By Ali Kramer
The Technology Business Management (TBM) Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting best practices for managing IT like a business, today announced AOL, eBay, The Clorox Company, Fannie Mae, and Cox Enterprises as winners of the third-annual TBM Awards. Each organization was recognized during an awards gala at Chicago's historic Field Museum during the 2015 TBM Conference. The TBM Awards acknowledge IT leaders who effectively use data to guide business consumption and investment, plan accurately and efficiently, optimize resources for value, and transform to service-oriented business models.
This year's TBM award winners were chosen by a selection committee comprised of industry-leading executives, consultants and academics. According to George Westerman, MIT Research Scientist and selection committee member, "With TBM, IT leaders are empowered to act as strategic business partners driving their organizations forward through innovation and competitive differentiation. This year's TBM Award winners are re-engineering the way IT is run."
These award recipients were recognized across five categories for the outcomes they drove with technology business data and processes to better understand and communicate IT costs, plan efficiently, optimize investments and transform their IT businesses.
The 2015 Award Winners
Business Innovation Award: AOL Shifts to Cloud-First Strategy
To help its media properties like Huffington Post and TechCrunch innovate faster and more profitably, AOL used its cost and performance model to determine it should embrace public cloud. It has already retired 14,000 servers, sold off a data center and lowered its carbon footprint by 42 percent. Deep understanding of its service costs, capacity and performance was also a critical factor in AOL's decision to acquire the majority of Microsoft's advertising business this summer.
Infrastructure Trailblazer Award: eBay Merges and Spins off PayPal Infrastructure
For 15 months eBay made data-driven decisions to integrate eBay and PayPal infrastructures into a single digital engine running $260 billion of commerce. Using data about cost, capacity and performance they cut through "religious debates" to standardize on the best services each had to offer and rework supplier agreements, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in new efficiencies. Following the announcement of PayPal's split off, they were given just nine months to separate the companies. Using their cost and KPI model they were able to accelerate planning and execution to meet deadlines for SEC filings and numerous agreements, all while keeping their infrastructure humming during the holiday season.
CFO of IT Award: The Clorox Company Doubles Planning Accuracy
Clorox uses TBM methodologies and their TBM system to integrate and automate their previously fragmented IT planning processes. By almost doubling the accuracy and increasing the detail of its IT spending forecasts, Clorox saved 7 percent on a major outsourcing contract, allowing the organization to free up 80 man-hours each quarter and quickly identify unspent funds so they could be redirected to innovation projects.
IT Services Transformation Award: Fannie Mae Connects Technology to Business Costs
In a bid to build the next generation of home financing infrastructure, Fannie Mae uses TBM to understand not only technology costs, but also the business operation cost and time efficiency. The company is shaping investment in technology and operations with models that allow business users to explore the total costs and connections between applications, business operations and business capabilities – such as turning a pool of loans into a mortgage-backed security.
TBM Champion Award: Cox Links Project Planning, Run Costs and Cloud Use Across Companies
Cox Enterprises is a group of privately-held companies that have all independently chosen to adopt TBM. Each runs its own TBM systems that interconnect using cost model standards to expose opportunities for group efficiencies as well as inter-company benchmarking to learn from each other. To help the business avoid later surprises and ensure IT is adequately funded, Cox Enterprises infuses its project funding process with a review of expected five-year run costs based on its service cost model. In its own TBM program, Cox Automotive uses its standard cost model to quickly see how to best integrate the technology of companies it acquires, identify opportunities for consolidation such as labor contracts and communications carriers and manage its consumption of public cloud services.
"As TBM becomes more mainstream, it's even more important that we celebrate mastery within the IT profession. This year's award winners have proved to be some of the most inspiring leaders and organizations adopting TBM best practices to date," said Chris Pick; President, TBM Council and CMO, Apptio.
In the last year, the TBM Council has increased its membership base by more than 40 percent, growing to include more than 1,700 of the world's most innovative individuals in IT, who are all committed to managing IT with business discipline. TBM Council membership is open to any qualified IT, finance or business leader and TBM practitioners who meet the applicable membership standards. For more information or to join the TBM Council, please visit www.TBMCouncil.org.
About the TBM Council
The Technology Business Management (TBM) Council is a nonprofit business entity focused on the development of a definitive framework for running technology organizations like a business. It is governed by an independent board of IT leaders from a diverse group of the world's most innovative companies like Cisco Systems, DuPont, ExxonMobil, First American, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Nike, WorleyParsons, Apptio, and more. The TBM Council's mission is to serve its members by delivering on key mandates of collaboration, standardization, and education. To learn more about the TBM Council, visit: www.tbmcouncil.org.