Moving money to the left

Fact: “[Microsoft’s internal] IT organization now spends almost 45% of its budget on new product development, as opposed to maintenance and ongoing support, a notable improvement from 30% in the past.” [source]

Analysis: An increasing challenge for our enterprise IT organization at DIA has been optimizing our performance to the point where we can take money out of operations & maintenance (O&M), and invest it instead in innovation. Why? The intelligence business demands change, reformation, and dramatically improved capabilities. Intelligence isn’t alone; at Gartner’s annual Symposium last December, “driving Innovation” was promoted as an absolute business imperative, and infrastructure consolidation and optimization was billed as a primary enabler to disinvest in tired old-school technology, allowing re-prioritization in innovative approaches.

It all comes down to moving money to the left, earlier in the enterprise IT life-cycle.