Kevin Colborn, CIO and senior vice president of network operations at High Touch Technologies, brings both an internal and client-facing perspective to that challenge. He oversees technology strategy, business applications, cybersecurity and IT infrastructure while also helping clients take a more strategic approach to technology through High Touch’s managed IT and virtual CIO services. Much of his career, he says, has focused on bridging the gap between technology and executive leadership to create value, reduce risk, improve efficiency, and support growth. 

Start with business priorities, not technology

To make a stronger business case for IT investments, CIOs should begin with the outcomes executive leadership wants to achieve, rather than the technology being proposed.

“A proposal centered on infrastructure or software asks leadership to make the business connection on their own,” Colborn says.

Instead, he recommends starting with the business priority and working backward. If an organization is planning for growth, for example, an infrastructure investment can be positioned around the capacity and resilience required to support that expansion. Cybersecurity investments can be framed around reducing financial exposure, preventing business interruption, and protecting customer trust.

That approach also requires CIOs to recognize when technology isn’t the answer. Some problems originate with people or processes and won’t be solved by buying another tool. Being willing to make that distinction can build credibility when a technology investment really is necessary.

How to measure IT's business value beyond traditional KPIs

Measuring IT's business value requires looking beyond traditional performance metrics such as uptime, availability and ticket-resolution times. While those measures remain important, they tell executives more about the health of the technology function than about its contribution to the business.

Colborn recommends identifying the desired business outcome before implementing new technology … and deciding upfront how success will be measured.

That might mean tracking employee hours saved or operating costs reduced. A customer-facing technology project might be measured through response times or satisfaction scores. Security investments can be connected to reduced exposure and fewer disruptions.

In fact, one of the strongest measures of IT success may already exist somewhere else in the organization.

“The strongest technology KPI may actually come from another department’s dashboard,” Colborn says.

When technology supports an objective already tied to the strategic plan, demonstrating its business value becomes much easier.

How infrastructure investments support business growth

Infrastructure investments can support business growth by improving scalability, reducing operational friction and creating capacity for new services. Making those connections can help CIOs justify foundational technology investments that might otherwise appear far removed from revenue or customers.

A stronger network, for example, can provide reliable access to the tools employees need and support a more flexible, productive workforce. Platform modernization can reduce friction in the customer experience, while making data easier to use. Better visibility into customer behavior or market demand can help leaders recognize change and act sooner.

Reducing technical debt can also create capacity. When IT teams spend less time maintaining aging systems, they have more time to improve services and develop new capabilities.

The value of infrastructure, then, isn't simply that it performs better. It's what better infrastructure allows the business to do next.

Case study: How hybrid cloud helped High Touch scale

High Touch Technologies used a hybrid-cloud infrastructure investment to increase capacity as the company grew, without requiring major hardware purchases at every stage of expansion. The company invested in cloud-based infrastructure and built its own virtual environment, creating a hybrid-cloud model.

The project required meaningful upfront spending and considerable implementation time, raising reasonable questions about whether the long-term benefits would justify the investment.

But the underlying business question wasn't simply whether High Touch needed new infrastructure. It was how the company could add capacity as it grew, without making another large infrastructure purchase at every stage.

Virtualization allowed High Touch to expand in smaller increments and keep spending more closely aligned with actual demand. The company also consolidated physical equipment and reduced its data-center footprint while avoiding repeated major infrastructure purchases.

“That flexibility changed the economics of growth,” Colborn says.

High Touch could scale with less disruption while avoiding sharp increases in capital spending whenever its needs changed. What could have been viewed primarily as an infrastructure expense became an investment in the company's ability to grow. 

Calculate the cost of delaying IT investments

The cost of delaying an IT investment can include rising maintenance expenses, operational disruptions, security exposure and missed business opportunities. CIOs can make a stronger case for investment by comparing those potential costs with the expense of acting now.

Colborn recommends putting two figures side by side: The cost of investing now, and the expected cost of waiting.

The latter can include rising maintenance and support expenses, downtime, employee hours lost to workarounds, cyber exposure and potential recovery costs. Technical debt can also compound as external conditions change.

But one cost is particularly easy to miss: lost opportunity.

Aging infrastructure might delay the launch of a new service or prevent the organization from automating an expensive manual process. Those forgone gains belong in the investment calculation, too.

Waiting can also take control away from leadership. Planned modernization allows an organization to determine timing and scope. An outage or security incident may force the same investment under far less favorable circumstances.

Quantify the business value of cybersecurity and resilience

CIOs can demonstrate the business value of cybersecurity and resilience investments by quantifying the financial impact of potential disruptions and comparing that exposure with the cost of prevention and recovery.

Colborn cautions against relying primarily on fear or worst-case scenarios. Instead, organizations can quantify their actual exposure.

If a healthcare organization's billing system goes offline, for example, it may be unable to generate revenue. If employees at a professional services firm cannot track their time, the disruption can affect billable income.

“These are measurable operating risks, not distant worst-case scenarios,” Colborn says.

Once leadership understands the potential financial impact of an interruption, it can compare that exposure with the cost of reducing the risk or recovering more quickly.

Make IT strategy part of year-round business planning

Ultimately, changing IT's investment narrative shouldn't begin when the annual budget meeting appears on the calendar.

Colborn advises CIOs to engage earlier in strategic planning, understand what leadership wants the organization to accomplish and discuss the technology roadmap throughout the year. By budget season, the strategy — and technology's role in enabling it — should already be familiar. The conversation can focus on priorities and tradeoffs rather than explaining why the organization needs to spend money on IT.

“The most effective CIOs today are business leaders first and foremost, with deep technical expertise,” Colborn says.

That may be the real key to retiring the cost-center label. IT doesn't become strategic because CIOs get better at defending technology spending. It becomes strategic when leaders can clearly show how technology helps the organization work better, serve customers more effectively, reduce risk, and create new paths for growth.

When the technology roadmap starts with those outcomes, the IT budget stops reading like a list of expenses and starts looking like an investment in where the business intends to go.