Insurance Networking

[carrie.burns]

What are some of the keys to business and IT working together to set the IT budget?

[> Partha Panda]

3 things which are important:

a) A clear vision of where the business is going in terms of growth, lines of business expansion, products, innovations planned for. This has to be articulated by the business in detail.
b) From this, a roadmap of what needs to be done to get the vision 'on the ground', needs to be articulated jointly by the business and IT, e.g business wants certain features for the direct business on the web. For this, the features required, how it will affect the customer process and the value it will bring to the organization. This roadmap should bring out the 'value' of doing the required changes/additions as required by the business. No roadmap or plan is effective without a value analysis of what the actions will get for the organization.
c) The roadmap actions will have to be segregated by time periods of when what will be done and how much, alongwith the effort required. Again, this is to be joint business and IT articulation. IT then plans for the effort they require to put in and fit it to their overall plans for a period.

And, like all plans, a regular review of the course of the ship needs to be analyzed and any course corrections are to be done jointly.
A strong governance with key point contacts from the business and IT would enhance the effectiveness of the process.

[> sethm]

There’s no easy answer, but there are also numerous factors to consider. The amount a business should budget varies based on its tenure in the marketplace and its industry, among other considerations.