IT Benchmarking with TBM: Don’t Miss Out on the Quickest Win of All

In my work helping enterprises benchmark their IT costs and implement Technology Business Management (TBM), I find some common misconceptions that tend to impede progress. Often, when enterprises fully understand the potential of TBM to transform their IT, those misconceptions disappear and some of their greatest opportunities are realized.

Top TBM Misconceptions	Top TBM Opportunities
The data in my TBM technology cost model has to be perfect before we can perform any type of benchmarking study.	When undertaken as a multi-dimensional discipline, the TBM benchmarking study can serve as a two-fold value mechanism: first, to provide insight into immediate cost-savings opportunities, and second, to serve as a guidepost for future data refinement initiatives in support of broader IT strategic plans.
Our organization’s IT cost model must be 100 percent aligned to the TBM Council’s Apptio TBM Unified Model (ATUM) before we can gain value from any type of market insights orbenchmarking study.	The benefits of being aligned to ATUM are immense, including the adoption of industry-leading best practices for IT cost transparency and automation in the benchmarking process. However, ISG can help an enterprise identify and seize opportunities for improving performance by comparing the IT resource towers (ITRT) costs of any type of model configuration in Apptio. This alone can deliver insight into peer spend and a mechanism to improve data quality.
Our organization must fully implement the TBM Technology Benchmarking Module before we can derive insight from any type of benchmarking study.	Clients are using ISG market insights to help them identify initial cost-savings opportunities that they can apply to funding TBM “next steps.” These steps include the implementation of Apptio’s Benchmarking application and/or alignment of a cost model to ATUM.
We would like to conduct a benchmarking study that leverages TBM technology and processes, but it is too time-intensive.	The average time to compare ITRT (and their cost model) to the market is about two months, regardless of cost model configuration. There is no perfect time to start benchmarking. The sooner you start, the sooner you will understand how you compare with the market, how to improve your data and how to iterate on the TBM journey.
It is too difficult to take action or we don’t understand what to do with the output of a benchmarking study.	ISG TBM domain experts have over 30 years of experience in IT benchmarking and IT service delivery strategy. In addition to addressing the “So what?” and the “What next?” of the benchmarking study, ISG can help you apply defined TBM processes within the ISG Service Integration and Management framework.

Benchmarking your IT cost model against ISG’s market-leading data can be the quickest ROI win for an enterprise to achieve along its TBM journey.

With our combined benchmarking experience and TBM expertise, ISG can help clients recognize cost savings and integrate TBM into their organizations. Interested in learning more about benchmarking and analytics as part of an overall strategy for IT transformation? Contact me to discuss further.

I’ll be speaking at the TBM Conference October 27 – 29 in Chicago. Read the latest press release and visit our TBM Conference page to find out more.

About the author

Alex-Paul works closely with enterprise leaders, IT finance managers and IT business unit leaders to help implement the discipline of Technology Business Management (TBM) into their organizations and optimize their enterprise IT. He advises both commercial and public sector organizations on the adoption of TBM programs, designs fact-based analytical strategies and supports broader IT transformation initiatives. His development of a strategic TBM multi-dimensional framework addressing people, process, data, analytics, technology and strategy is part of ISG’s industry-leading set of market best practices and methodologies. His thought leadership has been featured in CIO Review, MiddleMarket Executive and the TBM Council’s book The Four Value Conversations CIOs Must Have with Their Businesses.