Turning IT cost data into actionable insight and changing the stakeholder conversation.
Mapped and aligned IT cost data to a structured chart of accounts across departments.
Launched pilot dashboards, then scaled quickly across all business areas.
Enabled monthly IT cost show-back reporting and peer IT benchmarking to support investment decisions.
The Requirement:
A large public sector organisation was under pressure to clearly demonstrate how IT spend supported individual public services. Our client needed to move towards an “IT cost show-back” reporting, as part of delivering a greater insight of technology spend to senior stakeholders.
Our Approach:
In the early phases of the engagement we worked with our client to map key general ledger fields to ImprovIT’s structured chart of accounts (COA). Once complete, we then mapped the client’s assets and service elements to the same COA.
After mapping was completed and validated, a specific business area was chosen as a pilot. Using our detailed methodology and playbook we worked with the client to identify every IT component used by the pilot business function and then used that information to further enhance the data previously mapped. We also created an initial design of the Dashboards at this point.
We then processed the data through our IT Transparency toolset and produced a set of dashboards, reports and tables that were loaded into a cloud platform for the client to review and test.
After the pilot was approved, we were able to rapidly expand the service to the remaining business areas. Finally, peer data was inserted for comparison purposes with automated monthly data feeds set up for ongoing updates.
The Outcome:
The client now has an interactive service delivered by ImprovIT that provides them with the ability to drill-down and interrogate their own IT costs as required.
The service is updated monthly to provide an always current view of IT spend from a “consumer” viewpoint, and they also receive a regular data feed of IT spend market data allowing them to clearly understand how their spending compares to other similar organisations. This new ability to clearly show where the IT budget is being spent has moved the conversation from “we think IT costs too much” to one of “what level of investment in IT is appropriate for the services we need?”
This IT Transparency case study highlights the power of structured data and iterative collaboration. By mapping IT spend to a common framework and visualising it through intuitive dashboards, ImprovIT helped the client shift from gut feel to fact-based decision-making. The addition of peer benchmarking added vital context, turning a cost-tracking exercise into a strategic tool that reshaped stakeholder conversations. The result was not just greater transparency—but better alignment between IT investment and public service outcomes.
I think ImprovIT are really, really good. It’s very rare that a supplier selected from the tender process that is fantastically brilliant from start to finish.
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