We spoke to managers who got upgrades funded through special improvement projects, but others told us they've seen CIOs build slush funds for out-of-budget items, simply because projects that don't have an immediate and direct payoff don't get funded.
"From an accounting and stockholder point of view, it's bad," says project manager Fuhrman, "because that CIO is tying up resources in the slush fund that might have gone to another part of the company and gotten a real return on its investment." On the other hand, if you're in a pure ROI mode--that is, the company won't sponsor anything without a definite payback, "you won't get those projects done," he says. Obviously, that's bad, too.
Don't yield to the temptation to put forth fuzzy numbers--doing so will damage your credibility. Good managers will listen to benefit studies, even if there is no immediate and direct payoff. Simply indicate the potential long-term or indirect payoff, cost avoidance or time savings you'd feel comfortable explaining to someone while looking them in the eye.
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Again, top management is used to listening to--and funding--projects that don't necessarily have 100 percent payoff potential. Just look at any advertising campaign, the opening of a new branch office and staff expansions. Legislative mandates, such as Graham-Leach-Bliley (for financial privacy), the Patriot Act (which affects intelligence-information gathering) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), might turn into a repeat of Y2K's "kid in a candy store" days, but be careful: The economy isn't what it used to be, and more top managers are becoming IT savvy. Whatever the initiative, the key is to be disciplined in how you present your case.
Even in a legislative environment that places many mandates on the banking industry, Ron Trent, vice president of network services and chief information security manager for Hudson United Bank, still must carefully justify his upgrades. With 2,500 desktops, 290 servers, 215 remote offices and an IT staff of 13, Trent says he relies on a cookie-cutter approach to keep levels of service and security high.
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