Senior execs seek better view of costs.

Understanding and controlling Information technology (IT) costs have been a perennial management challenge. So, it's hardly surprising that a recent survey found that 90 percent of senior executives said they felt that knowing IT costs in more detail would be helpful, providing the benefits of improved decision-making for IT cost management and better alignment of IT spend to corporate goals.

In addition to more granularity, business leaders also want mechanisms to promote better communication and understanding among finance and IT managers. Almost two-thirds of the C-suite respondents named the ability to deliver executive and management cost-monitoring dashboards for IT and business managers as the key feature in an ideal solution for better measuring IT application costs

The results come from a survey, "Measuring and Optimizing the Cost of IT: A Progress Report," of more than 230 U.S. senior corporate executives and IT managers. It was commissioned by Managed Objects, a company in McLean, Va., that provides business service management software.

Despite business leaders' desire for a more intimate understanding of IT costs, most surveyed companies admitted that their finance and IT leaders met only monthly or less frequently. Respondents reported that their finance and IT departments met an average of 17 times per year, with 13 percent saying such sit-downs happened just once, or not at all in the previous year.

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The survey showed a strong correlation between frequency of formal meetings among finance and IT leaders and the likelihood both groups were to describe their IT cost-control measures as effective. In organizations where such meetings are held weekly, for example, 68 percent classified cost controls as effective, versus only 18 percent in organizations where meetings were held quarterly or less often.