-- Licensed software. Large corporate customers rarely go back to review the number of employees who are actually using a licensed software system, even after staff cutbacks.

-- Software maintenance. Instead of paying the vendor 18 percent to 22 percent (on average) of annual licensing fees for maintenance, shop around. There's a growing number of third-party maintenance vendors available, and many offer maintenance at a fraction of the cost.

-- Labor. The biggest IT cost category is people. Consider using offshore labor or putting some maintenance work out for bid.

-- Business-based sizing. Few IT managers have looked at the size of their companies and tried to determine the number of servers, mainframe processors, printers and other devices they really need in order to support the organization. It may be smaller than you think.

-- Creative financing. Approaches include establishing lines of credit with finance providers to lease hardware, or classifying hardware leases as operating leases so the equipment isn't listed on the balance sheet as debt.