Benchmarking Summary reports

Introduction

Benchmarking automates the ongoing comparison of costs against a selection of peer organizations. IT costs are calculated the same way for each organization according to ATUM® — Apptio's industry standard IT cost model — and are based on source financial systems including the General Ledger (GL). Costs are calculated at the IT tower and subtower level and presented across a standard set of cost pools (e.g.: hardware, software, internal labor, external labor, etc.).

By comparing your IT organization's calculated IT spend to a set of peer organizations, you can gain insights required to drive ongoing IT improvement:

Identify cost optimization targets

Use unit cost metrics for IT support and infrastructure, and make confident peer comparisons.

Drive performance improvements

Support governance activities, stimulate continuous improvement, and create incentives based on credible targets.

Justify IT spend

Plan with relevant facts and metrics, and justify current and future IT spend, and staffing costs.

Enable business centered conversations

Demonstrate the value of IT services, and improve dialogue and alignment with business users based on data.

Benchmarking application

The Benchmarking Summary reports are part of the Costing Standard Foundation application. The Benchmarking application offers a more detailed and extensive set of benchmarking reports.

KPIs highlight key benchmarks

The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) running across the top of the reports focus on:

• IT spend as a percent of the total company revenue
• IT operating expense as a percent of the total company operating expense
• IT operating expense as a percent of the total IT spend (OpEx plus CapEx)
• The number of full time employees in IT as a percent of the total employees in the company
• The amount of IT spend per employee in the company

The benchmark KPI figures are based on the cost source amounts for your organization compared to the peer benchmark figures.

IT Spend tab

The IT Spend tab displays benchmarking data for the towers and cost pools defined in ATUM. The report is part of the Costing Standard Foundation application and will be available if your organization has agreed to share its cost information with Apptio so it can become part of the benchmarking data.

Application Distribution tab

The Application Distribution report displays benchmarking data for the applications used in your organization. The benchmarks are based on industry, geography, and size characteristics for your organization. This report is part of the Benchmarking application and will be available if your organization has purchased the application.

Infra(structure) Unit Costs tab

The Infra(structure) Unit Costs tab displays benchmarking data for the towers defined by the Apptio TBM Unified Model (ATUM). The benchmarks are based on industry, geography, and size characteristics for your organization. The report is part of the standalone ApptioBenchmarking application and will be available if your organization has purchased the application.