“Recognizing TBM leaders at the forefront of institutionalizing TBM as a methodology within their organizations.”
To make a deep impact with Technology Business Management, organizations must evangelize from the inside out. The TBM Champion award recognizes TBM leaders, TBM architects and governance professionals who are leading the TBM initiative by institutionalizing its practices as a methodology and functional role within their organizations. The most transformative TBM leaders apply rigor and expertise to the TBM methodology to elevate and ensure its practices across the business and across time.
The most successful TBM Champions:
- Educate IT and business executives about TBM and the importance of its adoption; evangelizes TBM through community engagement, such as through the TBM Council.
- Make TBM reporting a core component of operational meetings, business reviews, annual strategy and planning and other IT or business meetings.
- Empower IT leaders to make better, faster decisions.
- Empower business and finance leaders with transparency into the IT costs and consumption driven by the lines of business.
- Collaborate with business partners to understand their plans and anticipate demand.
The TBM Awards Selection Committee identified the following three finalists because of their impressive display of truly championing TBM methodology over the last year. We are confident this notable trio of nominees are exceedingly deserving of recognition and we’re excited to share why they made the cut as finalists.
The Award Finalists
Comerica: Comerica is among the 25 largest U.S. banking companies, with roughly 9,000 employees. They began the process of transitioning to a service management organization two years ago, starting in IT, with the goal of providing financial insights into services. However, the group was using Excel spreadsheets, which quickly proved inefficient and unmanageable to meet the company’s transformational plans. Comerica knew they needed to operate differently and chose a TBM approach, despite a lack of support from finance. The plan: provide financial metrics for every service Comerica has defined, evangelize TBM across the company, and build successes so TBM is not only utilized but also institutionalized. The results flew in, as TBM was rapidly deployed with across the organization and early success was presented to the executive team. Comerica developed a TBM roadmap that IT presents on a rolling basis to all possible stakeholders in the organization today, ensuring everyone in the organization understands “what the art of the possible is.”
Cox Enterprises: Cox Enterprises, owner of one of the largest cable operators and media groups in the United States, has a diversified business. Currently in the process of becoming a corporate shared services center with five major divisions, it is critical for Cox to understand its costs to serve the enterprise. The company recognized early on that transparency was not the end goal. Rather, it needed to ensure IT spend was in support of business strategies and priorities. Ultimately, TBM for Cox and its divisions became about business and IT alignment and strengthened partnership. TBM was embraced as a new way of thinking about how IT would conduct itself internally. Cox relies on TBM to champion the way IT provides services to its customers, in a common language, while also providing transparency. Today, Cox companies (AutoTrader, Manheim, Cox Communications, Cox Media Group and Cox Enterprises) have become evangelist for TBM both in national and local venues. Professionals within Cox are on the TBM Board as well as principal members who have contributed to the thought leadership of TBM— proving their loyalty to TBM in multiple ways.
State of Washington: Each year the State of Washington spends nearly $1 billion on IT staff, infrastructure, applications, maintenance, and operations. Mandated benchmarking reports commissioned by the Legislature shed little insight into IT spend and performance. So, in 2012, the incoming CIO turned to TBM as a way to meet the Legislature’s requests for transparency. The state set out to work closely with legislators to evangelize the need for TBM and establish the TBM Program within Office of the CIO (OCIO) to bring the state’s separate agencies on board, collaboratively and willingly. Today, Washington State has made valiant steps towards infusing TBM practices into daily procedures. A TBM advisory group was formed to create a strategic roadmap with feasible and achievable milestones along the way; a significant portion of the OCIO website is dedicated to explaining the TBM program; and most notably, TBM is essentially now mandated by law for Washington state agencies— talk about a TBM champion!
After reading about the above nominees, it should be clear that The Technology Business Management (TBM) Awards are recognizing IT and finance leaders for their ingenuity, creativity, and contribution to Technology Business Management. The TBM Champion Award specifically honors organizations who have proven they are the gold standard for successfully implementing TBM practices and we are very proud of this year’s nominees.
If you want to learn more, be sure to check out the TBM Award page here. You can also find us on Twitter at @TBMCouncil and through the #TBMC14 hashtag for all conference updates!
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