# A one-page IT strategy for SMEs, and where IT money leaks

URL: https://casterconsulting.hu/en/one-page-it-strategy-it-costs/
Published: 2026-10-15
Updated: 2026-10-15
Author: Caster Consulting

> An SME doesn't need a fifty-page IT strategy. One page is enough: what the business wants to achieve, what you have now, the next three steps, and how much money goes on things nobody uses.

**Short answer: an SME doesn't need a fifty-page IT strategy. One page is enough.** That page says what the business wants to achieve, what you have in IT today, the next three steps, who owns them and what they cost. Along the way, it almost always turns out that some of the money goes on things nobody uses.

Most small and mid-sized companies don't have an IT strategy, just a series of IT purchases. Someone subscribed to a tool because they needed it that week. Another department subscribed to a different one for the same purpose. The server in the corner runs because someone bought it years ago. Later, nobody knows why anything is there or what it all costs.

## Why bother with a strategy?

Gartner's July 2026 forecast puts worldwide IT spending in 2026 at $6.37 trillion, 14.2% more than a year earlier. IT is a growing line item, and more decisions depend on it: cloud, security, AI, software.

Meanwhile, many European SMEs are still catching up on the basics. In Hungary, for example, the European Commission's Digital Decade report found that 57.44% of SMEs reached a basic level of digital intensity in 2024, against an EU average of 72.91%. 7.41% of Hungarian enterprises used AI, against 13.48% in the EU, and 36.19% of Hungarian SMEs used cloud services in 2023.

You can read that two ways. One: there's ground to make up, and some competitors are already ahead. Two: whoever moves deliberately now can learn cheaply from others' mistakes. Either way, it's better if your steps point in one direction rather than at random.

## What goes on the page

A one-page IT strategy has five parts:

**1. Business goal.** What does the company want to achieve in the next one or two years? Not IT goals, business ones: a new market, faster quotes, less admin, a new site, more online sales. One to three sentences.

**2. Current state.** What do you have now? Which systems, devices and subscriptions, who runs them, and what they cost in total per year. If you can't write this down on one page, that in itself is an important finding.

**3. Risks.** What are the three biggest risks? For example: no tested backup, one person knows everything, the core system is outdated, no multi-factor authentication.

**4. The next three steps.** What three things will you do in the next 12 months that help the business goal most or reduce the biggest risk? For each: an owner, a deadline, an estimated cost.

**5. Budget.** How much does the company spend on IT a year, and how much will it spend next year?

That's it. No consultant needed, no spreadsheet macros. It can be written in one management meeting, if someone has gathered the current state beforehand.

## Who writes it?

A one-page IT strategy isn't the IT person's document; it belongs to management. The IT person or outside partner can gather the current state and the risks, but business goals and priorities are management's call. If only IT writes it, you get a technical wish list. If only management writes it, the real constraints will be missing.

The right setup: one manager who owns the document, and one IT person, internal or external, who brings the data. One or two meetings are enough if the preparation is done.

## Three kinds of IT cost

When you add up what the company spends on IT, sort the items into three groups:

- **Running costs:** subscriptions, licences, operations, internet, device replacement. The company can't work without them, but this is where tidying up saves the most.
- **Development costs:** new systems, integrations, automation. These move the company towards its business goal.
- **Risk reduction costs:** backup, security, training. Their value shows when something goes wrong and the damage stays small.

In most SMEs, running costs take most of the budget and little is left for development or security. One aim of the one-page strategy is to make that split a deliberate decision, not an accident.

## Example: a 30-person company

To make it concrete, here's what the page could look like for a fictional 30-person trading company:

- **Business goal:** within two years, take half of all orders online, and cut quote turnaround from a day to an hour.
- **Current state:** an office suite on subscription, a separate invoicing tool, a customer list in a spreadsheet, an old server in the office, an occasional outside IT contractor. Annual IT spend: nobody knows exactly.
- **Risks:** no tested backup of the data on the server; all passwords held by one person; accounts of people who left are still active.
- **Next three steps:** (1) inventory and licence clean-up, (2) tested backup and multi-factor authentication for everyone, (3) a CRM to replace the customer spreadsheet.
- **Budget:** known after step one, because until then we don't know what we spend.

The example deliberately leaves out AI. Until the basics are in order, AI isn't the best next step.

## Basics before AI

When a large share of SMEs haven't reached basic digitalisation, it's tempting to jump straight to an AI project, because that's what all the news is about. But AI builds on existing data and processes. If customer data is scattered across five spreadsheets, if there's no backup, if there's no access management, AI won't solve those problems; it will just make them visible faster.

The right order is usually: access and backups in order, cloud-based collaboration, core business data in one place, and only then automation and AI.

## Where the money leaks

The cheapest way to cut IT costs isn't negotiating; it's stopping what you don't use.

**Unused licences.** According to Zylo, a SaaS management vendor, companies use on average 54% of the SaaS licences they buy, based on its 2026 data. It's vendor data from larger companies, but the pattern is familiar in an SME too: licences of people who left, subscriptions left running after a trial, "the most expensive plan for everyone".

**Cloud waste.** Flexera's 2026 survey found respondents estimate 29% of cloud spend is wasted. Typical causes: test environments nobody switched off, oversized servers, forgotten storage.

**Duplicate tools.** Two teams use two different tools for the same thing: two video conferencing tools, two file sharing services, two project trackers. You pay for both, and your data lives in two places.

**The wrong plan.** Many companies buy the top plan for everyone when most staff would be fine with a cheaper one. Or the reverse: they buy a cheaper plan and pay extra for a feature included in the next tier up.

**Forgotten hardware.** The server in the corner costs electricity, maintenance and risk, even if nobody remembers what it's for.

## How to run a licence inventory

1. **Collect invoices** from the last 12 months: company cards, bank transfers, app stores. Many subscriptions run on individual employees' company cards.
2. **Note who uses each one.** Most services' admin consoles show who last logged in and when.
3. **Mark the duplicates:** two tools for the same purpose.
4. **Decide for each one:** keep, downsize, cancel.
5. **Name an owner** for every subscription, responsible for it.
6. **Repeat yearly,** or whenever someone leaves.

In a 30-person company it's an afternoon's work, and it almost always finds something. Check leavers' licences first: they're a cost and a security risk at the same time.

## How to decide what to spend on

Once you've found savings, the question is where they go. A simple filter for every new IT spend:

- **Which business goal** on the one-page strategy does it serve?
- **Which risk does it reduce?**
- **What happens if we don't do it?**
- **Who will own it,** and who will use it?

If none of these has a good answer, it can wait.

## When to ask for help

You can write the page without outside help. It's worth bringing in a fresh pair of eyes when nobody has a clear view of the current state, when management and IT disagree on priorities, or when a big decision is coming, such as an ERP or CRM rollout or a move to the cloud. An independent review can pay for itself then, because a large project heading the wrong way costs far more.

## Common mistakes

**A shopping list instead of a strategy.** "We need a new CRM, a new server and an AI tool." That isn't a strategy if you don't know which business goal each serves.

**A document that's too long.** Nobody reads a fifty-page strategy, and nobody remembers it a year later. One page can hang on the wall.

**No owner.** If nobody at management level is responsible for IT, decisions get made department by department, at random.

**Looking only at cost.** The cheapest option isn't always the best. The question is what the company gets for the money.

**Never revisiting it.** A strategy isn't a one-off. Review it at least once a year: what got done, what changed, what are the next three steps.

## What to do now

1. **Write down in one sentence** the company's most important business goal for the next two years.
2. **Run a licence and device inventory,** with every subscription and its cost.
3. **List the three biggest IT risks.**
4. **Pick three steps** for the next 12 months, each with an owner and a deadline.
5. **Put it on one page,** and review it quarterly.

If you'd like help writing your first one-page IT strategy, or finding where the money leaks, have a look at our [IT consulting](/en/it-consulting/) service.

## FAQ

### What is a one-page IT strategy?

A document that sets out on one page the company's business goal, the current state of IT, the three biggest risks, the next three steps with owners and deadlines, and the budget.

### Where can we save on IT fastest?

On unused licences, duplicate tools and cloud waste. Zylo's vendor data shows companies use on average only 54% of their SaaS licences, and in Flexera's survey respondents estimate 29% of cloud spend is wasted.

### Should we start with AI?

Usually not, if the basics aren't in place: backups, access management, cloud-based collaboration, tidy data. AI builds on existing data and processes.

### How often should we review the IT strategy?

At least once a year, with progress on the steps checked quarterly.

### How digitalised are European SMEs?

Across the EU, 72.91% of SMEs reached a basic level of digital intensity in 2024, according to the European Commission. Some countries lag behind: in Hungary the figure was 57.44%.

## Sources

- [European Commission – Digital Decade 2025 country report: Hungary](https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-10407-2025-ADD-45/en/pdf)
- [Eurostat – How digitalised have EU enterprises become?](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20240829-1)
- [Flexera – Flexera finds cloud value is rising while AI waste grows](https://www.flexera.com/about-us/press-center/flexera-finds-cloud-value-is-rising-while-ai-waste-grows)
- [TelecomTV – Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending to grow 14.2% in 2026](https://www.telecomtv.com/content/digital-platforms-services/gartner-forecasts-worldwide-it-spending-to-grow-14-2-in-2026-totalling-6-37tn-55964/)
- [Zylo – How much is wasted on SaaS spend?](https://zylo.com/blog/how-much-wasted-on-saas-spend)