Create a Transparent and Defensible IT Budget
Build in approvability from the start.
- IT struggles to gain budget approval year after year, largely driven by a few key factors:
- For a long time, IT has been viewed as a cost center whose efficiency needs to be increasingly optimized over time. IT’s relationship to strategy is not yet understood or established in many organizations.
- IT is one of the biggest areas of cost for many organizations. Often, executives don’t understand or even believe that all that IT spending is necessary to advance the organization’s objectives, let alone keep it up and running.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Internal and external obstacles beyond IT’s control make these challenges with gaining IT budget approval even harder to overcome:
- Economic pressures can quickly drive IT’s budgetary focus from strategic back to tactical.
- Corporate-driven categorizations of expenditure, plus disconnected approval mechanisms for capital vs. operational spend, hide key interdependencies and other aspects of IT’s financial reality.
- Connecting the dots between IT activities and business benefits rarely forms a straight line.
Impact and Result
- CIOs need a straightforward way to create and present an approval-ready budget.
- Info-Tech recognizes that connecting the dots to demonstrate value is key to budgetary approval.
- Info-Tech also recognizes that key stakeholders require different perspectives on the IT budget.
- This blueprint provides a framework, method, and templated exemplars for creating and presenting an IT budget to stakeholders that will speed up the approval process and ensure more of it is approved.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.3/10
Overall Impact
$34,523
Average $ Saved
16
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
The City of Winchester
Guided Implementation
9/10
$2,740
2
speaking with someone that has/had previous experience as a CIO. That's relevant. It allows me to "walk in the shoes" of someone performing the fun... Read More
City of Bloomington, IL
Guided Implementation
9/10
$13,700
10
Jennifer exhibited excellent attentiveness and comprehension of our goals. She was highly responsive to our customization requests for the IT Spend... Read More
Champaign Residential Services Inc
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Thank you for kicking around a few ideas Jennifer! We may not have any immediate action items but now I'm more aware of what to ask for in the futu... Read More
Experience Grand Rapids
Guided Implementation
9/10
$13,700
5
Jennifer clearly explained how to use the spreadsheet for budgeting and as a tool. Her explanations of each section will prepare me with thought ou... Read More
Pyxus International, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
No negative. Just getting started and at this point I am not in a position to measure time or cost savings.
GENESIS CANCER CARE UK LIMITED
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
2
Enjoyed the time with Benoit, well structured session and very informative. I didn't feel there was a worst part.
Hogan
Guided Implementation
10/10
$137K
120
Monica was great to work with. She took the time to understand where I was at in my budget journey and helped me through the entire process from cr... Read More
Job and Family Services
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
Benoit was very knowledgeable and understood the factors we are dealing with. He helped us come to the conclusion that we did not need assistance c... Read More
Champaign Residential Services Inc
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
I can't say that this saved any time or money, but it made me think about my budget in a different way. Now I'll be prepared with better data if I'... Read More
Tomago Aluminium Company
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
2
Nu Skin International
Guided Implementation
7/10
$12,999
5
The best was going through the financial review process and the results of the various views. The hard part is that Nu Skin doesn't fit nicely with... Read More
MicroPort Orthopedics Inc.
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
10
Monica delivered a summary of the IT Spend Study on our recent IT Steering Committee meeting. Her findings and assessment were thorough, direct, an... Read More
Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort
Guided Implementation
10/10
$32,499
5
Providence Care
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
2
Great to benchmark where we sit against peers to validate where we have made investments and where we need to continue to make investments. No cos... Read More
University of Kansas Hospital Authority
Guided Implementation
10/10
$32,499
5
the worse part was gathering the data, but the team as patient. The best part was getting the results and all the hard work paying off with excell... Read More
Renown Health
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
2
We are excited to see the final outcome of the study and how Renown compares to others in our industry. Monica and Kennedy were great to work with,... Read More
Chief Industries, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
CGIAR
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
20
Precise information and no waste of time.
City of Bloomington, IL
Guided Implementation
10/10
$32,499
10
Brother International Corporation
Guided Implementation
9/10
$2,599
2
Best - Being able to collaborate with resources outside of Brother to review our IT budget distribution and trends. The opportunity to get another... Read More
Omaha Public Power District
Guided Implementation
10/10
$64,999
50
Kennedy and Dave were great to work with - knowledgeable, responsive. We anticipate utilizing results of the study for multiple efforts, including ... Read More
Cost & Budget Management
Get the budget you need to enable IT to deliver to its full potential.
This course makes up part of the Financial Management Certificate.
- Course Modules: 6
- Estimated Completion Time: 1 hour
- Featured Analysts:
- Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director
Workshop: Create a Transparent and Defensible IT Budget
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Get into budget-starting position
The Purpose
Understand your IT budget in the context of your organization and key stakeholders, as well as gather your budgeting data and review previous years’ financial performance.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand your organization’s budget process and culture.
- Understand your stakeholders’ priorities and perspectives regarding your IT budget.
- Gain insight into your historical IT expenditure.
- Set next fiscal year’s IT budget targets.
Activities
Outputs
Review budget purpose.
- Budget process and culture assessment.
Understand stakeholders and approvers.
- Stakeholder alignment assessment and pre-selling strategy.
Gather your data.
- Data prepared for next steps.
Map and review historical financial performance.
- Mapped historical expenditure.
Rationalize last year’s variances and set next year's budget targets.
- Next fiscal year’s budget targets.
Module 2: Forecast project CapEx
The Purpose
Develop a forecast of next fiscal year’s proposed capital IT expenditure driven by your organization’s strategic projects.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Develop project CapEx forecast according to the four different stakeholder views of Info-Tech’s ITFM Cost Model.
- Ensure that no business projects that have IT implications (and their true costs) are missed.
Activities
Outputs
Review the ITFM cost model
- Confirmed ITFM cost mdel.
List projects.
- A list of projects.
Review project proposals and costs.
- Confirmed list of project proposals and costs.
Map and tally total project CapEx.
- Forecasted project-based capital expenditure mapped against the four views of the ITFM Cost Model.
Develop and/or confirm project-business alignment, ROI, and cost-benefit statements.
- Projects financials in line.
Module 3: Forecast non-project CapEx and OpEx
The Purpose
Develop a forecast of next fiscal year’s proposed “business as usual” non-project capital and operating IT expenditure.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Develop non-project CapEx and non-project OpEx forecasts according to the four different stakeholder views of Info-Tech’s ITFM Cost Model.
- Make “business as usual” costs fully transparent and rationalized.
Activities
Outputs
Review non-project capital and costs.
- Confirmation of non-project capital and costs.
Review non-project operations and costs.
- Confirmation of non-project operations and costs.
Map and tally total non-project CapEx and OpEx.
- Forecasted non-project-based capital expenditure and operating expenditure against the four views of the ITFM Cost Model.
Develop and/or confirm proposed expenditure rationales.
- Proposed expenditure rationales.
Module 4: Finalize budget and develop presentation
The Purpose
Aggregate and sanity-check your forecasts, harden your rationales, and plan/develop the content for your IT budget executive presentation.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create a finalized proposed IT budget for next fiscal year that offers different views on your budget for different stakeholders.
- Select content for your IT budget executive presentation that will resonate with your stakeholders and streamline approval.
Activities
Outputs
Aggregate forecast totals and sanity check.
- Final proposed IT budget for next fiscal year.
Generate graphical outputs and select content to include in presentation.
- Graphic outputs selected for presentation.
Fine-tune rationales.
- Rationales for budget.
Develop presentation and write commentary.
- Content for IT Budget Executive Presentation.
Module 5: Next steps and wrap-up (offsite)
The Purpose
Finalize and polish the IT budget executive presentation.
Key Benefits Achieved
An approval-ready presentation that showcases your business-aligned proposed IT budget backed up with rigorous rationales.
Activities
Outputs
Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.
- Completed IT Budget Executive Presentation.
Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
- Review scheduled.
Create a Transparent and Defensible IT Budget
Build in approvability from the start.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Analyst Perspective
A budget’s approvability is about transparency and rationale, not the size of the numbers.
 |
It’s that time of year again – budgeting. Most organizations invest a lot of time and effort in a capital project selection process, tack a few percentage points onto last year’s OpEx, do a round of trimming, and call it a day. However, if you want to improve IT financial transparency and get your business stakeholders and the CFO to see the true value of IT, you need to do more than this. Your IT budget is more than a once-a-year administrative exercise. It’s an opportunity to educate, create partnerships, eliminate nasty surprises, and build trust. The key to doing these things rests in offering a range of budget perspectives that engage and make sense to your stakeholders, as well as providing iron-clad rationales that tie directly to organizational objectives. The work of setting and managing a budget never stops – it’s a series of interactions, conversations, and decisions that happen throughout the year. If you take this approach to budgeting, you’ll greatly enhance your chances of creating and presenting a defensible annual budget that gets approved the first time around. |
Jennifer Perrier |
Executive Summary
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
|---|---|---|
IT struggles to gain budget approval year after year, largely driven by a few key factors:
|
Internal and external obstacles beyond IT’s control make these challenges even harder to overcome:
|
CIOs need a straightforward way to create and present an approval-ready budget.
|
Info-Tech Insight
CIOs need a straightforward way to create and present an approval-ready IT budget that demonstrates the value IT is delivering to the business and speaks directly to different stakeholder priorities.
IT struggles to get budgets approved due to low transparency and failure to engage
Capability challenges |
Administrative challenges |
Operating challenges |
Visibility challenges |
Relationship challenges |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
IT is seen as a cost center, not an enabler or driver of business strategy. |
IT leaders are not seen as business leaders. |
Economic pressures drive knee-jerk redirection of IT’s budgetary focus from strategic initiatives back to operational tactics. |
The vast majority of IT’s |
Most business leaders don’t know how many IT resources their business units are really consuming. |
Other departments in the organization see IT as a competitor for funding, not a business partner. |
Lack of transparency |
IT and the business aren’t speaking the same language. |
IT leaders don’t have sufficient access to information about, or involvement in, business decisions and objectives. |
Outmoded finance department expenditure categorizations don’t accommodate IT’s real cost categories. |
IT absorbs unplanned spend because business leaders don’t realize or consider the impact of their decisions on IT. |
The business doesn’t understand what IT is, what it does, or what it can offer. |
IT and the business don’t have meaningful conversations about IT costs, opportunities, or investments. |
|
Defining and demonstrating the value of IT and its investments isn’t straightforward. |
IT leaders may not have the financial literacy or acumen needed to translate IT activities and needs into business terms. |
CapEx and OpEx approval and tracking mechanisms are handled separately when, in reality, they’re highly interdependent. |
IT activities usually have an indirect relationship with revenue, making value calculations more complicated. |
Much of IT, especially infrastructure, is invisible to the business and is only noticed if it’s not working. |
The relationship between IT spending and how it supports achievement of business objectives is not clear. |
Reflect on the numbers…
To move forward, first you need to get unstuck
Today’s IT budgeting challenges have been growing for a long time. Overcoming these challenges means untangling yourself from the grip of the root causes.
Principle 1: |
Principle 2: |
Principle 3: |
|---|
The three principles above are all about IT’s changing relationship to the business. IT leaders need a systematic and repeatable approach to budgeting that addresses these principles by:
- Clearly illustrating the alignment between the IT budget and business objectives.
- Showing stakeholders the overall value that IT investment will bring them.
- Demonstrating where IT is already realizing efficiencies and economies of scale.
- Gaining consensus on the IT budget from all parties affected by it.
“The culture of the organization will drive your success with IT financial management.”
– Dave Kish, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management Practice, Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech’s methodology for how to create a transparent and defensible it budget
1. Lay Your Foundation |
2. Get Into Budget-Starting Position |
3. Develop Your Forecasts |
4. Build Your Proposed Budget |
5. Create and Deliver Your Budget Presentation |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phase steps |
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Phase outcomes |
An understanding of your stakeholders and what your IT budget means to them. |
Information and goals for planning next fiscal year’s IT budget. |
Completed forecasts for project and non-project CapEx and OpEx. |
A final IT budget for proposal including scenario-based alternatives. |
An IT budget presentation. |
Insight summary
Overarching insight: Create a transparent and defensible IT budget
CIOs need a straightforward way to create and present an approval-ready IT budget that demonstrates the value IT is delivering to the business and speaks directly to different stakeholder priorities.
Phase 1 insight: Lay your foundation
IT needs to step back and look at it’s budget-creation process by first understanding exactly what a budget is intended to do and learning what the IT budget means to IT’s various business stakeholders.
Phase 2 Insight: Get into budget-starting position
Presenting your proposed IT budget in the context of past IT expenditure demonstrates a pattern of spend behavior that is fundamental to next year’s expenditure rationale.
Phase 3 insight: Develop your forecasts
Forecasting costs according to a range of views, including CapEx vs. OpEx and project vs. non-project, and then positioning it according to different stakeholder perspectives, is key to creating a transparent budget.
Phase 4 insight: Build your proposed budget
Fine-tuning and hardening the rationales behind every aspect of your proposed budget is one of the most important steps for facilitating the budgetary approval process and increasing the amount of your budget that is ultimately approved.
Phase 5 insight: Create and deliver your budget presentation
Selecting the right content to present to your various stakeholders at the right level of granularity ensures that they see their priorities reflected in IT’s budget, driving their interest and engagement in IT financial concerns.
Blueprint deliverables
Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
IT Cost Forecasting and Budgeting Workbook This Excel tool allows you to capture and work through all elements of your IT forecasting from the perspective of multiple key stakeholders and generates compelling visuals to choose from to populate your final executive presentation. |
 |
Also download this completed sample:
Sample: IT Cost Forecasting and Budgeting Workbook
Key deliverable
IT Budget Executive Presentation Template
Phase 5: Create a focused presentation for your proposed IT budget that will engage your audience and facilitate approval.
Blueprint benefits
IT benefits |
Business benefits |
|---|---|
|
|
Measure the value of this blueprint
Ease budgetary approval and improve its accuracy.
Near-term goals
- Percentage of budget approved: Target 95%
- Percentage of IT-driven projects approved: Target 100%
- Number of iterations/re-drafts required to proposed budget: One iteration
Long-term goal
- Variance in budget vs. actuals: Actuals less than budget and within 2%
In Phases 1 and 2 of this blueprint, we will help you understand what your approvers are looking for and gather the right data and information.
In Phase 3, we will help you forecast your IT costs it terms of four stakeholder views so you can craft a more meaningful IT budget narrative.
In Phases 4 and 5, we will help you build a targeted presentation for your proposed IT budget.
Value you will receive:
- Increased forecast accuracy through using a sound cost-forecasting methodology.
- Improved budget accuracy by applying more thorough and transparent techniques.
- Increased budget transparency and completeness by soliciting input earlier and validating budgeting information.
- Stronger alignment between IT and enterprise goals through building a better understanding of the business values and using language they understand.
- A more compelling budget presentation by offering targeted, engaging, and rationalized information.
- A faster budgeting rework process by addressing business stakeholder concerns the first time.
An analogy…
“A budget isn’t like a horse and cart – you can’t get in front of it or behind it like that. It’s more like a river…
When developing an annual budget, you have a good idea of what the OpEx will be – last year’s with an annual bump. You know what that boat is like and if the river can handle it.
But sometimes you want to float bigger boats, like capital projects. But these boats don’t start at the same place at the same time. Some are full of holes. And does your river even have the capacity to handle a boat of that size?
Some organizations force project charters by a certain date and only these are included in the following year’s budget. The project doesn’t start until 8-12 months later and the charter goes stale. The river just can’t float all these boats! It’s a failed model. You have to have a great governance processes and clear prioritization so that you can dynamically approve and get boats on the river throughout the year.”
– Mark Roman, Managing Partner, Executive Services,
Info-Tech Research Group and Former Higher Education CIO
Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit
“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”
Guided Implementation
“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”
Workshop
“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”
Consulting
“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options
Guided Implementation
Phase 1: Lay Your Foundation |
Phase 2: Get Into Budget-Starting Position |
Phase 3: Develop Your Forecasts |
Phase 4: Build Your Proposed Budget |
Phase 5: Create and Deliver Your Budget Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Call #1: Discuss the IT budget, processes, and stakeholders in the context of your unique organization. |
Call #2: Review data requirements for transparent budgeting. Call #3: Set budget goals and process improvement metrics. |
Call #4: Review project CapEx forecasts. Call #5: Review non-project CapEx and OpEx forecasts. |
Call #6: Review proposed budget logic and rationales. |
Call #7: Identify presentation inclusions and exclusions. Call #8: Review final budget presentation. |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.
Workshop Overview
Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Get into budget-starting position |
Forecast project CapEx |
Forecast non-project CapEx and OpEx |
Finalize budget and develop presentation |
Next Steps and |
|
Activities |
1.1 Review budget purpose. 1.2 Understand stakeholders and approvers. 1.3 Gather your data. 1.4 Map and review historical financial performance. 1.5 Rationalize last year’s variances. 1.5 Set next year’s budget targets. |
2.1 Review the ITFM Cost Model. 2.2 List projects. 2.3 Review project proposals and costs. 2.4 Map and tally total project CapEx. 2.5 Develop and/or confirm project-business alignment, ROI, and cost-benefit statements. |
3.1 Review non-project capital and costs. 3.2 Review non-project operations and costs. 3.3 Map and tally total non-project CapEx and OpEx. 3.4 Develop and/or confirm proposed expenditure rationales. |
4.1 Aggregate forecast totals and sanity check. 4.2 Generate graphical outputs and select content to include in presentation. 4.3 Fine-tune rationales. 4.4 Develop presentation and write commentary. |
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. 5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps. |
Deliverables |
|
|
|
|
|
Phase 1
Lay Your Foundation
Lay Your |
Get Into Budget-Starting Position |
Develop Your |
Build Your |
Create and Deliver Your Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1.1 Understand what your budget is 1.2 Know your stakeholders 1.3 Continuously pre-sell your budget |
2.1 Assemble your resources 2.2 Understand the four views of the ITFM Cost Model 2.3 Review last year’s budget vs. 2.4 Set your high-level goals |
3.1 Develop assumptions and 3.2 Forecast your project CapEx 3.3 Forecast your non-project CapEx and OpEx |
4.1 Aggregate your numbers 4.2 Stress test your forecasts 4.3 Challenge and perfect your |
5.1 Plan your content 5.2 Build your presentation 5.3 Present to stakeholders 5.4 Make final adjustments and submit your IT budget |
This phase will walk you through the following activities:
- Seeing your budget as a living governance tool
- Understanding the point of view of different stakeholders
- Gaining tactics for setting future IT spend expectations
This phase involves the following participants:
- Head of IT
- IT Financial Lead
- Other IT Management
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 5-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Lay Your Foundation
- Call 1: Discuss the IT budget, processes, and stakeholders in the context of your unique organization.
Guided Implementation 2: Get Into Budget-Starting Position
- Call 1: Review data requirements for transparent budgeting.
- Call 2: Set budget goals and process improvement metrics.
Guided Implementation 3: Develop Your Forecasts
- Call 1: Review project CapEx forecasts.
- Call 2: Review non-project CapEx and OpEx forecasts.
Guided Implementation 4: Build Your Proposed Budget
- Call 1: Review proposed budget logic and rationales.
Guided Implementation 5: Create and Deliver Your Budget Presentation
- Call 1: Identify presentation inclusions and exclusions.
- Call 2: Review final budget presentation.
Contributors
- Lynn Fyhrlund, Chief Information Officer, Milwaukee County
- Trisha Goya, Director, IS Client Services, Hawaii Medical Service Association
- Angela Hintz, VP of PMO & Integrated Services, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana
- Rick Hopfer, Chief Information Officer, Hawaii Medical Service Association
- Matt Johnson, IT Director Governance & Business Solutions, Milwaukee County
- Miguel Suarez, Head of Technology, Seguro Monterrey New York Life
- Kristen Thurber, IT Director, Office of the CIO, Donaldson Company
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