PRICE® Blog

In today’s digitally connected world, every business is supported by information technology (IT), either through an in-house IT organization, or thorough a contracted provider.  IT services include all digital support, from the office telephones to digital security and surveillance of the workplace after hours.  Most of us, for example, depend heavily on the internet for communications, marketing, and research, as well as management of enterprise resources, such as HR, materials, and finances.  IT resources are likely a significant portion of an organization’s budget, requiring an awareness of not only current IT needs but also of rapidly changing digital technology and markets for future needs.

IT services operating and capital improvement budgets can be generalized into the following resource and process categories:

1. IT Hardware: purchase, installation, operations, and upgrade/replacement of servers, processors, user access devices, network devices, and other “internet-of-things” devices for surveillance, environmental control and information sharing.
2. IT Software: purchase, installation, and recurring fees for software applications and services supporting office automation, information sharing, cybersecurity, enterprise management (HR, Finance) and numerous other workplace functions.
3. IT Labor: the IT staff costs for administration, data management, network control, equipment management, help desk and datacenter management (facility, environmental, capital improvements).

These costs can be further organized into on-going budget categories, such as:  capital expenses, operating expenses, personnel and payroll expenses, contracted services, and facility management (rent, utilities, housekeeping).

Effective budget management includes a forecast of future resource needs balanced against revenue projections.  The future costs for complex IT services can be estimated as a function of historical expenditures, or by using our IT services library.  PRICE® Systems, LLC provides you with a predictive analytic framework for estimating IT costs to support budgeting and financial analysis.

Here is a brief example describing the division of IT costs and the predictive analytic capabilities using our TruePlanning® product:

IT Resource hierarchy for cost estimating

Detailed output report mapped to a budget format: