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Establishing IT Cost Transparency & Control
Improving IT Cost Transparency and Financial Governance
March 2024
Client
Medium Sized Government Agency
Services
IT Financial Control
Industries
Government Agency
The problem
The government agency faced significant challenges in gaining visibility into IT and digital service expenditures. Without a clear understanding of spending patterns, it was difficult to allocate budgets effectively, prioritize investments, or identify opportunities for cost savings. The lack of transparency hindered strategic decision-making, making it harder to align IT investments with organizational goals such as improving agility, enhancing cybersecurity, and optimizing digital services. This opacity also led to inefficiencies, with limited ability to assess vendor performance, manage procurement risks, or ensure that IT spending was delivering tangible business value.
Our approach
To address these challenges, we applied Technology Business Management (TBM) principles, leveraging data-driven insights to create a structured and transparent IT financial framework. Our approach combined in-depth analysis of historical financial records, benchmarking against industry standards, and qualitative insights from stakeholder interviews to provide a comprehensive understanding of IT spending.
Key steps included:
Benchmarking IT spend against industry peers, revealing that expenditures were significantly above the industry average, highlighting potential areas for cost optimization.
Identifying key cost drivers, such as dependencies on single suppliers, high application maintenance costs, and redundant technology investments, enabling the agency to pinpoint inefficiencies.
Defining immediate tactical actions to reallocate resources toward high-priority initiatives, ensuring that IT investments aligned with strategic goals such as digital transformation, security enhancements, and operational efficiency.
Our impact
As a result of this initiative, the government agency achieved several critical improvements:
✅ Enhanced visibility into IT spend, enabling leadership to make informed, data-driven financial decisions based on factual benchmarks and industry standards.
✅ Stronger financial governance, with the implementation of structured IT financial management practices that improved budget control and accountability.
✅ Optimized IT spending, reducing inefficiencies, eliminating unnecessary costs, and ensuring that resources were directed toward high-impact projects.
Furthermore, we developed a customized IT financial model based on TBM principles, providing a scalable and repeatable framework for continuous cost transparency, strategic resource allocation, and fact-based decision-making. This model not only supported immediate improvements but also laid the foundation for long-term financial discipline and operational efficiency.
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