Everywhere you turn; it seems that the entire world is talking about Green IT, Sustainability, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Enterprises are now inundated with information about products and services that span the spectrum from poorly disguised Greenwashing to industry changing innovation. Clearly, all of these products and services are not created equal. For companies dedicated to improving their ecological footprint as well as their fiscal responsibility, money is the REAL Green in Green IT.
Energy Management companies are a primary example of this. To know if an energy management product or service is right for your enterprise, it is imperative that you know what benefits you should be receiving from it.
Any technology used to manage energy in the enterprise should be able to clearly and quickly demonstrate a Return on Investment (ROI) in a reasonable amount of time. Without an accurate reporting mechanism to demonstrate ROI, there is no way to determine the success of energy management programs or make the financial case for implementation of programs.
Just as important is the knowledge that standard ROI calculations only tell part of the story. Organizations should look beyond ROI into other savings opportunities to see the full picture.
The Big Picture in Energy Management ROI:
Energy Savings – The first and obvious ROI calculation in Energy Management is the reduction in energy spending. However, most solutions don’t provide a way to break out the energy usage of a company by department, cost center, or any other factor. To determine the success or failure of energy management initiatives, this data is a key factor.
When you take a step back and look at the larger picture, you see that the right energy management platform can change the entire ROI landscape of the enterprise’s sustainability initiatives.
Sustainable Procurement – The ability to factor the Total Cost of Ownership (energy consumption, asset utilization, and capital equipment costs) into the purchase decision of IT Equipment, in an automated way, can significantly improve the procurement process for IT departments and CFOs alike. When the IT department can immediately calculate that the amount of energy being drawn by a legacy server costs more than the costs to procure and power a new server over the life of the product, ROI is boosted even further.
Virtualization – Automatic identification of ideal candidates for consolidation, virtualization, and cloud projects can take the efficiency of your enterprise to a whole new level. By identifying equipment for retirement, upgrade, or virtualization, it’s easy to see the achievable savings almost immediately.
Capacity Planning – The ability to fully visualize and utilize the IT infrastructure capacity that you currently have eases capacity planning challenges. This means that enterprises no longer have to struggle with over-building to ensure service levels are met.
These are just a few, but very critical factors in the Energy Management ROI picture. If the solutions you're looking at don't provide these benefits at a bare minimum, contact JouleX and see the whole picture.
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