IT financial management at a North American utility
Six months, from late 2024: a $30M maintenance budget under control for the first time.
- $3Moverrun prevented, FY2025
- 20xreturn on a $150,000 fee
- 186maintenance contracts in one book
- 6 monthsfrom the first workshop to a budget the company runs itself
Situation
A large utility spending $30M a year on IT maintenance, with finance reporting done in Excel, no systematic view of its contracts, and departments that had never been held to a budget. Renewals arrived as surprises. The previous year had ended $3M over budget. Finance and IT each blamed the other, and the company was entering the first year of a five-year rate filing, when every dollar would be examined.
What we did
Six months, beginning late 2024, alongside the company's consulting partner, Gartner. We introduced a total cost of ownership view so each department could see and own what its technology cost. On the SAP BI the company already had, we built an IT financial dashboard in Tableau showing OPEX and CAPEX by department, project and expense type in near real time. We built a contract book of all 186 maintenance contracts with a renewal forecast, including a 5% buffer (2% for inflation, 3% for the year-on-year increases vendors write into their terms). We standardised contract data entry, invoice filing and the intake form for renewals, and we trained non-financial managers and unionised staff on what the reports meant and why renewals go the way they do.
Much of the work was mediation: sitting between finance and IT, fixing wrong amortisation dates and misallocated budgets, and getting each side to use the other's numbers.
Result
Actual spend aligned to the 2025 budget, which was revised on the new evidence. The $3M overrun of the previous year wasn't repeated, and renewals were negotiated ahead of time instead of paid on arrival. $3M saved in FY2025 on a $150,000 engagement: 20 times the fee. Reporting that took senior people days now takes minutes, and the company went into its rate filing able to say what its technology costs.
What it took
Winning over staff who had good reasons to distrust another process change: we showed them the time it gave back. Accepting that the automation phase was paused for budget reasons, and leaving the company with the two next steps that pay for it: an application rationalisation task force, and an inventory that maps applications to projects and vendors.