worlds.
Identifying ideal deployments means considering workloads: For resource-intensive processes or applications, public clouds are the priority. For storage of high-value client or corporate data, private clouds are preferred.
5. Augment Staff and Services
Managed service providers have come a long way from help desks and break-fix IT. Next-generation MSPs now offer banks the ability to incorporate data-driven solutions such as artificial intelligence into key business processes to help better understand current market conditions and anticipate new service demands.
Staff augmentation, meanwhile, makes it possible for banks and credit unions to supplement existing teams with skilled IT experts at a fraction of the cost of full-time employees.
6. Implement Metered IT Consumption
To help reduce costs without compromising services, banks are also well-served by metered IT consumption solutions. This approach leverages a pay-as-you-go model that allows businesses to align spending with usage: Instead of overpaying for capacity that isn’t required and then adjusting SLAs to match, metered options typically require baseline operational agreements that are then metered to match exact usage over time. Regular assessments help dial in service provision while ensuring banks always have the resources they need to meet client and stakeholder expectations.
With operational conditions anything but certain, smaller banks and credit unions must be prepared to pivot on demand without sacrificing services. This requires a balanced approach to cutting costs that focuses on evaluating current environments and contracts to find opportunities including vendor consolidation, ideal cloud operations, managed staff and services, and metered resource consumption.
