Requirements of a Technology Business Management Solution

When choosing a Technology Business Management (TBM) software solution to drive your IT transformation, there are several key requirements to consider to ensure the choice will result in the highest return, quick time to value and capabilities that will provide increasing value year over year.

Comprehensive Functionality to Manage the Cost, Quality and Value of IT

A true TBM system does not just provide a point solution for chargeback, but integrates functionality that will help IT leaders run the business of IT including deep understanding of cost drivers, a system of record for cost and quality of IT services that can be leveraged across the organization, process improvements for common business processes such as budgeting, forecasting and planning, benchmarking capabilities and  the ability for business leaders and IT to collaborate using a common language for aligning priorities.  In every business function, there is a business management system that provides insight into the cost and performance drivers within the business, makes the data available to all key decision makers and tracks top level performance.  All of these elements are necessary to optimally manage the business of IT.

While each application should be best of breed and stand-alone, an integrated suite provides game-changing information not delivered by silo implementations.

Purpose Built for IT

A TBM solution should be designed from the ground up specifically to address the business and financial management challenges of IT and intelligently integrate with existing corporate financial and IT operations systems. Service Catalog’s were designed to document definitions and manage requests. Asset management systems track hardware and software assets.  And, project and portfolio management solutions plan resources for new projects and track the development time to support them.  These software solutions provide clear value but none were designed, nor have the right set of capabilities, to tackle the unique challenges of TBM.

A System of Record for Financial Reporting for all Roles

A TBM solution should provide each IT role with specific data just for them, and role based access to keep critical areas such as allocation models secure.  IT finance should have deep visibility and understanding of the unit costs and consumption of IT services so they can create fair allocation policies, enable chargeback and streamline the budgeting and forecasting process.

IT operations needs an integrated view of cost, performance and benchmark data.  They need the ability to quantify the TCO of their client services, infrastructure services, application and IT portfolio to better understand costs and drive cost reduction opportunities.

IT leaders and the business should be able to communicate and engage on the levers that can be pulled to align spend to top business priorities and shift more investment to projects that change the business without sacrificing the quality and value of existing IT services.

Built-in IT Knowledge and Best Practices

A TBM solution should encapsulate best practices that guide internal costing and performance measurement and the associated cost and performance benchmark data. TBM process automation should be built based on the best practices of industry leading customers and solution experts.

Complements Existing Investments

A TBM solution should easily integrate with existing IT systems as well as financial and HR systems.  No upgrades or replacements required.  The software should recognize patterns in the data in its existing format, and not require users to change data formats. Finally, a TBM solution must be able to intelligently combine this data and establish a consistent set of centralized models and relationships that govern how costs flow across IT to the set of services IT delivers and back to the business.

Room to Grow: Increasing Value as Processes Mature

IT organizations vary in their process maturity and their strategic IT transformation agendas. As an IT organization matures its IT business and financial management strategy, a TBM solution should have the processes, best practices and functionality to scale with it.

Companies that have been successful with TBM often started with a much smaller project and grew as their processes matured, realizing significantly greater value as they leveraged more of TBM’s capabilities.  Some organizations find quick value in cost optimization projects such as application rationalization, virtualization, data center consolidation, desktop cost optimization, storage cost optimization and Email TCO and IT support optimization.  Others start with a chargeback project using a simple price x quantity Bill of IT. 

Each of these customers have progressed in their use of TBM and obtained greater value by bringing in other components of TBM including Service Costing with Activity Based Costing for deep understanding of IT service costs, mapping Quality and Consumption to a Bill of IT for true value of IT services, IT benchmarking and integrated long-term planning.  As processes and use of TBM matures, IT organizations become more cost-efficient and aligned to business priorities.