There is increasing concern that IT investment is approaching the point of diminishing marginal returns. Rising operational expenses threaten to completely overtake IT budgets. In just eight short years, operational labor expense has risen from less than 40 percent of IT labor budgets to nearly 70 percent. With application development labor being squeezed out, CIOs are under increasing pressure to justify their budgets.

This white paper highlights the costs of IT asset proliferation and the advantages of the IBM view of IT optimization as a strategic, ongoing process. It describes the holistic and practical IBM approach and shows how it is helping organizations realize greater initial savings and higher returns going forward.