Tag: tech budget

  • Cloud Waste and Other Technology Spending Snafu’s That Could Be Keeping Your Tech Spending Skyhigh

    Cloud Waste and Other Technology Spending Snafu’s That Could Be Keeping Your Tech Spending Skyhigh

    For many small businesses, technology spending starts with good intentions. A new tool solves a real problem. A subscription adds convenience. A cloud service promises scalability.


    Fast forward a year or two, and that same environment often turns into a tangled web of overlapping tools, forgotten subscriptions, and quietly rising monthly costs. This is cloud waste. And for small to mid-sized businesses, it is one of the most common and preventable drains on profitability. Cloud waste is not just about overspending on infrastructure. It is usually a combination of small inefficiencies that compound over time.


    You might see it in:

    • Licenses assigned to former employees that were never reclaimed
    • Multiple tools doing the same job across departments
    • “Free trials” that quietly converted into paid subscriptions
    • SaaS platforms with premium tiers that no one is actually using
    • Cloud resources that were spun up for a project and never shut down

    Individually, these seem minor. Together, they can represent thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per year in unnecessary spend.


    Stack creep happens when your technology environment grows organically without coordination. Different teams adopt different tools. Leadership approves purchases reactively. No one owns the full picture.


    Subscription creep is the financial side of that problem. Recurring charges stack up across:

    • SaaS applications
    • Cloud hosting platforms
    • Security add-ons
    • Collaboration tools
    • Backup and storage services

    The real issue is not just the cost. It is the lack of visibility. Most small businesses cannot easily answer a simple question:
    “What are we actually paying for each month, and do we still need all of it?” If you cannot answer that quickly, you are almost certainly overspending.


    This problem tends to get worse over time.Technology spending rarely gets audited with the same rigor as payroll or rent, subscriptions may be decentralized across departments and the charges are just small enough to fly by when reviewed individually. However, when reviewed as a whole that’s when the real picture emerges. We also want to note, fixing this does not require ripping everything out. A thorough accounting and review with a trust IT profession (like Valley Techlogic) can help get these wayward costs under control and evaluate the tools your business actually needs.


    We would start with the basics:

    • Establish a single source of truth for all subscriptions and vendors
    • Assign ownership of each tool to a specific person or role
    • Conduct quarterly reviews of usage, licenses, and value delivered
    • Eliminate duplicate tools and consolidate where possible
    • Right-size licensing tiers based on actual usage, not assumptions
    • Implement offboarding processes that immediately reclaim licenses

    The goal is not just cost reduction, it is reducing the scale to what you’re actually using. When you control your stack, you can make intentional decisions about where to invest in your tech and where to cut.


    We also wanted to provided a quick note for California Business Owners specifically, if your business is based in California, you have a few advantages when it comes to cancelling unwanted subscriptions. Under California’s Automatic Renewal Law, companies are required to make cancellation reasonably accessible.


    That means:

    • If you signed up online, you must be able to cancel online
    • Companies must provide clear cancellation instructions
    • You cannot be forced into unnecessary steps like calling during limited hours if the service was purchased digitally

    Reducing cloud waste is not just about saving money. It is about reallocating that money to things that actually move the business forward. If your tech stack has grown without a clear plan, you are not alone but continuing to ignore it is expensive. A focused review of your environment can often cut a significant percentage of your technology spend without sacrificing capability, and Valley Techlogic can assist you with that evaluation. Learn more today with a consultation.




  • Anthropic’s AI product Claude experienced a surge in new subscribers after they told the government “no” to removing safeguards, a new look at AI ethics
  • Government backed cybersecurity agency CISA down to just 38% of its optimal staffing levels after funding cuts, what it means for your business
  • The biggest risk to your business might be a past employee, our guide to offboarding a past employee properly

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on X at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.

  • 7 Tech New Year’s Resolutions to Accomplish in 2024

    7 Tech New Year’s Resolutions to Accomplish in 2024

    Happy New Year! It may not feel like 2024 yet to you (it certainly doesn’t to us) but the new year is upon us and with that comes a renewed opportunity to address some of the tech items that have been pushed under the rug to deal with “later”.

    Whether you’re committed to trying to up your game this year or clean up areas of your business where the tech has fallen behind, we have 7 New Year’s resolutions that will push your business forward and maximize your efficiency and growth in 2024.

    1. New Year, New Tech? Starting off, the start of the year is a great time to do some housekeeping and figure out what devices may be holding you and your staff back. Vendors like Dell, Lenovo and more often have start of the year sales and dragging that aging PC or laptop through another year versus starting clean with a new device (with vastly superior hardware) just doesn’t make sense.
    2. There’s an app for EVERYTHING. Next, it’s a good idea to see what processes you’re still trudging through manually and evaluate whether some of those manual tasks could instead be modernized with an app. Whether it be pen and paper calendar or planner (Microsoft Outlook has both built in!) or tools for managing budgets, inventory, scheduling and more – going digital with your processes in 2024 is the smart choice.
    3. Connect with your customers. When it comes to engaging with your clients, reaching them where they are is a powerful tool. For a lot of business owners stepping out from the shadows and putting more of themselves online is a scary thought, but many customers want to identify with your brand or with you directly not just with your product. Who better to promote your brand than you? Improving your online presence for your business and yourself is a powerful sales tool you should take advantage of in 2024.
    4. Are you cyber aware or cyber scared? If cybersecurity has been a topic you’ve been avoiding or interacting with as little as possible, it’s really past time to change that. The threats to your business aren’t going away and a little proactive maintenance in this area can have a HUGE impact. One thing you can do today (as in right now) to bolster your protection? Turn on multi-factor authentication on all the accounts where it’s available. This simple action will give you over 50% improvement in protecting your accounts from being compromised vs not having it.
    5. In the same vein, data loss is not inevitable. We get it, we’re all inundated with news of this breach or that data leak where everyone’s information was dumped into the internet ether – we just would argue that this scenario is NOT an inevitability. In fact, in 2024 we would also guess many insurance companies would agree as rules for being covered continue to grow stricter. If you don’t have a plan for your backups and data in 2024 you need to make one, STAT.
    6. Tech improvements can have a positive effect on your ROI. Whether it be ditching traditional telecom in favor of VoIP (our customers have paid as little as a 10th of what they were spending for phones with our solution), utilizing digital training to increase your employees confidence and performing, or deploying communication tools in your business that allow for more efficient back and forth – there are a lot of areas where tech won’t just make your business run better it will also make your business more profitable.
    7. You can’t do it alone, take this piece of advice. If nothing else the best resolution you can make regarding your tech in 2024 is acknowledging that it might be too much for one person, whether that’s you or a non-technical staff member that’s trying to help out – to keep up with maintenance alone is often times not a one-person job let alone making improvements. The best bang for your buck in 2024 will be bringing in additional assistance.

    If your business is located in the Central Valley that’s where Valley Techlogic can assist. We provide support for ALL the topics we’ve listed above and more, and when you sign up with us you will have access to our whole team – often times for much less than it would be to hire a single dedicated IT staff person.

    If you’re curious what we can do for your business we’re also offering $100 cash to business owners that simply hear what we have to offer, no strings attached. Click on the image below to get started.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • 5 Ways to Reduce Your IT Costs and Eliminate Wasteful Spending

    5 Ways to Reduce Your IT Costs and Eliminate Wasteful Spending

    In 2023 it feels like the cost of everything is skyrocketing, from eggs being $10 for a dozen, to the price of a used car being up 61% compared to 2019.

    Consumers and business owners alike are scrambling to cut costs where they can, and as a business owner you may be tempted to target your technology spending.

    While technology spending is usually a tiny fraction of the overall cost of running a business (4-6% annually is the average), it’s still a commonly targeted sector. This is usually because it’s one of the least visible items business owners spend money on. While tangible products your business needs day to day are more obvious, a good bit of the money spent on technology in a business is for prevention or maintenance.

    Whether it be software upgrades, new peripherals that function behind the scenes, or money spent on cybersecurity efforts, these are purchases you may not see the obvious immediate benefit from especially if you’re not tech savvy.

    These “invisible” costs occur and leave business owners wondering, do I really need this service or product?

    The answer is a resounding yes, for the most part. While money spent on preventative measures is often a tough pill to swallow, the money you would have to spend recovering from something that could have been prevented will be even tougher (and costlier).

    However, there are some areas of technology spending that are worth taking a look at. We have found that many business owners who utilize our services are already paying for redundant IT services, they just didn’t know it.

    Another example is we have had many clients that sign up with Valley Techlogic, and upon reviewing their internet bill or phone bill we find that they’re drastically overpaying.

    Here are the five ways we suggest cutting your IT spending in 2023:

    1. The first one is touched on above, check your internet bill. As with consumer internet services there are often specials that can be taken advantage of to reduce your overall cost, but if your internet service costs have ballooned out of control it might be time to look for a new provider.
    2. The same is true for your phone service, especially if you’re still using landline phones. Switching to a VoIP service could save your business a substantial amount, but if you’re not ready for that yet you can also just see if all of the lines you’re paying for are being used. We’ve found during customer audits they often have phone lines that ring to nowhere and can be safely disconnected.
    3. Another thing you can do is look for redundant services, if you have several programs aimed at cybersecurity they may have overlapping services – allowing you to cancel the one with the least features. Also, if you’re a Microsoft 365 customer you could consider switching your users to Premium to take advantage of the security features provided by Microsoft directly (at an often greatly reduced cost to stand alone products).
    4. Consider whether virtualization will reduce your hardware costs. There’s a lot of talk about “moving to the cloud”, but for many business owners that’s a nebulous topic. To put it in a nutshell, there is a significant upfront cost to moving your business’s data to the cloud, but you will reap the reward on the backend from reduced infrastructure costs.
    5. Finally, consider whether it makes sense to hiring internally or outsource your IT help. For larger businesses hiring IT staff can make sense to handle the load of their business, but for medium to small businesses hiring a dedicated person is often much more expensive then having a technology service plan through a provider like us. Even for larger businesses, having a technology service plan from a provider can make more sense than continuously hiring additional staff to address an additional need for help.

    If you need help reviewing your IT spending to find out whether it’s in line, or whether a service plan through us can help you address this topic and many more – schedule a consultation with us today.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.