Why I Wish I’d Had IBM Apptio When I Worked in Finance
By Sarah Dow
Recently, I completed four IBM Apptio certifications.
As I worked through the training, I kept thinking:
“I can’t believe how useful this would have been when I worked in finance.”
The challenges Apptio is designed to solve are challenges I experienced firsthand.
One of the biggest frustrations was allocating IT costs across business departments. Like many organisations, we relied heavily on spreadsheets. Costs were manually collected, manually allocated and then shared with departments. Quite often, those departments would question the allocations, and in some cases rightly so.
That wasn’t even the real challenge, it was understanding and communicating what was driving the costs.
Collating the data from various IT and Finance systems made it difficult to provide frequent, timely and detailed data that the wider business could understand and trust. It was only if a department challenged costs, that an investigation might lead to the discovery of IT redundancy and cost savings.
So lack of transparency and communication made cost optimisation difficult
Forecasting IT costs was another challenge.
Technology spending changes constantly with new projects, growing infrastructures, changing suppliers and shifting priorities. Building forecasts often involved pulling together information from multiple sources and making assumptions based on incomplete data.
As a finance professional, I wanted confidence in the forecast. And sometimes that was difficult to achieve.
Tracking investment spend could be equally challenging.
Understanding exactly where money was being invested, monitoring project costs and demonstrating return on investment often required significant manual effort. The information existed but bringing it together into a clear and meaningful picture was time consuming and prevented the ability to allocate resources, cost effectively.
This is where Apptio really stood out to me.
IBM Apptio is an IT Financial Management solution that creates transparency between Finance, IT and the wider business.
Instead of manually collecting and allocating costs through spreadsheets, Apptio streamlines the process and automatically allocates costs to business departments. Those costs can then be shared through showback or chargeback models, helping departments understand what they are consuming and encouraging responsible spending decisions.
What impressed me most was the visibility.
Apptio allows organisations to see the drivers behind their technology costs, whether that’s for labour, products, suppliers, infrastructure, on-premise environments, cloud services, development activities or something else entirely.
Rather than debating the numbers, everyone can see where the costs originate and what is driving them.
That transparency gives organisations the confidence to make better cost optimisation decisions. This was the information I often wished I had access to when making allocation and budgeting decisions.
I was also interested in Apptio’s forecasting capabilities.
Rather than relying on static spreadsheets, forecasts can be automated using actual cost trends, with continuous monthly updates available throughout the year. That means forecasts can evolve as the business evolves, providing a much more accurate view of future spend.
The platform also makes it easier to accurately track investment spend. By tagging costs to specific projects and initiatives, organisations can clearly see where money is being invested and whether those investments are delivering the greatest possible return. Ultimately that is what most finance teams aim to achieve.
Final Thoughts
Looking back at the challenges I experienced in finance, I can see how Apptio would have helped address many of them.
It would have reduced the manual effort involved in cost allocation, improved visibility, strengthened forecasting and made investment tracking far easier.
Most importantly, it would have helped create a shared understanding between Finance, IT and the wider business, leading to better decisions, more responsible consumption and a maximised return on investment.
That’s why, having completed my certifications, I find Apptio such a compelling solution. If you’re struggling with IT cost transparency, forecasting or allocation, I’d be happy to show you how Apptio can help.