Apptio Helps the State of Iowa OCIO Reduce IT Planning Cycles by 50%

“We have moved everything into Apptio, replacing our old process and enabling us to produce these reports for consumption and decision-making.”

Prem Kilaru
Data analytics manager
State of Iowa Office of the CIO, Business Services

Enabling digital transformation while meeting the ongoing technology needs of state government agencies is no small task. For the State of Iowa, this is the job of the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), an independent agency that is responsible for leading, directing, and managing the information technology resources for the participating agencies within the state government. ApptioOne gave the OCIO the capability it needed to cut the IT planning cycle time in half and ensure resources were invested most efficiently to accomplish the agency’s objectives.

Budgeting challenges

Standard budgeting and forecasting processes are often slow and tedious — whether gathering and consolidating data, creating a budget, and circulating forecasts for management feedback and approval. This was the case at the State of Iowa.

“It was a manual exercise,” said Prem Kilaru, data analytics manager at the State of Iowa Office of the CIO, Business Services. “I would collect the information, consolidate it, and send it to the managers in spreadsheets. And that’s where the process started.”

Using a spreadsheet-based process created a number of challenges. Since the data was manually entered and adjusted, there was always a risk of errors. The process was slow and cumbersome, with weeks of time spent updating spreadsheets, answering questions from managers, and generating reports and budget impact statements. And multiple-scenario planning was hard, because it was difficult to do side-by-side comparisons or what-if analyses using spreadsheets.

According to Kilaru, this process was not only inefficient but also an inhibitor to progress, causing managers to spend too much of their time researching and validating budget data instead of planning for the future.

The solution

The OCIO implemented ApptioOne in 2014. At the time, the agency had 140 separate pricing models, one for each service that was delivered to state agencies. The pricing models were set annually by the manager of each service area. And the rate setting process was time-consuming, inefficient, and difficult to manage.

Switching to ApptioOne allowed the OCIO to centralize rate setting within the Technology Business Management (TBM) office. This enabled the agency to replace 140 separate pricing models with one central rate structure managed by the TBM office, simplifying the process and increasing efficiency.

When the OCIO’s leaders decided to tackle the challenges within the agency’s IT planning process, they realized they needed analytics and planning capabilities, which spreadsheets could not provide, and again turned to ApptioOne. The agency began implementing ApptioOne’s IT Planning and trained users with structured enablement. Within three months, the new process was operational.

The results

Reduced IT planning cycle time

Prior to implementing Apptio, the agency’s budget and planning process took months to complete. Once the baseline budget was created by Kilaru, each manager had to review their department data, make adjustments, and send it back, a process that was difficult given the lack of detail in the spreadsheets. “People had a lot of questions about the numbers,” Kilaru said.

Kilaru explained that it was not uncommon for there to be multiple revisions and submissions and a lot of back and forth between the managers and the finance team. The process was complicated, and the data was located in multiple places. “There would be three to four versions required, plus a final version,” he said.

But with Apptio, this is no longer a problem. ApptioOne’s enhanced capabilities have made it easier for managers to quickly and easily get the information they need to approve or not approve budget items and make revisions, reducing the time it takes to complete a planning cycle from two months to two weeks or less.

“We simplified our entire process by putting everything in one place,” Kilaru said. “We can do side-by-side comparisons now, which has been a big improvement and time-saver. And our compliance has significantly improved, which is important when dealing with the state government.”

Faster analysis and decision-making

One of the major shortcomings of the agency’s previous spreadsheet-based process was the lack of detail and functionality available to help managers analyze data, make decisions, and answer critical questions. This resulted in managers spending more of their time trying to understand the data than planning for the future.

According to Kilaru, this was particularly evident when it came to multi-year planning and long-term contracts. Data over two to three years was challenging to keep track of and was often aggregated and archived in an ad-hoc manner. “Managers had to go into each contract, review the term, determine what has been paid so far, and then make a note somewhere so they can remember it,” he said. “It was very cumbersome and time-consuming.”

With Apptio, this process is more elegant and efficient and reduces the risk of errors. All contracts are located in one location with detailed documentation. Managers now have an easy way to review their contracts, analyze them, and either extend them into the next budget year or not. And that has been a significant benefit to the agency. “Managers are spending more time thinking about their plans for the future and making decisions instead of worrying about validating the data,” Kilaru said. “That’s a major improvement.”

Kilaru added that the agency is able to make faster decisions because of the tight integration between the ApptioOne IT Planning and Cost Transparency capabilities. “We get a holistic view of our proposed budget, calculated service rates, and impact on customer billings in just a few minutes,” he said. “This really reduces the decision-making cycle time.”

Better reporting and communication

Under the agency’s previous IT planning process, creating reports and providing insights often took weeks of work. Since all the budget data resided in multiple spreadsheets, Kilaru had to manually work with the data, executing macros, calculating numbers, and validating results to get the information managers wanted. This not only created a lot of extra work for Kilaru but also slowed down the whole decision-making process for the agency.

Moving the data to Apptio has simplified report creation. Now, using TBM Studio, Kilaru has a centralized reporting location where he can generate reports without a lot of manual effort and back-and-forth review and validation and share data with a wider audience of users. “We have moved everything into Apptio, replacing our old process and enabling us to produce these reports for consumption and decision-making,” he said.

Having a centralized location for IT planning data has not only simplified reporting but also improved communications. Instead of relying on cycles of emails and instant messages to communicate with managers, Kilaru is able to use collaboration features within Apptio, such as @ comments and tagging, to pass along important information and ensure individuals not only were taken directly to the data they needed within the IT Planning interface, but were shown and taken to the right location immediately for faster inputs and review. This has accelerated the process and contributed to reducing the entire decision-making cycle by over 50%.

Summary

According to Kilaru, implementing ApptioOne’s IT Planning capability has enabled the OCIO to streamline its strategic, tactical, and operational planning processes and to generate insightful custom reports. In addition, the integration between ApptioOne’s Cost Transparency and IT Planning capabilities has simplified loading budget and forecast data and eliminated performance bottlenecks that existed with older transform pipelines. These changes have given managers better information to work with and shortened the overall planning cycle, making it easier for the agency to make faster decisions and ensure they are investing in the right areas to foster innovation and digital transformation.

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