Why IT Budget Planning Can Give CIOs Nightmares

While most CIOs and other senior IT executives expect technology budgets to increase over the next year, the actual implementation and management of those budgets is growing increasingly complex, according to a recent survey from Apptio. Credit the increase of swift-shifting business and technology trends for this development. Very few survey respondents, for example, said they can accurately plan and forecast for IT service demand costs, as well as expenses associated with project operations. They also struggle to align their budget with business priorities, and find themselves adjusting financial planning throughout the year to keep up with changing organizational needs. At the moment, those needs include support for solutions and services that will drive business value, improve cyber-security, remove IT infrastructure redundancies and migrate services to the cloud. CIOs would also like to use available funds to reign in shadow IT. But these goals could change by next month—or next week. So flexibility is key. More than 120 CIOs and other senior IT executives took part in the research.