Company overview
Burns & McDonnell, a 100% employee-owned family of companies, is an architecture, engineering, and construction organization headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. With over 75 offices globally, the organization brings together over 14,000 engineers, architects, construction and craft professionals, and more to offer full-service design and build capabilities for large infrastructure projects. Founded in 1898, Burns & McDonnell is an established leader in the construction industry and has a rich history of helping communities flourish by building safe, essential infrastructure.
The challenge
For many years, Burns & McDonnell used Excel spreadsheets to manage tech spend and budgeting. Leaders exchanged spreadsheets within the company to gather input, and then data was consolidated and adjusted by Finance before submission for approval.
This process created several challenges. Budgets were primarily accounting-focused; therefore, there was very little information about true technology costs, or how they could properly optimize and cut costs. When budget variances ultimately occurred, Finance struggled to explain why, because there was no insight about what went into the numbers in the spreadsheets. And showing individual department tech costs based on consumption (showback/chargeback) was time-consuming and error-prone, because Finance had to manually divide technology expenses by usage for each department.
The solution
These challenges were the catalyst for finding a better approach to Technology Business Management (TBM). Led by Lynn Reazin, ITBM Department Manager at Burns & McDonnell, the company looked at several possible solutions and selected IBM Apptio Costing and Planning. Ultimately, they chose IBM Apptio Costing and Planning for its robust bill of IT capabilities that enable easy communication of IT spend to executives and budgeting capabilities that allow for seamless ingestion of actuals, monthly reviews, and reforecasting. The thriving user community also played a significant role in their decision.
“One of the big reasons we chose Apptio was because of the community,” she said. “We saw a very rich community of users. I always use a phrase ‘We need to find a friend, somebody who’s like us, who is trying to solve the same kind of problems.’ And the Apptio tool had a lot of community presence, so I was confident we’d be able to figure out ways to solve our problems.”
The results
Data-driven Bill of IT
Because Burns & McDonnell manually calculated technology costs and usage by departments, there was disagreement among department leaders. The tech charges were based on a lot of subjective assumptions, since no actual usage data existed, and this made the expenses difficult to defend to executives.
Charging out tech costs for reimbursement, however, was not the company’s primary goal; the key objective was to make executives aware of their spend and then give them tools or levers they could use to optimize or to reduce spend and help improve the company’s overall financial success.
“Apptio brought together our tech costs and combined it with actual Run the Business (RTB),” Reazin said. “As a result, we were better able to defend why the costs were what they were. We have always left the value statements up to the executives, so they were excited to see what they were actually spending because it allowed them to make decisions differently. Apptio really solved our showback/chargeback challenge and enabled Finance to deliver a Bill of IT backed by real data.”
Interactive budgeting
Burns & McDonnell’s Finance department submits two budgets a year: one at the beginning of the year and another at the midpoint. Prior to implementing Apptio, these were done in spreadsheets, which required countless hours of manual effort.
“It would take us a month trying to prepare those budgets,” Reazin said. “With Apptio, however, it’s no big deal. We pull in actuals from our financial systems and create our budgets. We do a monthly review, see where our budget is going, and then reforecast if necessary. Apptio has provided us with an interactive budgeting tool, and we have saved a lot of time.”
Increased trust and credibility
By solving their two main challenges—budgeting and showback/chargeback—the Finance group has experienced increased trust and credibility with other departments, becoming a true partner to the business and helping to drive value.
Reazin said, “There used to be some animosity between IT and the business. Department leaders often questioned our numbers and thought, ‘Oh, tech costs are going up, and we have no control over that.’ But Apptio has given us the detail we need to explain the numbers and demonstrate why they may be changing. This has helped us build relationships, partner with the business, and have deeper, strategic conversations much more quickly.”
This closer partnership has provided a better understanding of how technology is being used across the company and forged strong value conversations. In many cases, this has led to cost reduction opportunities by helping business leaders find ways of saving money.
Next steps
Apptio has helped Burns & McDonnell really take its TBM program to another level by providing a solution that combines tech costs with actual usage data, attributes costs to departments based on their industry-leading allocation models and delivers self-service reporting features that allow users to view key insights to help them make better decisions. But, according to Reazin, the company has more planned for Apptio in the future.
“Up to now, we have focused mostly on hardware and software assets,” she said. “Next, we are looking to do more with services, what the cost drivers are, benchmarking them, and really developing that service-owner mindset. We are also a ServiceNow customer, so we are investing heavily in the CSDM, and we are looking to integrate ServiceNow with Apptio to better understand our services costs and drive even more value for the business.”
Sign up for a personalized demo of IBM Apptio Costing and Planning to see how your organization can increase cost transparency and drive more value from your technology investments.
See more of Burns & McDonnell story
Streamlining IT Budgeting at Burns & McDonnell
Burns & McDonnell optimized IT budgeting with IBM Apptio Costing & Planning, streamlining processes and enhancing executive decision-making with better financial insights.
Simplifying Budgeting and Improving IT Financial Management at Burns & McDonnell
Discover how Burns & McDonnell streamlined IT spending and enhanced organizational trust, boosting transparency and efficiency in IT financial management.
IBM Apptio
![ApptioCareers-Employee[1]](data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCAyMjUgMjc1IiB3aWR0aD0iMjI1IiBoZWlnaHQ9IjI3NSIgZGF0YS11PSJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy5hcHB0aW8uY29tJTJGd3AtY29udGVudCUyRnVwbG9hZHMlMkZlbGVtZW50b3IlMkZ0aHVtYnMlMkZBcHB0aW9DYXJlZXJzLUVtcGxveWVlMS1xZzVuenB5MHdoaWJtbzZvdmJqNGM3MHh0aTUzdmo1OHM0endwajh0dHMucG5nIiBkYXRhLXc9IjIyNSIgZGF0YS1oPSIyNzUiIGRhdGEtYmlwPSIiPjwvc3ZnPg== "ApptioCareers-Employee[1]")
