Manufacturing used to get by on linear planning, stable lead times, and logistics consistency. But now? Resilience comes down to surviving the ongoing wildfire fueled by supply chain disruptions, unpredictable cost swings, tariff volatility, and inconsistent consumer demand.
While these interruptions can be challenging enough on their own, all these “uncontrollables” seem to be hitting at once. While you may see some of them coming, others can blindside you. Case in point: IT costs can torch efficiency if they’re not actively controlled.
Today, resting on your company’s traditional IT model is likely to leave manufacturing operations exposed. The model may have done well for you in a stable environment, but it’s not cut out to handle the current pace of disruption. And it definitely can’t help you prepare for what’s coming tomorrow. All it takes is one technology mistake or oversight for production to come to a halt. It’s often the things you don’t see, such as devices approaching end-of-life, that can cause the biggest bottlenecks.
When IT cost control goes unchecked, operations take a hit
As your manufacturing team is busy looking for ways to work around talent and material shortages, tariffs, and supplier inconsistency, IT sprawl can quickly and quietly take hold. Small inefficiencies become costly disruptions when no one’s paying attention. If manufacturers unknowingly devote dollars to inefficient IT, such as outdated infrastructure or unused software licenses, this leaves less budget available to improve throughput, productivity, and innovation. This makes manufacturers particularly susceptible to the side effects of poor IT cost control. Active management of IT costs is essential for plants that want to protect margins and regain an edge.
Even though many external pressures, like material and labor costs, are beyond your control, others are squarely in your hands. IT spending is a great example of a controllable cost category: It’s yours to own and manage, even as the world outside grows more unpredictable every day.
Every effort to improve cost control through smarter IT investments and processes improves your plant’s potential. Eliminating unnecessary tech costs and streamlining your IT environment means more time devoted to output and quality.
According to Investopedia, cost control is a way to pinpoint unnecessary business expenses to improve financial performance. In the world of tech and IT, cost control means making sure you’re ready for (and managing) technology costs like:
- Monthly bills like internet and VoIP
- Cloud migration projects
- Hardware lifecycles
- License renewals/additions
A reliable IT support partner can help you anticipate and plan for these costs, which we’ll talk about later in this blog.
Unchecked IT spend impacts every corner of manufacturing
Letting your IT costs stay unchecked weakens your entire manufacturing operation, pulling resources from the production floor and making long-term performance difficult to sustain. Dollars set aside for equipment upgrades or workforce development disappear, and you’re left with outdated software, fragmented tools, and inefficient systems that slow output, reduce margin, and make everyday tasks harder than they need to be.
Poor IT cost control can impact key job titles across your manufacturing plant.
- Finance directors must ensure that every dollar spent supports operational priorities, margin goals, and long-term growth. In manufacturing, uncontrolled IT costs divert capital away from critical investments like equipment upgrades, automation, and labor, leaving you exposed to unnecessary risk. Maintaining a tight grip on IT spending is critical to maintain agility, protect margins, and stay competitive.
- IT costs have a direct impact on uptime and plant security, which are top of mind for your company’s IT director. When IT budgets are mismanaged, the risk of downtime and cybersecurity threats increases. Disciplined IT cost control is critical to keep systems running and secure your data.
- Manufacturing IT teams need practical tools to track and manage budgets, whether they’re working onsite or at a central location. Using an IT director budget planning template with a rolling 12-month view helps forecast tech expenses, prevent overruns, and align IT with production demands.
- Unmanaged IT costs increase exposure across compliance, safety, and quality, which are non-negotiables for operations leaders. When you lack tight IT cost control, your plant may fall out of regulatory alignment and leave production systems open to vulnerabilities, which undermines operational resilience.
Practical levers to control IT costs in manufacturing
Taking a practical approach to IT cost control helps manufacturers avoid overspending, costly downtime, and unapproved purchases that impact the bottom line.
Here are practical levers your manufacturing plant can rely on to better control IT spending, advance productivity, improve resilience, and support economic uncertainty planning.
Create a rolling 12-month IT budget
A rolling 12-month IT budget is a great way to track and categorize recurring IT expenses like internet, VoIP, and software subscriptions. With this budgeting tactic, you’ll have a clear view of how your technology dollars are being spent and how IT investments influence production, uptime, and efficiency.
Budgets that always cover the next 12 months, no matter when they’re reviewed, let manufacturers make informed decisions about:
- Hardware end-of-life
- License changes and renewals
- Security and compliance investments
- System and software upgrades
Keep software licenses on scheduling
By consistently taking stock of your organization’s software inventory, you can track real usage. In other words, are you actually using everything you’re paying for? This review process often helps manufacturers reclaim between 10% and 25% in unnecessary spend, according to GEO IT audit information. For example, plants often discover inactive software accounts, forgotten subscriptions, and redundant tools they can eliminate.
Routine reviews of IT spending help manufacturers uncover unnecessary costs, extract more value from their software, and redirect funds to higher-impact areas like production, automation, and maintenance. They also support license compliance, helping your plant avoid unexpected fees, audits, or legal trouble down the line.
Eliminate tasks that don’t add production value
The right IT support partner can help you effectively deploy automation and AI so your valuable team members spend less time on repetitive administrative work and more time on areas like process optimization and quality improvement.
When used appropriately, tools like Microsoft Copilot can reduce or even eliminate time-consuming, tedious operations like:
- Generating shift reports and production logs
- Preparing inventory reconciliation sheets
- Compiling maintenance checklists and compliance documents
When employees focus on production and problem-solving, your entire operation benefits: cycles speed up, errors happen less often, and your team can pivot faster to meet changing demands.
In-House IT vs. IT MSPs: Who can help you better control IT costs?
Putting IT cost-control pressure solely on your in-house IT team, or on the wrong managed services partner (MSP), can backfire fast.
Most in-house manufacturing IT teams are inundated as they juggle daily operational demands. Adding more to their plates only means longer wait times and delayed issue resolution for you (and burnout and frustration for them). In other words, your IT team already has lots to do, and they don’t have enough time to do it. And, given everything they’re responsible for, they can’t be expected to also keep up with evolving technology innovation, costs, and complexity.
Choosing the wrong IT MSP can have just as many consequences. For instance, what if the partner you choose doesn’t understand manufacturing’s pace of operations or specialized systems? Your risk of disruption is much higher and can be much harder to recover from. One-size-fits-all IT solutions can’t address your plant’s unique requirements and will leave it vulnerable. These off-the-shelf approaches can often be a sign of partnership misalignment (they aren’t the right fit for you). Depending on the MSP you choose, you may also come up against slow communication and response times that delay fixes instead of preventing problems.
Finding a trusted MSP that knows how manufacturers operate is the best way to plan for the unplanned. We can help you:
- Gain long-term visibility into IT spend for better plant- and company-wide IT cost control
- Establish best practices to safeguard your budget and ensure financial stability amid uncertainty
- Achieve MSP cost savings by consolidating vendors, standardizing processes, and accessing enterprise-grade technology at a fraction of the cost
- Mitigate risks associated with unbudgeted “surprise spending”
- Deploy practical strategies around emerging technologies like AI
- Understand your IT costs at least 12 months out
- Plan for upgrades and compliance changes before they hit
- Get more from your technology without spending more
Optimized IT spend fuels production and reduces overhead
Overlooking controllable IT costs can put your manufacturing operation at risk, delaying investments, shrinking margins, and limiting your ability to respond to disruption. The right MSP can help you expose IT cost savings so you can build a more resilient operation that flexes with the changing market instead of being blindsided by change.
We can help your plant take control of IT spending so you can reduce operational risk and drive out inefficiencies. When you master your IT environment, you can make IT work for you, and not the other way around.
