A new white paper authored by Digital Fuel, based off of a study conducted by IDG Research Services, states that over half of IT managers believe their current level of IT cost visibility is lacking and needs improvement. Given that 84% of those polled said that having detailed insight into IT costs is critical, this discrepancy is quite jarring.
The study, based on a sample of over 130 respondents who had direct involvement with managing IT costs and had IT budgets of over $10 million, showcased the fact that IT organizations have a hard time coming up with ways to manage their IT costs. In particular, those surveyed believe that defining a cost-model and breaking down their IT costs in various manners were the most difficult. Additionally, those polled stated they wanted a better way to identify and assess cost inefficiencies in their IT departments as well as giving their business units more information to control their IT demand.
Digital Fuel, founded in 2000, believes that they have a solution to the problems presented in the study. Their third product, ServiceFlow IT Cost Management, is purportedly able to “capture, track, assess, allocate and analyze all of the direct and indirect costs related to the full range of IT services.” With businesses demanding visibility into their IT infrastructure, coupled with regulatory and taxation pressures, Digital Fuel has come up with a SaaS to give IT managers the power to craft and manage cost-effective planning and operations.
ServiceFlow IT Cost Management lets you know beforehand if you are going to exceed your IT budget on a particular service or function, and will suggest ways to prevent this from happening. In addition, this SaaS automates many manual processes in order to reduce human error and improve efficiency.
Digital Fuel is headquartered in San Mateo, California and competes with the likes of SAP and Oracle.