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.
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.
By implementing Apptio’s Technology Business Management (TBM) platform, the agency was able to:
Categorise IT costs into towers, sub‑towers, and cost pools—enhancing visibility across programs
Automate cost dashboards for cloud, asset refresh, and network spend, driving self‑service analytics
Integrate device and asset data, enabling better forecasting, contract negotiations, and lifecycle planning
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.
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.
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.