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Shining a Spotlight on Public Sector Tech Savings

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Background: Turning Cost Pressure into Opportunity

One prominent government department faced rising IT complexity at a time of dwindling funding and growing demand for digital services. Legacy systems were consuming significant budget, leaving little room for modernisation. Meanwhile, internal mission teams demanded visibility and accountability, pressing leadership to do more with less.

Like many in the public sector, they relied heavily on spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and time-consuming manual processes. Decision-making was delayed, and it was increasingly difficult to justify IT budgets or explain where money was being spent.

Challenge: Financial Transparency Meets Mission Delivery

The department needed to:

  • Gain clear, end-to-end insight into IT spending

  • Reallocate funds from legacy “run” activities to modernisation efforts like cloud migration

  • Automate reporting to reduce reliance on spreadsheets and manual analysis

  • Improve cross-office financial governance and forecasting

At the heart of this challenge was a need to connect technology spending with mission-critical outcomes, ensuring that every pound not only counted but could be justified, forecasted, and reallocated as needed.

Solution: TBM Transformation with IBM Apptio

By implementing Apptio’s Technology Business Management (TBM) platform, the agency was able to:

  1. Categorise IT costs into towers, sub‑towers, and cost pools—enhancing visibility across programs

  2. Automate cost dashboards for cloud, asset refresh, and network spend, driving self‑service analytics

  3. Integrate device and asset data, enabling better forecasting, contract negotiations, and lifecycle planning

  4. Deploy cloud‑cost visibility, creating a daily intake of cloud spend data and tagging quality insights

This shift turned TBM into more than a compliance exercise—it became a strategic asset for budget negotiation, performance monitoring, and modernisation planning.

Apptio also helped foster cross-functional collaboration between IT, Finance, and operational leaders. By providing a “single source of truth,” the department could eliminate disputes over numbers, track financial performance in real-time, and focus conversations on outcomes rather than reconciling reports.

Outcome: Real Impact in Weeks, Not Months

The results were significant:

  • 95% reduction in labour hours for asset-refresh monitoring and reporting

  • Real-time oversight of 100+ cloud apps, with alerts for cost variances

  • Stronger governance around cloud tagging and usage

  • Ability to move 15% of CapEx from “business as usual” to modernisation-related activities

The department also increased its forecasting agility, shifting from annual to quarterly planning, enabling a more responsive and strategic allocation of funding in the face of changing priorities.

Key Takeaways for UK Public Sector Leaders

  • Treat TBM as a strategic initiative, not only a compliance requirement

  • Automate and standardise cost reporting to free up time for strategic use

  • Integrate asset, cloud, and financial data to fuel data-rich decision‑making

  • Enable near real-time reporting to manage shifts in spend and usage

 

This case shows how 74 Digital and IBM Apptio TBM can be the linchpin in transforming public sector IT: unlocking savings, enabling modernisation, and bringing clarity behind every tech pound spent. It’s a strategy that delivers—fast, measurable, and repeatable.

As Chancellor Reeves’ Spending Review accelerates demand for efficiency and accountability, now is the time to explore how 74 Digital & IBM can help your department meet both financial and mission-critical goals.