Cuts? eWEEK Readers Say Tech Will Help

Organisations can use IT to make the savings that will be required while Britain deals with the deficit, according to a poll of eWEEK readers.

Virtualising servers, and using IT in efficiency schemes came top of our readers’ suggestions, along with automation and outsourcing – while a surprisingly large number of readers thought IT departments could lose some staff during cutbacks which are expected to hit private sector companies along with the public sector.

IT can help with efficiency

It’s probably no surprise that readers of a business tech site believe that IT could have the answers to business problems, and the top scoring technology, virtualisation, is one which has received a lot of backing in the last two years, becoming mainstream across most organisations.

For instance, Dell claims to have saved £100 million per year, through virtualisation and consolidation in its data centres.

Other readers wanted to use IT in efficiency schemes – perhaps trimming waste from a supply chain or reducing paper work. Still others wanted to apply automation, using electronic equipment to replace human labour and improve efficiency.

A surprisingly high number (11.5 percent) favoured cutting IT staff, while another ten percent suggested what in many cases will amount to the same thing: outsourcing, which would move IT jobs to a different company, presumably shedding some in the process.

A substantial number of people checked “Other answer” and made the eminently sensible suggestion of cutting bills by using open source software. We would bet that, given its own place on the list of options, this one would have been among the top three.

And finally, no one thought it was a good idea to cancel projects and services. That way madness lies.

How should organisations connect with customers?

For our next poll, we want you to get social, and consider the best way for an organisation to use social networking.

You may be aware that eWEEK Europe UK has its own Facebook page. We’re hoping to use that to increase our contact with you, to get feedback and become more responsive. If you haven’t heard about this page, well, stop reading now, and sign up already!

Seriously, we’re interested to know whether Facebook is even the best way to communicate with a business audience (we’re also on Twitter and LinkedIn, obviously), and of course, you are the best people to ask.

So tell us, how you think your organisation can use social networking to best effect? Is Facebook better than Twitter or LinkedIn? Or should we forget about them in a business context, and stick with email or the phone?

And if you want to, you can also tell us what we can do better in our own social networking efforts. Vote using the poll on the left hand side of the site and join the debate.