by Perry McCarney

Created on: January 20, 2009   Last Updated: February 07, 2010

While all of us in the business know how important information technology is to our host company, convincing predominantly technophobic upper level corporate officers and board members of the same is a task requiring potent interpersonal skills rather than logic. If you wish to succeed in obtaining a workable budget for 2009, do not let any of them know you have read this article!

Having worked in the IT industry for 26 years for mid-range and large national companies as well as several multi-nationals, in a variety of fields and interacting with management at all levels from line managers to board members, I can assure you that budgets are purely about internal politics. Rational allocations of funds is a non-starter. To obtain the budget you desire you need to sell it on the basis of what they think they want, rather than what the company or corporation actually needs. In most cases, once you have the budget, you can use it as required to improve your company's success, regardless of how you have presented the expenditure in your budget proposal.

You will only be in trouble if your usage of budget funds results in a catastrophe; relatively minor problems are far more likely to be glossed over rather than punished, even in today's economic situation. So it is important to know both your own capabilities and limitations. Information technology specialists in general enjoy the cutting edge, wanting to use it to provide the best service possible to the departments that form the business end of their company. But control your appetite, ensure that the software and hardware you purchase will function as you expect and intend before you commit. Always trial not only internally to the IT department but with at least two or three offices in the department intended as the ultimate user of this technology. And get their feedback!

However, this is getting somewhat ahead of ourselves. The purpose of this article is to provide strategies to achieve effective, usable IT budgets rather than how to then use them.

Pretty presentations are very important, but they also need to be true. While most of the upper hierarchy of your corporation are likely to be technological innocents, it is virtually certain that at least one or two will have made the effort to know something about IT. Expecting to be able to pass off balderdash is foolhardy at best, don't try! But bright and flashy presentations that provide a true picture will generally be accepted by the knowledgeable and those who

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