You’ve heard the argument before: what separates an impactful IT department from one which simple handles ‘the plumbing?’ The truth is, nowadays there’s rarely a place for purely transactional IT in mid to large sized companies. It’s a new era, with new expectations for IT to prove their trending value. IT leaders now face two challenges. One, how do they continue to drive even more value from IT? Two, how do they effectively communicate that value to peers, executives and stakeholders? This handbook offers 9 surefire ways to migrate IT from a cost center to a value center, with tips to make sure that value is articulate with nothing left to the imagination.

1. Surefire Ways to Migrate IT from a
Cost Center to a Value Center
Quick Tips for IT Leaders

2. Cost center:
A part of an organization
that does not produce direct
profit and adds to the cost
of running a company.
Example: Your IT department?
That may be true today,
but you can shake that image.
Employ these 9 simple
strategies to help transform
your IT department from a
cost center to a value center.

3. #1Emphasize IT’s role as a business enabler.

4. Businesses need their
IT department to make
the business go.
But today, that means
much more than
“keeping the lights on.”
To make that clear, you should:
• Reposition your IT department
as a hotbed of innovation and
problem-solving for the business.
• Use every opportunity to
underscore your team’s
accomplishments.
• Tie every achievement to a
specific contribution of value
to the business.

5. #2Communicate how IT provides
competitive advantage.

6. Every modern business is a
technology-enabled business to
some degree.
Business leaders sometimes
overlook that, and are not aware
of how technology, and a skilled IT
team, specifically help the business
to compete.
You can help them to better
understand IT’s influence by doing
two things:
1. Increasing the frequency and
quality of your communication
with senior management.
2. Explaining in business terms
how IT provides advantages to
the organization.
For example:
“We implemented a video
communications solution that
emphasizes the end-user
experience, which has led to
massive adoption of video
into workflows. Our sales
leader says it’s helping reps to
close deals faster,
and HR says they’ve sped up
the hiring cycle.”

7. #3Empower users to be more productive
(and self-sufficient).

8. Here’s a fact:
When employees are overly
dependent on the IT team for
enabling everyday business
collaboration, they impede the
IT department’s efforts to
become a value center.
Solution:
Equip employees with user-
friendly, reliable technology that
helps them to communicate and
work more efficiently, anywhere,
anytime, and from any device —
and without IT’s help.

9. #4Improve communication and collaboration
within IT.

10. Tip #3 doesn’t just apply to business users.
To solve problems and innovate — i.e.,
add value — IT teams need effective tools for
collaboration. They must be able to meet
“on the fly” seamlessly from any device.

11. #5Enable the business to maximize its
IT investments.

12. When the IT environment is overly complex, it is
not cost-efficient.
Help the business rethink its approach to IT investments
by finding ways to:
• Simplify and consolidate the current IT environment —
such as by moving business applications to the cloud.
• Leverage existing IT solutions — for instance, by
implementing new collaboration tools that make use
of existing technologies, such as room systems,
existing hardware investments, or employees’ devices.

13. #6Implement flexible technology that can grow
with the organization.

14. Building on Tip #5:
Guide the business
toward technology that
is scalable and easy for
IT manage.
Cloud-based solutions
for high-quality video
collaboration, as an example,
can flex to meet changing
business demands — and are
therefore cost-effective.

15. #7Help the business enhance information
security and avoid risk.

16. As your organization embraces new
technologies, such as cloud-based
collaboration solutions like video
communications, look for enterprise-grade
security features such as:
• Cloud architectural security:
Infrastructure and network security.
• Web application security:
User account security.
• Admin-level security: Group administrator
security features.
• Privacy: Secure storage of customer data.
• Media and encryption: Support for
standards-based encryption.
When IT helps the
business reduce risk it
creates value.

17. #8Give your team more time to devote to
value-adding work.

18. How can your
IT team add value to
the business when they
don’t have time for
value-adding work?
When the business invests
in reliable and flexible
technology that is easy for
employees — and IT — to
use, IT can spend less time
on maintenance and support.
But that’s only part of the
solution. As an IT leader, you
also have to emphasize the
value of value-adding work.
In short, you must guide —
and set an example — for
your team.

19. #9Use hard numbers to underscore how
IT delivers ROI.

20. Talking about the ways the IT
department can and does add
value to the business is important
to helping change the perception
that IT is just a cost center.
But metrics are even more
compelling.
So, be sure to adopt technologies
that offer strong analytics engines.
That way, you can communicate
hard numbers to business
leadership on how IT is helping
the organization to be more
productive, to compete, to reduce
costs, and to realize ROI.

21. About BlueJeans
BlueJeans is a flexible, cloud-based video communications platform that
enables effortless video collaboration. With enterprise-grade security, full
interoperability, and in-depth analytics, it’s no surprise some of the best and
brightest IT departments think BlueJeans is the right fit for their business.
Find out more from our customers, here.