New Report Uncovers More Than $5.8 Billion In Potential Savings From U.S. Government Technology Spending

The IT COST Commission, Joint Public-Private Sector Initiative, Introduces Recommendations and Framework for Agency-Wide Cost Savings

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2016 /CNW/ -- The Technology Business Management (TBM) Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting best practices for managing IT like a business, today released a report, Accelerating the Mission: Recommendations for Optimizing Federal Technology Cost and Value in the Age of FITARA, outlining its approach for achieving $5.8 billion agency-wide technology cost savings in the US Government. This report is the result of more than a year's work from the Commission on IT Cost, Opportunity, Strategy and Transparency (IT COST), a coalition of more than 70 public and private sector IT leaders focused on maximizing the value of the government's technology investments through transparency into spending.

These recommendations come at a time when the more than $89.9 billion in Federal IT investments are heavily scrutinized. Passed in December 2014, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), outlines increased levels of CIO authority over all technology spending for their agencies and sub-agencies. Just last month, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released its guidelines for agency CIOs managing technology spending following FITARA. These OMB guidelines now align, in part, to the recommendations included in today's IT COST Commission report.

"On the heels of the recently distributed draft recommendations for FITARA implementation, my Federal CIO counterparts and I are eager to support the work being done by the TBM Council," said Richard McKinney, CIO at Department of Transportation. "By leveraging the success of the private sector, we believe that the IT COST Commission can give the taxpayers a better return on their investment while simultaneously providing Congress and the Administration with better insight into the value provided by technology."

Today's IT COST Commission report contains a set of 21 recommendations for applying TBM to a Federal IT environment as well as a purpose-built, "Federal TBM Taxonomy" for measuring and modeling IT costs. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government spent more than 75 percent of its total IT budget on operations and maintenance in fiscal year 2015. As these operational costs grow, the result is a more than $7.3 billion decline in development, modernization and enhancement spending.

The IT COST Commission's recommendations and taxonomy will provide public sector CIOs with the information and tools they need to rebalance their spending by eliminating redundancies, shifting dollars from maintenance to innovation and making more strategic technology investments. On average, organizations that employ TBM methodologies and tools are able to make a tangible improvement on technology spending. Across Federal agencies, this equates to $5.8 billion in taxpayer dollars, at a minimum, that could be applied to innovation and a more technologically savvy public sector. These savings are based on findings derived from a recent Forrester study on the total economic impact of the TBM methodology.

The report was unveiled today during the final meeting of the IT COST Commission, held at the General Services Administration (GSA) headquarters. CIOs from GSA, the Department of the Interior and the DOT participated in a panel discussion alongside representatives from OMB and the TBM Council. The discussion focused on the challenges currently facing cabinet-level CIOs and how the TBM methodology could be applied to achieve transparency into federal technology spending.

"In more than 300 private sector organizations, the implementation of TBM has led to so much more than cost savings. TBM is a key driver of competitive differentiation, services transformation, cloud adoption and even career progression," said Chris Pick, TBM Council President. "We believe that it is our duty to take these valuable private sector learnings and use them to empower our peers in the public sector. I am proud to have the opportunity to work with many dedicated IT leaders throughout the US government and look forward to our ongoing partnership."

Established in May 2015, the IT COST Commission was designed to provide federal IT executives with a standardized approach for managing their comprehensive technology spend in a way that generates the most value for the American people while simultaneously eliminating waste and inefficiency. To achieve the goal and define the necessary recommendations, the Commission brought together agency CIOs, representatives from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the TBM Council, as well as advisors from industry-leading advisory firms and solution providers including Apptio, Capgemini, Cask, Deloitte, ISG and Tanium.

To read the full report or learn more about the TBM Council, please visit: http://tbmcouncil.org/get-involved/it-cost-commission.html

About the TBM Council

Founded in 2012 the Technology Business Management (TBM) Council is a nonprofit organization governed by an independent board of business technology leaders from a diverse group of the world's most innovative companies like AIG, Aon, Cisco Systems, DuPont, ExxonMobil, First American, Microsoft, Nike, and more. The Council is focused on developing a definitive framework for managing the business of IT by establishing standards and providing ongoing collaboration and education opportunities. Learn more and become a member at http://tbmcouncil.org.

SOURCE Technology Business Management (TBM) Council

Sarah Vreugdenhil, TBM Council, [email protected], http://www.tbmcouncil.org