Management types who want to cut down on costs in their department have been offered a range of tips by a computer website blogger.

Shane Schick of Computerworld said many managers can save their department cash, as well as their job, through some cost-cutting techniques in light of recent economic troubles on Wall Street and the City of London.

The automation of policies for file system clean-up was highlighted, as such a strategy could reduce storage costs for companies that required large back-up servers.

It was also noted that improving the quality of working conditions for staff would result in a smaller turnover, leading to reduced training costs - even if the current climate focused more on the comfort of shareholders.

For those who have developed virtualisation, it was also noted that extending this service could make work easier for employees and, as such, more productive.

Earlier in the year, ZDNet's Between the Lines blog revealed that other such techniques included the uninstallation of unused software as well as the consolidation and virtualisation of servers.

More than half of small businesses (53%) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support, London based Connect conducted the research in 2007.