Technology vs staff cost

Occasionally, as part of work, I get out to the odd awards ceremony.  The last one was the Financial Sector Technology awards in Park Lane.  This is very much an event for large companies.  Big IT teams.  Projects with budgets of £100m are quite possible. Normally, not my kind of event, but we were nominated this year.  RBS won, but the event was worthwhile as I got to meet fellow SME nominee Paul Turner from Advantage Finance.

That's Paul in the picture (right) with comedian Fred MacAulay. Paul's a lovely guy who deserves a lot of credit for saving his SME some serious manpower time - three people full time.  He helped turn a largely manual process into an automated one by the use of a redesigned website; reducing manual processing and unnecessary duplication.

Paul's SME is not the only one that can benefit by the use of technology to save costs. In the past this type of technology was only cost effective for large companies, but costs have fallen dramatically.  Staff cost (especially in the UK) is now often more expensive than the technology.

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Comments

[Paul Turner]

It just goes to show you that even for SMEs, the cost involveed in deploying good IT systems can be much lower than employing enough staff to do the same job. In a lot of smaller companies, IT is seen as a money-spending department, and fail to see the business benefits. Luckily, Advantage don't think that, and know that you need to invest some money to be able to make more profits!

The FST award night was a good night out (much better than here in dreary Grimsby anyway!) and we met some nice people, such as Fred Macauley, and of course yourself Philip!

[Philip Woodgate]

Hi Paul

I tend to agree. I often see a reluctance to spend even relatively small amounts on technology when staff costs in London are can easily be £30K plus. When staff are doing lot of manual processes that can be automated then that's a false economy.

Thanks for your kind comments, but Fred is not only funnier he's probably a better singer.

[Asia Business Advisor]

Fully agree. Even here in Asia personnel costs are spiraling through the roof. Baby boomers are retiring and less and less workforce are supporting growing export-driven businesses (growth coming from China and India for stable economies like Japan).

SaaS and open source have changed the game inevitably, work is becoming more project-based and focusing on ROI, rather than hours spent at the desk.