The Value of IT

I have been asked what is the value of IT, or technology and how do you prove it ?

However, what does value mean ?  It’s a word that gets thrown about and sometimes without much thought.  It can mean the importance, worth or usefulness of something.  Importance, worth and usefulness are all subjective.  What is important to me, may not be important to you.

IT value could be something as simple as technology’s contribution to greater operational efficiency, increased profitability or reducing the level of risk.  How do you measure the contribution of your IT budget in driving efficiency, profitability or risk mitigation

Technology leaders need to understand what is important to the business.  That starts with understanding what the business wants.  This can be framed through the lens of:

Revenue – this is a key focus for all businesses, without revenue the business would cease to exist.

Performance – Can an organisation be more efficient and do more or at least the same with less without an unexpected degradation of service quality.

Risk – How do I prevent or reduce the risk that my business doesn’t suffer any losses that impact the bottom line.

In 2025, I would argue that risk is becoming more important.  In the UK, think JLR and the cyberattack in August which reduced the UK’s national economic output by 0.17% in September.  The UK retailer Marks and Spencer estimated that a cyberattack cost an estimated £300m.  This shows the value of technology.

That’s all great, but how do I as a CIO or CTO communicate the value of IT ?  Can technologists connect the benefits IT services and technologies deliver to enable business capabilities and achieve corporate goals that non-technical colleagues can easily understand ?

The first thing is to say is that technology in a business is an enabler.  It is part of the fabric of a business that automates business processes, processes that the business owns that benefits the business, but sometimes take for granted.  End users don’t think about technology unless it suddenly stops working and then the sky starts falling down.

So, without literally pulling the plug on technology how does the business appreciate the value of technology and how it contributes to their goals ?

IT leaders could start charging back the cost of the technology the business uses.

Imagine a rather familiar scenario…

The Sales Director at a meeting claims that they have increased the speed at which orders are received and dispatched, meaning orders are handled swiftly, increasing customer satisfaction.

The Finance Director, can then say we have reduced the time it takes to send out invoices so we can send more out every day which improves the organisation’s cashflow.

The Marketing lead can talk about how they have upgraded the website so it is more user friendly and less vulnerable to cyberattacks.

These are all laudable achievements.  However, whilst the business heads reap the benefits who owns the cost ?  In most instances it is the CIO.  IT is investing and producing services that benefit the business but is the one that is often getting squeezed at budget times.

What should IT leaders do ?  They could take drastic action and pull the plugs out to prove a point, but that’s petty even by my standards.

No, it’s time for technology leaders to take a stand and start to push back and chargeback for the services they provide to the business.  It’s a simple matching of the cost to the benefit, why should only the business get the glory of improvements driven by technology ?  The business needs to have some accountability for their usage and needs.  This could then start to bridge the gap of what value does IT deliver to the business and the outcomes it helps drive and create a more collaborative relationship.

Finally, recently I attended an event in October 2025, where a senior ServiceNow executive said that 20% of CTOs can tie their budget to an outcome, meaning 80% can’t, can you ?