Apptio partners KPMG to help Organisations Manage and Optimise Tech Investments

SINGAPORE, April 26, 2021, – Apptio Inc, the leading provider of technology business management (TBM) solutions that help organisations analyse, optimise, and plan technology spend, has entered into a strategic partnership with KPMG Singapore to help enterprises manage technology spend. The partnership will benefit enterprises that want to digitise highly complex and manual processes to achieve enhanced efficiency and greater transparency into their IT costs across all business units.

“The role of the CIO has evolved to that of a strategic partner to the business, and managing costs is a key part of that role,” said Juvanus Tjandra, Partner at KPMG in Singapore. “Yet enterprises often lack oversight into the minutiae of IT spend, how it correlates to the services delivered, or how to derive value from IT services. Our partnership with Apptio has helped businesses make informed decisions and better optimise their technology investments.”

Apptio found that many enterprises feel pressure to reduce IT spend, with as many as 63% of those surveyed stating that they need new IT capabilities and better financial management to optimise their costs, and make better strategic decisions.

While KPMG provides strategic counsel on cost flow management across an organisation’s IT infrastructure, together with Apptio’s solutions, an enterprise can build a digitally “fit” organisation to manage technology costs and implement digital-first strategies through the implementation of the Technology Business Management (TBM) framework, which provides technology and business leaders with the transparency and actionable insights needed to drive business value.

Recently, a multibillion dollar vertically integrated engineering group, whose business units cover aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine sectors, engaged KPMG for strategic counsel and implemented Apptio’s solutions.

The Government-linked corporation (GLC) wanted to digitise their highly complex and manual IT chargeback process, so KPMG worked with Apptio to analyse the existing business structure and chargeback rules set for 20,000 global employees, who work in 100 subsidiaries and associated companies spread across 24 countries. Together, they configured the conglomerate’s existing systems to match how consumption of services, budgeted consumption, trend reporting and variance analysis would be managed in a digital sense, before overseeing the implementation of the digital system of chargeback management.

“For more than a decade, Apptio has enabled leading enterprises to get a real-time, fully cost view of all their technology investments,” said Owen Gan, Regional Vice President of Southeast Asia, Apptio. “Ensuring these investments are defendable and fully aligned to business goals has never been more crucial. The criticality of technology planning is compounded with the explosion of cloud computing and lean-agile innovative practices. Our partnership with KPMG enables enterprises in the region to fully leverage the value of the cloud and modern development practices to minimise costs and differentiate their businesses.”

“The TBM framework with Apptio’s solutions combine to help CIOs build trust within their teams, organisation, and customers,” said Craig Wishart, CIO, KPMG Australia and Head of ASPAC Technology Services Group at KPMG, and Executive Advisory Board Member for the TBM Council. “Credibility is strengthened through service cost and investment transparency. More than ever, technology and business leaders have to traverse technology, operations and finance with confidence, and thus with Apptio. IT leaders can build a clear path with well understood T&Cs – that is, trust and credibility.”

To help CIOs and CFOs in the region understand TBM, Apptio and KPMG hosted an online event to share information about how TBM functions in IT organisations. KPMG APAC leaders joined a panel discussion to share common challenges faced by organisations when adopting TBM, including how to balance control and flexibility when it comes to public cloud.