5 tips for communicating the value of IT

Considering that no organization can operate without technology today, IT’s value would seem obvious. The problem is that too often IT is seen as a cost center because CIOs still struggle to articulate the value IT brings to the business.

“Today’s CIOs are under pressure to answer one key question: How do I communicate the business value of technology investments to my stakeholders?” Chris Howard, distinguished VP analyst and chief of research for global enterprises at Gartner, writes in a recent post.

“The effectiveness with which CIOs measure and communicate the business value of IT will directly influence whether the business sees IT as a business partner or a cost center,” he adds.

CIOs must rise to the challenge, says Bobby Cain, senior vice president and CIO for North America at Schneider Electric.

“I believe it is the price of admission for all digital leaders to be manically focused on communicating the value of IT. With the convergence of business and technology, it is our responsibility to clearly position IT as a profit driver,” he says.

He and others share their tips on how to effectively communicate the value of IT.

Make a habit of highlighting IT’s positive impact — to keep from being taken for granted

CIOs shouldn’t assume that the solutions that IT delivers need no cheerleaders due to the inherent value they provide.

“Unless you can talk about what [that value] is, it’s not going to be clear,” says George Westerman, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founder of the Global Opportunity Forum.

Most people take technology for granted, much like electricity, and so they often only think about IT when something goes wrong. So CIOs must actively redirect people’s attention to the positives.

“Many executives only experience the pain or only hear the complaints about IT,” Westerman says. “So if you’re not talking about what you’re doing, their impressions are going to be only the negative stuff. That’s why the best IT leaders are very intentional about describing the performance and value of IT.”

Of course, a CIO must be doing more than lights-on activities to have a good report card of value to share, Westerman notes.

Assuming that’s the case, he says CIOs need to talk about performance and value on a regular basis to ensure IT is seen as more than a utility.

“The best time to start this communication is when you’re new to the job; it sets up the expectation,” Westerman says. “And if you’re not new to your job, you can start by saying, ‘We’re hearing complaints; some of those perceptions are true, some are not, and here’s our plan to move all the numbers up.’”

Emphasize business impact over IT metrics

Veteran IT leaders have heard for years that they need to ditch the tech jargon and speak the language of business. That’s especially important to do when conveying IT’s value, says Brian Jackson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group.

Many, however, struggle with that.

“CIOs often focus on metrics that are abstracted from the business — latency or bandwidth, for example, these technical metrics that are more at the systems level rather than something that should be in a board presentation,” Jackson says.

CIOs need to do a better job of understanding how their technical initiatives create business value and finding the words that convey it, he explains. “It’s the communication challenge that anyone with a certain experience, particularly a science or technical expertise, has: How do you communicate to someone in layman’s terms?”

Cain agrees, explaining that CIOs need to think and speak in terms of business impact.

“At Schneider Electric, we move more than 24 terabytes of data a minute. That’s 200,000% more than the New York Stock Exchange. We have approximately 160,000 employees across more than 100 countries operating in over 160 factories, 75 distribution centers, and hundreds of regional offices,” he says. “From an IT perspective, there is certainly significant cost associated with just keeping the lights on. However, if CIOs don’t start telling the real story of how investments in technology can reduce risk, drive productivity, and most importantly, create customer value, then IT will continue to be viewed as a cost center rather than a margin driver.”

He adds, “For CIOs to effectively communicate the value of IT, they must make it visible. This is the evidence that the business expects. The results of IT initiatives should be translated into business language. Whether it is sales enablement that drives top-line impact, productivity and efficiency gains, customer experience, or cost avoidance, all investments in technology must be traceable to the P&L.”

Use KPIs that matter to business stakeholders

According to a 2025 Deloitte Tech Exec Survey, 36% of technology leaders identified “measuring and articulating the value of technology in business terms” as a top priority.

Clearly that figure translates into a sizeable number of CIOs who have this task on their mind. But Lou DiLorenzo, leader of Deloitte’s US Technology, AI, and Data Strategy Practice and national leader of its Tech C-suite Programs, says communicating IT’s value in business terms should be a to-do for all IT execs.

“It’s really important, and even if you’re good at it, you still have to keep focusing on it,” he says.

He advises CIOs to identify metrics that can help them do that.

That may not necessarily be ROIs, which can be difficult for IT to calculate for infrastructure projects that are often many steps removed from profits and loss centers.

Still, DiLorenzo and others stress that CIOs can identify metrics that matter to the various stakeholders and calculate how IT has brought improvements in those areas. That may mean measuring how newly implemented tech helped HR streamline application review or how equipping sales with a new data platform boosted lead-to-conversion rates.

Sharpen your storytelling skills

Accurate information matters, but good delivery is important, too. That’s why CIOs are hearing more and more about developing storytelling skills.

“It’s important for us to be the storytellers in chief for the IT portfolio so we can bring our colleagues along to create shared perspectives,” says Siroui Mushegian, CIO at Barracuda, which sells cybersecurity tech. “Explain results in terms of what’s in it for them, or what pain points will be reduced or resolved. Perhaps you can use corporate metrics that translate into substantial dollars or time saved, or real waste reduction.”

Mushegian acknowledges that this skill may not come naturally to CIOs, but she highlights helpful steps to build it.

“Structuring a cadence around your communication helps create muscle memory. There may be a reason to host a regular IT council with your business stakeholders — this is a planned meeting where IT initiatives are discussed, updated, and prioritized. If this is too formal for your company, present to a smaller group or to single executive stakeholders on a regular basis. Get your patter down. Become comfortable using business terminology rather than IT terminology. Take notes of what went well and what needs more work,” she says.

DiLorenzo says CIOs who engage with front-line workers and middle managers often do well here as they can readily learn what problems they have and how IT’s work solves them. “Then they can say, ‘Let me talk about what Sally’s dealing with on a day-to-day basis and how we helped,’” he adds. “That’s a story anchored in business operations and not a technical service being provided.”

Shift from costs to profits

Like all functional leaders, CIOs must manage their budgets and control their spending. But they shouldn’t focus on those figures when speaking with business colleagues

“Too often CIOs still talk about costs, rather than business outcomes,” says Mike Trkay, CIO and chief customer officer at FICO. “If you don’t want to be considered a cost center, don’t frame everything in terms of cost. IT investments should be framed as ‘asset building.’”

Trkay says this may simply mean looking at the same coin from the other side. For example, instead of reporting how much an IT project shaved off costs, showcase the benefits gained — “We’ve reduced the customer onboarding time by 40% by modernizing the infrastructure,” he says.

That’s easier to do when CIOs prioritize each IT initiative by expected business outcomes and how they’ll measure project success. “You should have a business outcome as your goal for any IT initiative. It’s something you should be establishing as a charter from the get-go,” he says, adding that doing so will help guarantee you’ll have a business value to highlight in presentations and conversations.

Mark Sherwood, executive vice president and CIO at Wolters Kluwer, shares this perspective.

“There is always value in improving the bottom line. But saying ‘Here are all the savings’ is such an old story that it’s sort of built into the IT vernacular,” Sherwood says. “So it’s really key for IT leaders to focus on how we’re helping to drive top-line growth. It doesn’t mean we stop driving efficiencies and optimization, but it’s important for IT organizations to really showcase itself as a value center.”

That may mean, for example, connecting dots for business colleagues on how a multicloud strategy means greater uptime and more resiliency which supports better customer engagement that translates into better customer retention rates, he explains. Or how security investments allow sales teams to distinguish the company’s products and services from competitors to cinch more deals.

“Those are important stories to tell,” Sherwood says.