Cost & Budget Management

A CIO (chief information officer) is not just a technology leader, they are a business leader as well. As such, they must display a high degree of business acumen in handling the IT budget (information technology budget) and managing IT costs. Effective IT budgeting involves making sound business investments in technology and providing a mechanism for the business to understand what the value of IT is through tactics such as IT chargeback, IT show-back and service-based costing. As the need for business resilience rises, due to system shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic, CIO’s must become adept at zero-based budgeting techniques in order to rationalize IT expenses, ensure cost transparency, justify the IT budget and provide room for business responsiveness as well. During periods of economic or business-related cost pressure, IT may be expected to cut costs. Our research helps minimize the impacts of cost cutting by providing tools and frameworks to effectively evaluate and communicate the value of IT investments, so that informed decisions can be made using data, not intuition or wishful thinking.