Please, May I Have Some More? How To Request IT Budget (Even In A Tough Economy)

By Robert Hall, Support Analyst, Marval

Impeccable Customer Service. personalized Customer Experience. An efficient and highly productive Service Desk. What’s stopping your ambitious plan to improve Service Management in your organization?

Many CIOs would agree that budget (or the lack of it) is one of the most common reasons they ‘ve put their plans on hold. A tough economy, uncertain market conditions or emerging competition pressing the business’ profitability, these are all good reasons (or maybe excuses?); meaning CIOs need equally good arguments to support their request for extra funding, which would enable them to proceed with their plans.

So, here’s a few good arguments you can use, focusing on:

-          The challenges. Why do you need to improve Service Management? What are your day-to-day challenges? What issues does your team have? Describe the current situation realistically, using specific examples and explaining how it affects your team’s productivity and efficiency.

-          The anticipated outcome. What would a well-implemented ITSM solution offer? What improvements are you expecting? Describe all areas that will be improved within your new ITSM environment, from customer service to team collaboration.

-          Alignment with critical business and operational objectives. Whether it’s better visibility and management of assets, improved systems availability, cultural change or increased customer satisfaction, a smart ITSM tool will help you be more aligned with some of your organization’s most critical objectives. Highlight this connection (it’s not always obvious) and explain how you are planning to use the tool to support and accelerate accomplishment of your goals.

-          Compliance. For most organizations, compliance with industry’s regulations is key. Explain how a proven process will help your team be more compliant; and your organization be more secure.

-          Competitiveness. Customer experience is important; improving your customer service can help your organization become more competitive, while keeping your customers satisfied and loyal.

-          Cost. This could be your strongest argument. A successful ITSM implementation can provide instant reductions to OPEX. Economies of scale, better allocation of your resources, increased productivity, these metrics are all connected to your department’s expenditure. If you can prove that your ITSM tool can actually provide fast return on investment and lower operational costs moving forward, you have a winning argument.