The Road to CIO Success Is Paved With Valuable Insights

It doesn’t matter how perfect your IT cost data is. If you aren’t mining for insights that lead to high-impact business decisions, what’s the point? You can admire achievements in the rearview mirror and pat yourself on the back, but meanwhile, the next curve is fast approaching in the windshield.

Maintaining a forward-facing stance requires a foundational understanding of true costs and constant analysis of patterns and gaps. These are the insights that steer technology spend and build confidence in IT’s navigational skills.

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Better data processes = a better understanding of IT value

KPMG surveyed 200+ IT, business, and finance leaders to learn more about behaviors that determine the successful management of IT. Findings published in the Elite CIO whitepaper indicate technology business management (TBM) plays an essential role in actionable data gathering. Of those organizations surveyed that strongly agreed they have well-defined data processes (15% of respondents), 96% agreed the business is able to understand the value that IT provides.

The inverse is also true: Of those organizations that felt they did not have well-defined data processes (28% of respondents), only 3% of them felt that the business had a good understanding of IT value.

TBM increases transparency at two levels—not only improving data quality within IT but also enhancing financial insights to apps, services, and capabilities that business leaders and consumers care about. Jason Byrd & Joe Davila, KPMG Actionable insights in a digital world: the Elite CIO

The challenge for some is simply believing their current data is enough to get started—whatever its state. For others, the elusive objective is capturing the attention of business leadership to elicit deeper insights that drive more transformative outcomes.

The bottom line is this: All data provides insights. As Bill Balnave points out in Striking gold: how to get useful and valuable insights from your IT cost data, it would be easier if they jumped off the pages of your reports. They don’t, of course. They have to be mined. But TBM helps IT leaders establish a process for insight hunting, raising the bar with credible data that helps rationalize cost reduction efforts, leverage game-changing innovation, and drive better business decisions.

So, how do you get started? There are some great tips and examples in our Striking Gold series here.

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