Article at a glance:

More bang for the IT buck

In the postbubble market, companies are buying new technology products at discounts not seen in years. That's good news because IT accounts, on average, for nearly 7 percent of a company’s operating expenses. Yet most companies are still spending too much—as much as 20 percent more than necessary. They could get even better deals by looking more closely at costly terms and conditions in vendor contracts, by limiting their purchases and coordinating them across divisions, and by negotiating aggressively with vendors.

The take-away

Companies can slash their IT-purchasing costs deeply in a few months by looking at today’s deals with an eye on the total cost of IT spending and by building more integrated and disciplined IT-procurement capabilities over the longer term.