Today, technology is pivotal in meeting your business outcomes. This means that your tech purchases have become even more critical to your operations. According to Forrester, the segment of tech purchases that have been made by business across all stages of the tech-buying lifecycle, is only at about 7 percent of total US new tech purchases. Therefore, as a CIO you’ll have to work collaboratively with business to drive your tech investments.

Many organizations consider financial metrics as just a small part of managing IT; for example, when measuring and reporting on IT financial performance, it’s rare to have the necessary knowledge, systems or processes that are required. It’s this reliance on non-financial, operational metrics that impedes justifying IT-related projects or fine tuning annual budgets.

When you include IT financial metrics in any balanced scorecard, or similar reporting, you’ll find that it does benefit and support other key metrics. Just think of service quality metrics or service level achievement reports. In other words, in the context of resources and investments, these IT financial metrics firmly establish that IT is being run as a business.