How to Turn TBM into a Process for Everyday Business Practices

Please note: This conversation was based on peer-to-peer engagement and shared experiences, not formal research. The insights shared reflect personal perspectives from within the community.

Hello everyone! The TBM Council recently hosted an engaging "Coffee Chat" focused on "How to Turn TBM into a Process for Everyday Business Practices," bringing together members of the TBM community to share insights and discuss integrating TBM deeply into organizational culture. Attendees from various organizations, including UPS, Juniper Networks, and M&G, shared valuable perspectives on this topic. Our hosts, Amy Byalick (also known as Amy Krueger) and Adam Chan, led a dynamic discussion.

What is a TBM Council Coffee Chat?

TBM Council Coffee Chats are informal, peer-to-peer engagements where we create a relaxed space for community members to share real-world insights, ask questions, and learn from one another. It’s all about connecting and growing together.

These sessions are held every four to six weeks per strategy community and typically last about 30 to 45 minutes. They're hosted by fellow TBM community members who are passionate about sharing their experiences and lessons learned. You won’t see any formal slides—just honest, practical conversation focused on the ‘how-tos’ of implementing and evolving TBM in your organizations. We encourage you to participate—ask questions, drop thoughts in the chat, and let this be a space where you feel comfortable sharing. It’s the community that makes these chats valuable.

Key Insights from "How to Turn TBM into a Process for Everyday Business Practices"

During our "How to Turn TBM into a Process for Everyday Business Practices" Coffee Chat, several crucial insights emerged for embedding TBM into daily operations:

• Embed TBM into Existing Processes: Integrate TBM into established financial cycles (like monthly FP&A) and leverage strong executive sponsorship to mandate adherence and accountability among "tower" and "service" owners.

• Drive Accountability Through Structured Reviews: Implement regular, standardized reviews (e.g., weekly CIO-led sessions) focusing on key operational and financial metrics, fostering financial literacy and proactive risk management among IT leaders.

• Demonstrate Tangible Financial Impact: Prioritize identifying and highlighting clear financial savings, such as uncovering unused software licenses, as early wins to build credibility and secure ongoing buy-in from leadership, especially CFOs.

• Balance Standardization with Flexibility: While striving for a consistent TBM model, manage customization requests carefully to avoid breaking processes for other users, aiming for a stable and broadly satisfactory reporting environment.

• Cultivate Continuous Engagement: Maintain a consistent reporting cadence (at least monthly) and consider "gamification" strategies to keep teams engaged and incentivized to identify cost savings and drive TBM adoption.

Prior to this coffee chat, a survey was conducted to gauge the community's interest in various topics. The results indicated a strong desire to understand:

• How to drive TBM success with effective communication and stakeholder buy-in (41.2% of votes)

• How to turn TBM into a process for everyday business practices (41.2% of votes)

• How can you turn resistance to TBM into acceptance? (17.6% of votes)

This clear interest set the stage for a deep dive into embedding TBM within daily operations.

Building TBM as an IT Operating Muscle 

Amy Byalick, a Vice President of IT Finance with 13 years of TBM experience, shared a best practice cultivated across three organizations where she implemented TBM, improving it with each iteration. At her first organization, a pharmaceutical distributor, the challenge was to move beyond the common complaint that "IT costs too much". Recognizing the pervasive nature of IT as often the largest SG&A (Selling, General, & Administrative) expense, the goal was to make TBM repetitive and recurring.

They leveraged the existing monthly FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) process, adapting it for internal IT use. The CIO championed the initiative, insisting on adherence to the TBM taxonomy and appointing dedicated "tower owners" and "service owners". A standardized PowerPoint template with five key topics was mandated for weekly reviews:

• Team Support: Identifying individuals critical to the success of a service or tower, beyond just organizational charts.

• Risks: Holding owners accountable for identifying and communicating operational risks before they escalate to higher leadership.

• Cost Transparency: Utilizing the TBM platform to display financial data, encouraging financial literacy among leaders.

• Roadmap: Outlining current initiatives for services and towers, though requiring coaching to keep details strategic rather than overly granular.

• Innovation Funding: Identifying opportunities to drive down costs within their area to self-fund future innovations.

The CIO would cherry-pick two service or tower owners each week based on business relevance (e.g., recent executive complaints, network outages, or simply a lack of recent updates). This created a culture where owners always had their presentations ready and valued the opportunity to engage with the CIO. This approach fostered growth opportunities, taught a new financial language, and increased accountability and engagement across IT.

Driving Stickiness and Addressing Adoption Challenges

 A participant noted that for TBM to succeed, top-down support and formal processes are crucial, not just grassroots efforts. Their organization established a "TBM advisory group" comprising senior directors from application development and infrastructure towers. This group holds monthly meetings to discuss TBM updates, data cleanup, and to share wins and use cases. One notable success story involved a mainframe storage team engaging with a major customer, which led to an $840,000 reduction in their storage purchase renewal. This approach helped ensure proactive planning for future needs, such as network infrastructure updates.

Adam Chan, a consulting manager with 7 years of TBM experience, seconded the value of advisory groups, noting they aid adoption by allowing board members to promote TBM and provide ideas for continuous improvement. He emphasized that taking feedback seriously and acting on suggestions from the advisory group can lead to more useful reports and deeper engagement.

A challenge highlighted was being too responsive to individual report customization requests, which could inadvertently break processes for other users. The key is to find a balance that eventually leads to stabilization and widespread satisfaction.

Another significant insight involved addressing external customers who might only focus on direct IT costs, ignoring indirect allocations. This can lead to broken processes, especially if there's a sudden change in management philosophy that holds them accountable for the full IT cost stack. This is particularly prevalent in performance-driven environments, where individuals try to minimize their reported costs.

Regarding financial reporting frequency, while some organizations close books quarterly, making monthly actuals challenging, a minimum monthly cadence is crucial for TBM engagement. Daily cloud costs, however, often require separate handling outside of traditional quarterly accounting cycles.

A common misconception is that TBM is a "silver bullet" that will solve every problem from day one. It's crucial to manage expectations and demonstrate value by focusing on specific, data-supported problems. The goal is to unlock new insights, not just replace existing reports. For instance, a hybrid TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) report showing consolidated views of on-prem, public, and private cloud costs can provide significant value to leadership during cloud transformation journeys.

To drive interest and engagement, "gamification" can be highly effective. For example, rewarding teams for identifying cost savings in the TBM platform can make the process fun and incentivize participation.

Join the Adoption Community!

The TBM Council's Adoption Community Workgroup is actively looking for more members to participate in open forums, coffee chats, engage with the community, and contribute to assets.

If you're interested in connecting with peers, sharing real-world insights, and helping shape the future of TBM adoption, we encourage you to join the Adoption Community and Workgroup. You can continue these conversations and ask questions on the TBM Connect forum. The next coffee chat is planned to focus on "How to drive TBM success with effective communication and stakeholder buy-in."

Next Steps: Engage and Learn More!

To continue your journey with Technology Business Management, we invite you to explore our website, log into TBM Connect here, dive deeper into the TBM framework, learn the fundamentals of TBM modeling, and review our latest research here—including the State of TBM report and our ongoing study of TBM salaries. Consider enrolling in a TBM course, joining the TBM Council to connect with a global community of peers, or attending the next TBM Conference to engage with thought leaders driving innovation at the intersection of technology and business. You can also explore our network of partners for additional resources and expertise, and subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed about the latest insights, events, and tools in the world of TBM.

Ready to connect, learn, and grow? Join one of our TBM Strategy Communities on TBM Connect to participate in open forums, attend upcoming Coffee Chats, and contribute to our growing body of shared knowledge!