Sample data
Projected$118.4K$96.2K
A provider transition with both providers billing in overlap. Spend drops below the old run rate in month 9, and the transition cost is recovered by month 13.
For CFOs and finance leadership
A technology number you can put your name on.
Technology is one of the few large line items most finance teams cannot fully explain. NarrowGateX is the Technology Advisory practice that makes it defensible.
Decisions you own
Six questions finance has to answer.
- What are we actually spending on technology, and can I prove it?
- What is committed, and for how long?
- What changes at the next renewal?
- Where does our position hold up, and what should inform the decision?
- Which savings claims are real, and which are theoretical?
- Can I defend this number to the board, a lender or a sponsor?
What changes
Not prettier reporting. A record that holds up.
Today: The number is assembled, not held. With a Baseline: Spend that traces to a document.
Technology spend is reconstructed each time it is asked for, from a ledger category, a few contracts and somebody’s recollection. A reconstructed number cannot be defended, because nobody can say where each part of it came from.
Every figure carries its source and an evidence grade, so you know which parts of the number will hold up and which are still inference.
Today: Commitments are invisible until they bite. With a Baseline: Exposure with dates attached.
Minimums, auto-renewals, escalators and notice windows sit in agreements nobody has read since signature. The exposure is real and it does not appear in the run rate.
Commitments, obligations and the windows in which you can still act, surfaced while acting is still possible.
Today: Nobody can price the alternative. With a Baseline: A position, not an impression.
With no evidence beside it, "this looks expensive" is an instinct. An instinct does not survive a provider conversation and does not justify a switching cost.
Your charges set beside the rest of your own estate, and beside outside evidence where it holds up, with the basis of each comparison stated.
Today: Savings are claimed before they are evidenced. With a Baseline: A recommendation somebody owns.
A percentage quoted at the start of an exercise is an average from somebody else’s estate. When it does not land, the credibility cost falls on finance.
Your Technology Advisor develops it, states the tradeoffs and stands behind it. You decide, and the reasoning stays on the record.
It does not decay after the project.
Govern keeps the record current, so the next time you are asked what technology costs, the answer already exists.
On savings claims
A variance is not a saving.
A benchmark can show you are paying above what the evidence supports.
What a saving has to survive
That is a question worth asking, not money in the budget. What can be realized depends on how long the term has left, what exit costs, what the change would disrupt, and whether the higher rate is buying something you need. Nothing is called a saving here until it has survived those questions.
- Every figure traced to the document it came from.
- The uncertainty stated rather than smoothed over: what is verified, what is assumed, and what is missing.
- The alternatives that were considered, and the reason each was rejected.
- A named advisor who will take the question if the board asks it directly.
Start with what is true.
Establish a defensible view of technology spend, commitments and exposure, and find out where the position holds up.