From Data Silos to Clarity - Unlocking IT Spend Visibility
The fundamental question every CIO needs to answer is how are we spending our IT budget and where are the cost saving opportunities?
It's the most common question CIOs face from the board and the C-suite. Yet in many organizations, the answer is fuzzy at best. ERP systems, SaaS invoices, cloud bills, and vendor contracts and purchase orders all live in silos. Finance teams need to spend many manual hours to pull reports from different systems, while IT teams scramble to reconcile shadow spend. By the time a “view” of IT spend is produced, it's already outdated.
This lack of transparency creates frustration. Executives see IT as a “cost center,” while CIOs struggle to prove value and align investments with business outcomes.
That's why Gartner defines visibility as the first pillar of IT Financial Management (ITFM). Without clear, trusted, and timely visibility into spend, every other ITFM discipline — allocation, benchmarking, budgeting, FinOps — falls apart.
The Power of Visibility
Visibility means more than simply consolidating numbers. Here's how it drives strategic value:
| Visibility Benefit | Strategic Impact |
|---|---|
| Faster decisions through real-time spend data | Shorter budget cycles and quicker market response |
| Aligned IT and Finance functions | Greater trust and transparency across leadership |
| Optimized resource allocation | More funding redirected toward innovation and growth |
| Predictive spend forecasting | Reduced financial risk and improved budget accuracy |
| Data-driven IT storytelling | Stronger board influence and strategic credibility |
- Centralizing data across ERP, HR, vendor systems, and cloud platforms into a unified view.
- Identifying shadow IT — software and services procured outside formal IT.
- Tracking vendor spend and contract renewal dates to prevent surprise renewals.
- Connecting spend to service groups — showing, for example, that Sales consumes 25% of SaaS spend or Finance uses 18% of storage.
When CIOs bring this level of clarity, conversations shift. Instead of debating anecdotal “gut feel,” the C-suite can have evidence-based discussions: “We spend 12% more than industry peers on enterprise software per user. What do we do about it?”
Outcomes That Matter
- Faster board reporting cycles — days instead of weeks.
- Reduced shadow IT risk, lowering compliance and security exposure.
- Improved vendor negotiations, thanks to accurate usage and pricing data.
- A stronger CIO seat at the table, with numbers to back strategic decisions.
Altios ITFM makes visibility real by bringing together multi-source data into a single cockpit. CIOs gain a real-time dashboard of IT spend across the enterprise, turning reactive reporting into proactive management and sparking insightful conversations backed by data that can be drilled down to a contract and PO level.
With visibility, the CIO has all the near real time information to answer questions and make decisions.