CIOs often face questions about the value of IT. “Show me a general ledger and I’ll show you IT spend. Show me operational data and I’ll show you IT usage.” But how do you demonstrate value? And how do you align IT investments to business strategy?

Many organizations treat budgeting as a necessary annual function. When IT budgeting is viewed as a process to enable the strategic plan— and not an annual goal—it delivers a competitive advantage.

IT leadership takes the business strategy (revenue growth through customer retention) and builds their IT strategic plan around tactics to support it (“lower CSM to customer ratio”). The tactic itself needs a measure of success (“increase NPS score by 25%”) but that has to roll up to a larger business strategy.