IT managers that fail to embrace on-demand services will hold back the organisation they are supposed to be supporting. Such services can save costs within IT, as well as provide new capabilities to the business that have previously been unavailable or unaffordable. On-demand services also allow IT departments to focus more on managing information rather than fiddling with technology.

Spend analysis is a good example. Available at a cost that is far cheaper than attempting to develop a system in-house, on-demand spend analysis provides a business with rapid access to a high quality integrated repository of cleansed, categorised and enriched spend data collected from a wide range of internal and external data sources.

IT managers need to keep demonstrating how IT can help drive the business forward and underpin survival and growth, even in a tough economic climate. On-demand spend analytics is a quick and easy win with a potentially huge return on investment.