Optimising IT and business operations means focusing on business process improvement, automation, and streamlining work. By cutting waste, using new digital tools, and aligning people, processes, and technology, you can save money, time, and build a more productive, competitive business.
How to streamline and automate processes
Cost cutting? How about strategic optimisation instead? That's where true leadership shows up.
As we head into a new financial year, CFOs, CIOs and CTOs across New Zealand face sharper expectations: deliver more innovation, secure the enterprise, and do it all with fewer resources.
But while the instinct might be to slash line items and delay major projects, the smarter move is to step back and ask, are we spending in the right places?
From inflated licensing costs and under used
AI investments to cloud overconsumption and fragmented infrastructure, many of the biggest cost burdens are hiding in plain sight. What organisations need is not a knee-jerk reaction, but a considered strategy that unlocks value across the enterprise.
Here’s where to start.
Start with insight, not instinct
One of the most common mistakes executives make when trying to reduce IT costs is starting with assumptions: “We need fewer people,” or “That software is too expensive.” But without a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not, this approach often ends up shifting costs down the line, not reducing them.
Mapping your end-to-end business processes is a powerful first step. As Raji Haththotuwegama, Head of Data & AI at Canon Business Services ANZ (CBS), explains, “Improving one area in isolation can create a downstream burden elsewhere. Optimisation needs a whole-of-system view.”
Raji recommends combining
process mapping with usage analytics. This includes assessing how
cloud platforms, tools and AI services are actually being used across the business. You can’t optimise what you don’t measure.
And often, there are big surprises. Some departments may be manually replicating work that another has already automated. A misaligned tool may be causing more frustration than value. These hidden inefficiencies only become clear when the full landscape is laid out.
The hidden cost of doing nothing
For many organisations, the biggest risk isn’t overspending—it’s inertia.
Rushing to embrace AI without a strategy often leads to waste. Raji notes that research shows a third of all
GenAI projects fail to go to production, with some studies claiming that figure is closer to 80%. The same goes for hastily purchased AI agents or analytics tools deployed without a clear use case.
Legacy infrastructure is another culprit. "We have clients running systems that fail regularly. The cost of downtime, reactive support, and lost productivity is enormous," says CBS Head of Technology Solutions,
Adrian Capolino.
And there are broader consequences. A lack of
modern tools can impact staff morale, recruitment, and retention. "Today’s employees expect digital support. If you’re asking them to manually document things that could be automated, you’re already behind," adds
Rico Gunawan, CBS Practice Lead and Architect in Cloud & App Innovation.
The reality is that doing nothing is rarely a neutral position. Whether it’s missed revenue, reputational risk, or quiet resignation from your best people, inaction carries weight.
Move from capex to opex thinking
Traditionally, transformation programs were funded as capital projects. But the landscape is shifting.
"We’re seeing a clear move toward OPEX-led models, where spend is allocated incrementally and drawn down as needed," says Adrian. This allows faster innovation and reduces complexity, especially with AI and cloud platforms adopting usage-based pricing.
"These costs aren’t fixed anymore. You’re charged per transaction, per prompt, per user. And prices change often. If you’re not monitoring it, you’re at risk of surprise bills," he explains.
CBS helps clients manage this risk by offering FinOps capabilities like dashboards, predictive usage modelling, licensing reviews, and ongoing optimisation. "You need someone focused on this full-time, or a partner who can do it for you," Adrian adds.
FinOps is no longer a luxury—it’s essential. Without clear forecasting and monitoring, even a modest AI implementation can balloon in cost.
Quick wins can fund strategic growth
One of the most effective ways to gain executive support for modernisation is to deliver early, measurable wins.
"Our approach often starts tactically," says Adrian. "We find small efficiencies that save money,
optimising cloud infrastructure or automating a manual process—and use those savings to fund broader initiatives."
This self-funding model helps overcome the classic budget barrier. For example, CBS helped a client save $10K per month in Azure spend, which was then reinvested into workflow automation and secure access improvements.
"Tactical wins build trust," he adds. "But they must always ladder up to a longer-term vision. Otherwise, you’re just duct-taping the problem."
A good rule of thumb? If the tactical win doesn't feed the strategic direction, it may not be a win after all.
Get in touch
Talk to us today to optimise your operations.
Engage finance as partners in transformation
Cost optimisation is often led by finance, but it shouldn’t sit with finance alone.
"When budgeting and optimisation are owned only by one function, organisations risk making decisions that solve short-term problems but create long-term complexity," says Raji.
Instead, CBS recommends a shared responsibility model. Boards, ELTs,
finance, IT and business units must align on objectives and the roadmap to get there.
"What works best is when there's a whole-of-business mindset," adds Rico. "It’s not about excluding finance but including everyone else.
Optimisation isn’t just a numbers game. It’s about people, processes, and long-term value."
Leadership matters here. Organisations with a clear board-level directive to optimise and innovate are far more likely to succeed. Without it, even the most well-intentioned IT projects struggle to gain traction.
Understand before you automate
With all the hype around AI, it can be tempting to leap straight into deploying tools like Copilot or custom
AI agents. But as Adrian warns, "You need to understand your processes before you digitise or automate them. Otherwise, you risk automating inefficiency."
In other words, automation won’t save a broken process. It will just speed it up.
At CBS,
process mapping and documentation are essential first steps. They help identify not just cost hotspots, but also misaligned workflows, shadow systems, and duplication of effort.
"We often find that no two departments describe the same process the same way," notes Raji. "Getting consensus is step one."
Modernisation should be built on a clear understanding of what your teams do, how they do it, and what outcomes they’re aiming for. Only then can AI add value.
For organisations considering AI-driven transformation, here are a few questions to ask before building the solution:
- Do we know which parts of a process add the most value, and which ones cause the most rework?
- Is this process repeatable, consistent, and well-understood across teams?
- What outcomes are we expecting, and how will we measure success?
- Have we validated whether this needs AI, or just better design?
Often, the answer isn’t a chatbot or a dashboard. It’s streamlining the process itself, then augmenting it with the right technology.
Successful transformation projects share one thing in common: they start with clarity, not code. By understanding what people do and why they do it, organisations can deploy technology that genuinely enables better outcomes, not just faster output.
The Canon Business Services ANZ approach
Canon Business Services ANZ offers a structured, whole-of-business approach to optimisation. It includes:
- Business process mapping to identify inefficiencies.
- Usage analytics for AI, cloud, and software platforms.
- Microsoft licensing and FinOps support to rein in unpredictable spend.
- Legacy system assessments to highlight cost-to-serve.
- Digitisation and automation strategy, from paper files to conversational AI.
- Governance frameworks to align cost, risk and ROI.
Importantly, CBS doesn’t push tools for their own sake. "We don’t just help clients choose the right technology. We help them rule out what they don’t need," says Adrian.
This helps clients avoid the trap of buying AI tools without a clear plan for
ROI, or worse, implementing solutions that end up costing more than the problems they aim to solve.
A roadmap to sustainable cost optimisation
In a market where everyone is under pressure to do more with less, the organisations that thrive will be the ones that take a strategic, data-led approach to
cost optimisation.
Not by cutting corners—but by knowing where to look. And knowing when to act.
Canon Business Services ANZ helps organisations across ANZ modernise their operations, manage risk, and unlock smarter ways of working. To find out how we can support your optimisation journey, get in touch.
