Today’s IT leaders must ensure IT spending is streamlined toward achieving organizational goals. By implementing TBM, your organization can gain a clearer understanding of its IT costs and spending while simultaneously finding ways to reduce costs and inefficiencies by uncovering unnecessary spending that doesn’t align with corporate strategy. Companies that adopt TBM can also foster greater transparency between IT and the business, offering hard data that shows how IT spending benefits the entire organization and specific business goals. Below are 5 tips to help ensure a smooth transition to the TBM framework.
Start with Strong Leadership
“To succeed with TBM, the framework must first be accepted and championed by executive leadership as part of the corporate strategy,” says Jeri Koester, CIO at Marshfield Clinic Health System. Strong leadership is immensely important when implementing the company-wide culture shifting framework that TBM requires. Meeting other departments and members of the organization where they are can improve communication and provide first-hand insight into what technology each department needs in order to operate and where waste can be eliminated.
Lean into TBM’s Flexibility
“You do not have to have it all figured out in order to move forward. Pick one or two areas of TBM where you already have some experience or some dedicated resources and dig in. Get a few quick wins and build from there,” Koester says. TBM isn’t a rigid framework with a strict set of guidelines, so you can start by seeing what works for your organization and what doesn’t work and then build on that.
“What I ultimately realized is that TBM is built upon the backs of dozens and dozens of companies’ best practices, and while it’s foolish to blindly follow anything, it’s equally foolish to ignore the learnings of others who have gone before you, or you’re destined to repeat their mistakes,” says Gerry Imhoff, senior VP and CIO at Maritz. “TBM is not so prescriptive that it doesn’t allow you to adapt things to your business or organization; it’s a blueprint that allows you to follow the trail others have blazed before you.”
Build on Cost Management Foundations
The learning curve for TBM largely depends on the current foundation of your company. A lot of organizations already budget and forecast IT spending and many already perform an annual benchmark of IT costs. However, a lot of these aren’t being done efficiently, which is where organizations can benefit from TBM.
Run IT Like a Business
The TBM framework can help executives run IT like a business. Once implemented, TBM will require you to provide options that solve those business issues and help your organization leverage technology effectively and efficiently in fulfilling its goals. As the IT department becomes more deeply integrated into the enterprise and daily business through TBM, it’s more important to look at IT as a business itself.
Find Value in the TBM Community
Embracing the TBM framework will open up a network of other organizations and IT leaders who are already employing the TBM framework in their organizations. “Talk with others who have gone before you,” says Imhoff. “The TBM Council can connect you with CIOs, CFOs, and IT execs who would be thrilled to share their experiences with you, as the power of TBM is the community of practitioners that has been built over the years who continue to hone the practice through hard-fought lessons.”
Implementing a TBM framework will ultimately help your organization better align IT spending with business goals while reducing unnecessary spending and costs. Proven Optics is here to help you and your organization. We have created the ultimate TBM and Budgeting solutions powered by the ServiceNow platform. Our new applications enable IT modernization to provide IT and Finance leaders with the necessary analytics and insights to make better business decisions. You can learn more by visiting www.provenoptics.com today!
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