From Fragmentation to Visibility: How One Global Manufacturer Transformed IT Spend Management
The Challenge: When Complexity Meets Digitalization
A global industrial manufacturer with decades of mechanical expertise found itself at a crossroads. The company was no longer just producing parts and components; it was reimagining itself as a digital-first enterprise.
New business drivers — electrification, sustainability mandates, and AI-enabled processes — demanded a faster, smarter, and more agile IT foundation. But beneath the innovation veneer lay a tangle of problems:
- Disjointed IT ecosystems spanning internal systems, automated operations, and innovation labs
- Vendor sprawl, with over 100 suppliers and redundant contracts driving costs higher.
- Merger-related integration challenges, where multiple systems, processes, and cultures had to be consolidated.
- Boardroom pressure, as CIOs faced CFO scrutiny without clear, real-time visibility into spend.
The stakes were high: evolve and modernize ITFM, or fall behind.
The Turning Point: Choosing Visibility Over Guesswork
Rather than layering more tools onto already complex systems, the IT leadership decided to take a different approach. The priority shifted from managing systems to managing visibility.
- Vendor consolidation Streamlining from 100+ vendors to fewer, strategic partners.
- Spend transparency Moving away from static spreadsheets to a unified dashboard.
- Human-centric adoptionEnsuring tools were intuitive, not burdensome, so teams would actually use them.
This was more than a technology upgrade — it was about building trust and control into every ITFM decision.
The Solution: Service-Based Spend Management with Altios ITFM
The organization turned to Altios ITFM to bring clarity to the chaos.
- One unified view of IT spend across internal IT, factory operations, and innovation initiatives.
- Service-based allocations that map spend to business services, not just line items.
- Scenario modeling to anticipate the impact of vendor renewals, mergers, or strategic investments.
- Risk reduction through automated audit preparation and renewal tracking.
The impact was immediate: IT leaders could walk into executive meetings with confidence, showing exactly where money was going, where it was wasted, and where savings opportunities lay.
The Results: From Firefighting to Future-Proofing
Within the first year, the enterprise saw:
- 10-15% cost optimization opportunities identified across vendors.
- Audit risk reduced by 80%+ thanks to unified data tracking.
- Faster integration of new business units with ITFM data serving as the connective tissue.
More importantly, IT leadership underwent a shift in identity:
- From reactive firefighter scrambling to explain overspend,
- To strategic visionary aligning IT investments with enterprise innovation and sustainability goals.
The Takeaway: CIOs Don't Just Need Data — They Need Visibility
This case study shows that digital transformation isn't just about AI, cloud, or automation. It's about making the financial foundation of IT transparent, reliable, and actionable.
For CIOs, the lesson is clear:
Without visibility, you can't lead. With visibility, you don't just manage spend — you shape the future of your enterprise.