"We don't buy new equipment," Goodwin says.

With dotcom failures plentiful and other companies seeking savingsthrough consolidated operations, there is a lot of almost-newequipment that's available for used prices, he says. Last fall,Goodwin purchased storage systems for his data warehouses through areseller and paid 50 cents on the dollar. Instead of shelling out$100,000 for the hardware, he paid $50,000.

Like most companies in the grocery industry, the Salt Lake City-basedcompany faces a crowded competitive landscape growing more intensewith new challenges coming from chains such as Wal-Mart and Target,which now carry food items. Overall, the industry's average annual netprofit (revenues less expenses) is about 8 percent.

Buying used or secondhand hardware can be a plausible approach tocost-cutting, says Sunil Subbakrishna, a vice president in the ITstrategy practice at Mercer Management Consulting in New York City.CIOs need to consider whether the equipment will meet users' needs,and whether maintenance costs of such hardware are higher than on newgear.

2 Software Upgrade? Fuhgeddaboutit.