Toronto Hydro
Strategy Go, with Omar Shakil · Finance · 2024 to 2025
Situation
Bills coming in that weren't planned. Staff unresponsive on costs and forecasting. No total cost of ownership view of applications, no KPIs on IT cost, and no monthly reporting that a non-technology executive could read. A budget process whose steps nobody could see their part in. All of it in the first year of a five-year rate filing, when overspending matters.
What I did
Brought capability-based costing out of banking. Omar worked onsite with the finance team from October 2024. We mapped IT spend down to application level by business capability, built one budgeting dashboard for Finance and Technology to share, mapped the budget process so each stakeholder knew their role, and moved the conversation from reacting to bills to planning the spend.
Result
IT spend visible by application and capability, one dashboard, and a budget process with named roles. The engagement's figures are the client's.
What it took
Translating. Finance understands what effort and assets cost. Technology understands what it does. Neither had the words for the other until the capability map gave them one.