Big data continues to dominate the enterprise landscape. Most organizations — regardless of industry — are looking for ways to manage the onslaught and effectively harness it. Increasingly, this means those in technology business management are examining their enterprises’ technology footprints with an eye to reducing costs, reducing complications, and reducing carbon output.

How does that work as the business data pours in, seemingly from all directions? How DO you reduce your technology footprint in the era of big data? Let’s look at the considerations.

Asking the Right Questions About Footprint

First, it’s good to get an understanding of what we mean by technology footprint. Much has been made over the last decade of our personal digital footprint, which, according to Netsafe, is all the information that exists on the internet about you based on your digital interactions, including “the websites you visit, the photos you upload and your interactions with other people on social networks.” This information may be used by employers, education and volunteer institutions, law enforcement, and even social contacts to evaluate individuals for a host of reasons. As such, it needs to be scrupulously audited: Are you handing out your financial data to too many different entities and making yourself vulnerable to fraud? Are you posting personal information and opinions that could be held against you at a later time?

These are the questions individuals need to ask themselves about their online activities. Enterprises have to ask another set of questions when considering their technology footprints: Do we have redundant software licenses? Could we be doing more with less? Does our hardware exceed our needs? Is our data-storage approach excessively resource-intensive? What do we actually require, and what is just nice to have?

We’ll examine these questions in greater detail below. Still, if just asking them is anxiety-provoking, it could be time to engage a technology consultant who can help.

As Big Data Gets Bigger, Looking for Ways to Make the Technology Burden Smaller

It seems paradoxical that as data gets bigger, an enterprise might actually want to shrink its technology investment. The reality is, however, that many organizations are over-invested in software and hardware. Do you need three platforms that essentially do the same thing? No, probably not. Software redundancy increases costs and may confuse users. Do you need a traditional data center if edge infrastructure will be the future of your enterprise? Is that new server necessary if you are migrating much of your storage to the cloud? Again, probably not.

An effective technology business management approach should include comprehensive expense mapping that examines legacy technology with an eye to reducing the technology footprint of the organization, including:

• Limiting the amount of physical space occupied by hardware
• Curtailing the amount of memory occupied by software
• Consolidating software licenses
• Reducing internet bandwidth use
• Shrinking volume of network traffic
• Streamlining telecom expenses

Likewise, new technology investments should be accompanied by meticulous consideration of needs vs. wants and impact vs. expense. Microcomponents are making hardware solutions smaller than ever. Your enterprise may not require nearly as much physical space for future technologies if you combine smaller hardware with the rapid rise of so-called edge computing — the push to process data as close to the end-user as possible.

In fact, some predictions have edge computing growing by 75% over the next 36 to 48 months, driven by demand from the Internet of Things. At a minimum, organizations can expect an increasingly hybrid computing model combining edge and cloud infrastructure and employing both centralized and local processing. This model could reduce the volume of central network traffic and require less large-scale physical data storage, while virtual desktop technology will reduce on-device storage for many software applications. Individual workstations will get more powerful without sacrificing memory.

The upshot: When looking to update or replace existing systems, considering the technology footprint can help cut costs and minimize complications.

Reducing Footprint to Reduce Climate Impact

Need another reason to evaluate your enterprise’s technology footprint? Try 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s how much the tech sector was estimated to be responsible for in 2020. That number may double by 2025, which means that any adjustments you make to your technology footprint could have a very real impact on the future of the Earth’s climate.

Additionally, data storage racks are massive electricity hounds. While industry leaders are investigating solutions like waste-heat recycling to make data storage more energy efficient, the most efficient solution is to not need the storage. Any reductions you can make in your use reduces your corporate carbon footprint overall. And, of course, by limiting energy consumption, your organization may cut costs, as well.

Special Considerations for Certain Enterprises

It almost goes without saying that reducing one’s organizational footprint is much easier in some sectors than in others. In particular, in healthcare and government, the data load will only get larger — and data warehousing will only become more onerous. Anything that can be automated will be.

Fortunately, software and hardware developers servicing these data-intensive sectors seem to be cognizant of the need to reduce their clients’ overall technology footprint. They are developing high-density hardware solutions and virtual platforms that will meet sensitive data archiving requirements without the unwieldy tech footprint. Stay tuned.

How to Reduce YOUR Organization’s Footprint?

A cohesive technology business management approach is critical to integrating IT across all business units and aligning IT goals with business goals. If your goal is to reduce costs, simplify processes and minimize your enterprise climate impact, your technology business management framework must include footprint evaluation and reduction.

Need guidance? Contact Momentum today to learn more about developing a cohesive TBM strategy while reducing your technology footprint.