At the 2025 Arizona Builders Alliance Conference, economist Anirban Basu shared insights on the economy that, while aimed at construction leaders, resonate across all industries. Whether you’re in healthcare, manufacturing, education, legal, or the nonprofit sector, the challenges and opportunities are similar.
Key Takeaways for Today’s Economy
- Inflation isn’t over - Costs for materials, labor, and services remain elevated, putting pressure on already tight margins.
- Workforce challenges are structural - Hiring is difficult and expensive, so organizations must do more with the teams they already have.
- Growth is uneven - Some regions and industries are booming, while others face slower recovery and budget cuts.
- Risks remain - Rising consumer debt, shrinking public budgets, and high interest rates all create uncertainty.
These realities affect more than just contractors. They impact how hospitals plan capital projects, how schools invest in technology, how nonprofits allocate limited funds, and how manufacturers manage global supply chain pressures.
Where IT Fits In
Technology isn’t just a support function anymore, it’s a lever for efficiency, risk reduction, and long-term sustainability. The right IT decisions can reduce overhead, free up staff for mission-critical work, and help leaders stay resilient in a volatile economy.
Here are ways businesses in all industries can adapt:
- Audit & Consolidate Your Tech Stack
- Many organizations are juggling too many apps, systems, or legacy tools. Consolidating platforms saves money, reduces training headaches, and creates cleaner data.
- Take a hard look at your current workflows and technology stack. Where are your people spending the most time on repetitive tasks? For example, a non-profit we worked with was spending 10+ hours each week manually reconciling donor data between spreadsheets and their CRM. By automating the sync process, they freed up their staff to focus on fundraising instead of data entry. In healthcare, we’ve seen hospitals replace outdated paging systems with secure messaging apps, reducing delays in patient care coordination.
- Empower Your Workforce and Invest Where It Counts Most
- Whether it’s teachers using cloud-based collaboration, nurses accessing mobile charting tools, or finance teams leveraging secure remote access, technology can help staff do more without adding headcount.
- Not every upgrade delivers the same return. Focus your IT dollars on the areas with the highest operational impact. For instance, a manufacturing firm modernized its scheduling system, reducing downtime between production runs by 15%. Meanwhile, a school district upgrading to cloud-based collaboration tools, allows teachers to spend less time chasing paperwork and more time engaging with students.
- Reduce Risk Proactively and Create a Culture of Simplicity and Security
- Cyberattacks, downtime, and data breaches aren’t industry-specific. Regular IT risk assessments, backup planning, and cybersecurity awareness training are critical safeguards.
- Economic uncertainty often tempts organizations to add “more”, more tools, more reports, more processes. But in practice, less is more when it comes to sustainable growth. A financial services company recently consolidated six overlapping systems into a single secure platform. The result? Easier compliance, lower costs, and employees who finally had one place to find what they needed. Whether you’re running a non-profit or a business, clarity and focus are often the best productivity tools you can give your team.
Action Steps for Leaders in Any Sector
- Schedule a tech audit - Identify redundancies and opportunities to simplify.
- Invest in staff enablement - Equip your team with the right digital tools.
- Build resilience - Treat cybersecurity, compliance, and IT governance as strategic investments, not afterthoughts.
Final Thought
Whether building homes, treating patients, running classrooms, serving communities, or managing finances, every organization faces the same fundamental challenge: doing more with less in an unpredictable environment. Technology, implemented wisely, can help bridge the gap.
Want to learn how smarter IT strategies can help your organization weather economic headwinds? Let’s talk.
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