Building a Computer Budget is a difficult task for most organizations because of the lack of a direct connection to revenue, mission achievement, and the difficulty of presenting the value of the needed investments. Cost information alone is not enough context to understand the value of computer investment. The challenge becomes about how to communicate the benefit of computer investments to fulfill the value equation that we summarize as BENEFIT - COST = VALUE
Guiding Star recommends that the best approach is to align investments with confirmed organizational priorities, goals, imperatives, and essential outcomes. A computer budget must align with and support the organization’s needs.
The Guiding Star approach speeds up the process of information gathering with customized forms, templates, and best practices learned over decades of practice.
The Guiding Star budget process focuses on working collaboratively with your organization in order to identify, categorize, and prioritize how it spends on computer systems. The overall goal is to help your organization achieve its mission and goals by applying automation and communicating the value of computer investments while accurately forecasting costs and benefits.
The Budget should be a support for the overall business plan and will, when the processes have matured, result into a short term plan and longer term roadmap.