By Lindsey Hall. Director, EasylifeIT™

2012 will probably be the toughest trading year many of us will have experienced. Notwithstanding the looming Euro crisis developing over the channel, observers are forecasting negligible growth for the UK in the next 12 months, and some are even predicting a return to recession.

Cash flow will become even more important than ever, and one of the best ways of reducing risk in this area is by converting fixed costs into variable costs that reflect your current trading levels. A quick look at your P&L will show costs that never change or even perhaps increase year on year with no correlation to how much you use the services. Rent and wages are the most obvious examples, but in the short term at least; these are difficult to reduce. A good example of how you can reduce costs is in the area of IT support.

Traditionally, most IT support companies are only really interested in selling you a contract; for much the same reason as you wish to review it. It gives them security of income for a guaranteed period. In theory at least, in return you should receive guarantees of service and response and an annual cost you can budget. In practice however, many Service Level Agreements are constructed to benefit the supplier and are noteworthy for what they exclude and unwelcome additional costs are not uncommon. We often speak to prospective customers who feel that they are being taken advantage of; unhappy with the service levels they are receiving, but are bound into 12 or 24 month contracts.

Reacting to the new realities, at EasylifeIT™ we have begun to adopt a new service model in the past 12 months. PAYG “support on demand” gives back to the customer control of their costs and they pay only for what they use; nothing more. There is no 12 month contract, just a 30 day notice period which keeps us focused on delivering the service. Effectively, we are only as good as our last case which tends to focus minds on exceeding customer expectations and getting the issue resolved. This is as effective as an SLA and delivers exceptional customer service.

So, if you have less than 20 users, and are looking at converting your fixed costs into variable costs without loss of service, then your first call should be to EasylifeIT™ on 0800 043 9186

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