At the Technology Business Management (TBM) Conference, Apptio unveiled product updates that, for the first time, allowed enterprises to measure costs of their IT assets in standard categories, and automatically compare these categories against industry peers. These updates leverage the combination of multiple third-party benchmarking data sources from more than 3000 organizations, are based on standard cost models developed with the support of partner organizations, and are delivered in Apptio’s software-as-a-service model to make comparisons cost effective and efficient.
Apptio’s new Cost Transparency solution automates the measurement of IT costs using the same categories and methods as its new IT Benchmarking solution, allowing customers to make direct annual or ongoing comparisons of costs against their industry peers. Now, for the first time, technology executives can leverage Apptio’s standard cost models to automatically measure the cost of IT and make relevant, apples-to-apples comparisons against peer organizations in order to easily identify areas for optimization. These new products rely on the Apptio TBM Unified Model, which is the blueprint for standardizing IT categories and cost measurement based on hundreds of enterprise deployments.
Historically, calculating the true costs of owning IT assets and delivering services has been challenging for IT leaders and business executives. The variables that contribute to costs inside a company’s data center include a complex mix of hardware, software licenses, staff salaries, real estate and facility costs, energy use, and external cloud and consulting services. And the way companies measure these variables and calculate IT costs varies significantly. Further, traditional IT benchmarking approaches are costly and time-consuming engagements that deliver only point-in-time comparisons. Until today, no company has offered a standard, software-based approach to defining and categorizing IT assets, automating the measurement costs in these categories, and comparing these costs against industry peers.
“Just as GAAP sets the standard for the way public companies are evaluated, Apptio is developing, with endorsement from the Technology Business Management Council and outside experts, the industry standard to measure the cost and quality of IT,” says Sunny Gupta, Apptio chief executive officer. “With a complete picture of costs that adheres to a standard IT categorization model, IT leaders and business executives can finally compare the performance of their IT operations against peers in their industry using unbiased, defensible data.”
“We see great value in Apptio’s new IT Benchmarking product as it can help us move from building cost models based on our own assumptions to implementing industry standard cost models. This will open a view we’ve never had before on where our IT performance excels and where it falls short,” says Mark Satterfield, vice president, technology, AutoTrader Group. “In moving from a set of practices based on internal views to common industry benchmarks, we will be able to better measure and improve our IT performance.”
