IT Budget Allocation Optimizer
Allocate your IT budget across Run, Grow, and Transform categories. Compare your split against a reference split for your industry and get recommendations to shift spending toward strategic priorities.
About This Tool
The Run/Grow/Transform (RGT) framework sorts IT spending into 3 groups. Run covers keeping the lights on — infrastructure, support, and licensing. Grow covers capabilities that expand the business. Transform covers innovation and strategic change.
How to use it: Enter your total IT budget, select your industry, and adjust the percentage sliders for each spending category. The allocations must sum to 100%. The tool compares your RGT split against the reference split for your industry and highlights gaps.
Budget Setup
Total: $5.0M
Run the Business
Grow the Business
Transform the Business
Run / Grow / Transform Split
vs. Technology Reference Split
Yours (solid) vs. reference split (striped)
Reference Split Insights
15pp above the reference split. Consider reallocating to Grow or Transform.
10pp below the reference split. You may be under-investing in this area.
5pp below the reference split. You may be under-investing in this area.
Get Your Budget Report
Receive a formatted report with your RGT split, reference comparison, and reallocation recommendations.
How to Interpret Your Results
How the IT Budget Allocator works
You enter your total annual IT budget, with a minimum of $100,000. You pick 1 of 7 industries: Financial Services, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Retail / E-commerce, Technology, Government / Public Sector, or Education.
You then set a percent for 9 spending categories, each from 0% to 50%. Run the Business covers Infrastructure and Operations, Cybersecurity and Compliance, End-User Support and Service Desk, and Software Licensing and Maintenance. Grow the Business covers Data and Analytics, Cloud Modernization, and Application Integration. Transform the Business covers Innovation and Emerging Tech, and Digital Transformation Programs.
The tool adds up each group to get your Run, Grow and Transform split and shows each percent in dollars. The allocations must sum to 100%. The tool flags any other total. The defaults are a $5,000,000 budget, the Technology industry, and a 55% Run, 25% Grow, 20% Transform split.
Each industry has a stored reference split. Technology is 40% Run, 35% Grow and 25% Transform. Government / Public Sector is 70%, 20% and 10%.
Reading your results
A pie chart shows your Run, Grow and Transform split. A bar chart compares each group with the reference split for the industry you chose.
Reference Split Insights labels each group. Within 3 percentage points of the reference is on track. More than 3 points above is over, with a prompt to consider moving spend to Grow or Transform. More than 3 points below is under, with a note that you may be under-investing in that area.
The tool's guidance treats Run spend above 65% to 70% as a warning sign.
Keep reading
Identify opportunities to optimize IT spending without compromising capability.
AI is billed per use, so its cost grows with adoption while the rest of the budget is under review.