BlueSpot

Helping organisations understand, manage & optimise Technology spend

Bluespot is a specialist consultancy who are experts in reducing and optimising organisational IT cost. This can be achieved both as a one-off review focusing on the common areas of value leakage together with implementation of strategies that reinforce a culture of improved cost accountability across the organisation. This is based on IT Cost Transparency and recharge frameworks.

Specific areas of expertise include:

IT cost reduction strategies to eliminate waste, inefficiency and underutilised technology services.
Creating a cost control culture through IT Cost Transparency and Service Portfolio strategies.
IT value demonstration to the business through aligning business and IT Strategies, defining objectives and making performance transparent.

Project delivery and portfolio management strategies to maximise business value.
Program Management for strategic business initiatives.
Due Diligence of shared technology organisations.
Strategies to reduce and better manage Amazon Web Services (AWS) monthly spend.

About Andrew Stokes

Andrew Stokes is a technology savvy business leader who has held Senior IT Finance, operational and commercial roles in the shared technology organisations of Commonwealth Bank & Origin Energy (both large, highly complex, heavily outsourced environments). He holds an MBA (Technology) from the Australian Graduate School of Management (2016) and a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology. He is a member of the Society of Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA).

Specific skill sets include:

IT strategy development including IT Service definition, multi year strategic planning and options analysis
Procurement, sourcing, supply chain management and vendor contract management/negotiation
IT cost optimisation, business unit recharge, financial/commercial management & reporting
Cloud based service implementation and cost management strategies
Software Asset Management (SAM) and Telecommunication Expense Management (TEM) organisational capability creation
Customer engagement and team leadership with excellent communication and presentation skills
Program management experience in leading the Origin Energy technology project management team including direct responsibility for the Lattice Energy technology separation.

Technology Budgets. Over a decade of experience in framing the annual technology budget discussions in terms of cost efficiency and value generated for the business. These discussions are crucial to connect the IT organization, the Finance team and the business to ensure organizational objectives are achieved.

About Karla Skarda

Digital Transformation Consultant | Strategy Advisor | Service & Data Optimisation Specialist

With over two decades of international experience across IT, licensing, member services, and digital operations, I help organisations unlock value and build the foundations for meaningful transformation. My expertise spans enterprise systems, customer experience, service delivery, and technology strategy — with a proven track record of leading digital change across diverse sectors.

As the former Senior Director, Registry at APNIC, I oversaw strategy and operational delivery for a multi-disciplinary portfolio, including registry engineering, member services, policy, and product development. I led a cross-functional reimagining of the member experience, breaking down silos and aligning services, UX, and training teams to deliver greater clarity and impact. Prior to that, I served as General Manager at PPCA, where I partnered with key industry bodies to reset licensing frameworks, aligning tariffs and compliance with evolving stakeholder needs.

I hold an Executive MBA from AGSM at UNSW, and recently completed the Driving Digital Strategy and Driving Digital Transformation programs at Harvard Business School. These credentials reinforce my belief that digital initiatives must align to business strategy and be underpinned by high-integrity data and systems design.

How I Can Help

I work with medium-sized organisations (typically 150–500 staff) that are struggling with fragmented systems, poor data quality, rising HR costs due to manual workarounds, and an inability to harness emerging technologies like AI. My approach is practical, collaborative, and staged to deliver value early — whether through software rationalisation, systems alignment, or preparing your data for intelligent automation.

Key focus areas include:

Digital strategy and transformation planning
Software asset and license management
Service delivery optimisation and CX redesign
Data defragmentation and governance
Omnichannel and cloud adoption readiness
Change leadership and stakeholder engagement

If you’re ready to simplify complexity, improve trust in your systems, and build a platform for future innovation, let’s start a conversation.

karla@bluespot.net.au

+61 (0) 404 484 665

The IT Service Portfolio provides a common language between IT, Finance and the Business. Especially important at budget time.

IT Cost Transparency in 3 steps

IT costs too much?… We need you to reduce IT cost by 20% or more so we can stay competitive… What am I getting for my IT dollar?… If you are struggling to answer these questions from the business as part of a centralised IT function then you need to establish an IT Cost Transparency framework by taking the following steps.

Step 1 – Define the IT Service Portfolio

You want the business to trust you? Then you need to be open and transparent (kinda obvious) BUT you also need to be having the conversation with the business in terms that they understand. This is where the IT Service Portfolio is a critical first step. The IT Service Portfolio is a suite of 6 to 12 bundled services that the IT organisation provides the business described in terms meaningful to them.

But what is a service? A service is an action that delivers value to the business. It isn’t a thing. For example products such as laptops, device support, personal storage drives and even (arguably) email and other end user applications are all things that can be bundled into a service called “End User Compute and Collaboration Service”

Step 2 – Develop a “Bill of IT” based on the IT Service Portfolio

The value of IT is not captured in the line item detail of the general ledger any more than the value of dinner is represented by the range of items in your grocery basket. Business users (and dinner guests) value what they consume.

As such the process of mapping the line item detail of IT spend from the financial systems up through the IT towers into applications and ultimately to the IT Service Portfolio gives the business insight into the cost of their IT consumption. This is the foundational context for them to make an assessment of the value of each IT service to their operation.

The “Bill of IT” can be the basis for IT chargeback to business units (that I am a big fan of) or IT cost showback (which I think is limp and ineffective at shaping demand). A debate for another day…

Step 3 – Appoint IT Service Owners to each IT Service to support the business units

For large and complex organisations each IT Service needs an IT Service Owner (also called product owner) appointed to each IT Service.

The Service owner can demonstrate service efficiency to the business through:

cost benchmarking to peers (to show competitiveness),
cost per unit tracking over time (to show continuous improvement),
managing and monitoring asset utilisation (to demonstrate efficiency)
demonstrating an IT Service strategy that delivers the business strategy (to show alignment)

Conclusion

Yes there is an administrative cost to delivering IT Cost Transparency but the value, especially if you are a large organisation operating in a dynamic and competitive environment across multiple business units, is immense. It will (if you let it) drive a cultural change and provide a common language for your IT organisation to engage with the business especially at budget time.

Today’s projects are tomorrows opex. Therefore, be relentless in interrogating the benefit case of live and proposed projects.

IT Cost Reduction. What to target first?

Reducing IT Spend is like dieting to lose weight. It’s not easy but sometimes it’s just got to be done. So what are the early “go to” places you can target that won’t compromise the quality or scope of your service offering to the business. Subject to the size and nature of your organisation and in order of ability to implement here are a few ideas:

1) Telecommunication Expenses

If you are big enough I guarantee you will be paying for mobile phones for people that have left the organisation or SIM cards not being used. Also check your data links by location to ensure that you still occupy those premises. In short do an audit and cancel what you don’t need.

2) Asset Utilisation

Take a look at…

Laptops – You checked your phones now do an audit on where your laptops are.
Server Capacity – What is your average percentage utilisation across your server fleet? I bet you will find some orphan servers not being used. Move workloads and decommission.
Cloud Instances – The cloud is great. Loads of “Agility” (and we all want that) where you can create new instances with one click. Unfortunately, like cane toads, these things get out of control and are hard to kill hurting your bottom line. Take a look at anything inactive for more than 60 days. Assess and, if appropriate, decommission.
Non Production Environments (NPE’s) – You need how many? Understand the number and what they are being used for. Ask some questions. Kill what you don’t need.

3) Software Asset Management (SAM)

Monitor and report quarterly on key software license ownership Vs calculated liability. The liability can be hard to determine as it’s based on usage translated via the vendor’s licensing regime (the nature of which is often complex, ambiguous and subject to regular change). By managing usage you will save money and protect yourself from unforeseen (and often massive) bills from vendor license true ups.

4) Prioritise and cull your Project Portfolio

Today’s projects are tomorrows opex. Therefore, be relentless in interrogating the benefit case of live and proposed projects. If the answers you get are hesitant or incomplete then keep asking until you either get comfortable or you reshape or kill the project. Effective Project Portfolio categorisation, prioritisation and realisation is a massive subject for another day.

5) Application Rationalisation

Firstly understand your organisational application portfolio (what they are, what they do, who is using them) then identify commonality (“Do you really need 5 different document management systems?”). Now the tricky part…..In conjunction with your stakeholders decide which one best meets current and future organisational needs, make that the standard, migrate workloads, train users and decom what you don’t need.

6 Renegotiate Vendor Contracts

Of course your ability to do this depends on many factors both contractual and situational (ie: how much leverage against the vendor you can generate) but it never hurts to have a go. Over and above rate reduction two things to look at:

Service Levels – If you have done all you can do on rate see if they can throw in other services that may be of value to you.
Fixed Vs Variable cost – The more you can move towards charges based on consumption (“X” as a service) which will flex with your requirements the better. Try to avoid the fixed cost of software licenses or device ownership.

BLUESPOT IT