Executives don't appreciate the value you deliver to the business.

Challenge

Executives understand how much you cost; but they don't fully appreciate all the value they're getting for their money.

As a result, you're under pressure to cut costs and deliver more value. And your function isn't seen as strategic to the business.

How can you build widespread understand of the value your function delivers?

Solution

Building an understanding of value delivered takes more than a product/service catalog. Clients throughout the enterprise need to understand exactly what products and services their business units are getting.

The best time to do this is during the budget planning process. This is when perception of value translates into funding (or a lack of perception of value results in unreasonable pressures to cut your budget).

The solution is a budget that forecasts the costs of what you plan to deliver -- each and every project and service, to each business unit. This is termed an "investment-based budget."

Then, you can present to each business unit exactly what's in the budget that will benefit them. They can advise you what to include and exclude. Then, most will support your budget requests because they'll understand that you need the resources to deliver the value they demand.

Comprehensive solution....

"My budget is now much more realistic. [FullCost] has made the institution aware of what services we deliver and how much each of those services cost to deliver."

Dr. Joyce A. Mitchell Associate Dean University of Missouri Health Services

Other Resources

Case Study: From Adversaries to Advocates
how budgeting and product/service costing improved relationships between IT and its clients

Case Study: We've Already Got Budget Spreadsheets, Don't We?
how Sonoco Products discovered the value of a fully developed budgeting and product/service costing solution

Anecdote: The Necessary Evil
why you're too busy keeping things running to focus on strategic challenges

Anecdote: On the Defensive
it's tough to defend all the indirect support services that make your products and services possible

Column: Allocations....

Column: Chargebacks....