The first strategy makes sense, but spending money to save money? It may seem counterintuitive, but spending a little more now can save your business a lot in the future. Here are a few tips to help you understand the secrets to saving.

IT PAYS TO BE CIO:

* Vendor value: Take advantage of the ancillary services that vendors provide as a value add. Prior to delivery, vendors can pre-configure and asset tag purchases, as well as image your organization's software onto hardware products. The vendor may also provide hardware and software asset management tracking for no additional cost. These services free up staff that might otherwise need to handle this process, which gives them more time to focus on critical projects.

You can also work with your software vendor to customize orders and license offerings to ensure that your organization is getting the most out of its purchases. Buying software in bulk (often available for as few as five devices) provides greater cost savings than making an individual purchase for each employee. Just be sure to compare the cost of multiple individual purchases to bulk prices. In some cases, it is possible to switch software licenses from covering "total-users" to "number-of-active-users." This provides flexibility with your software so the organization can transfer licenses from one device to the next, rather than having to re-purchase that software in the future. Bottom line, it pays to make the most of your current partnerships by staying on top of available services and offerings.

* Server and storage savings: When it comes to savings in the , it all comes down to managing the allotted space, reducing power and efficiently using cooling techniques. A strong data center design can address each of these components and drastically reduce startup and maintenance costs.