The Product Owner is the ultimate owner of value. To maximize that value, the modern Product or Solution Owner must evolve beyond managing features to actively managing the financial health, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and eventual return on investment (ROI) of their technology product. Technology Business Management (TBM) provides the essential financial, labor, and consumption data required to transition technology products into transparent, profitable business assets.
The insights presented here summarize the critical support TBM provides to Product and Solution Owners. They are drawn from best practices and success patterns observed in organizations that submitted highly detailed entries to the annual TBM Council Awards program. Organizations applying for the Product & Service Excellence category model how to apply TBM discipline and taxonomy to understand, track, and manage products, services, and experiences to deliver measurable ROI. By analyzing these mature TBM implementations, we gain a clear understanding of the new mandate for product leadership.
1. TCO and Accountability: Bridging Product Vision and Financial Reality
For decades, technology costs remained a “black box” to business units, requiring immense effort to translate siloed data into actionable information. TBM shatters this barrier by imposing a standardized methodology and taxonomy, turning complex spending into transparent, defensible cost models.
At the heart of TBM’s value proposition is the establishment of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a product. TBM provides the necessary foundation to calculate Product TCO by aligning all technology components—including labor, infrastructure, software, and vendor costs—to the specific applications and services delivered. This gives the Product Owner a comprehensive, full-stack view of what it truly costs to run and develop their capability.
This transparency is the mechanism for financial accountability. TBM enforces accountability by enabling cost allocations (chargeback or showback) to be done directly to the product owners and business lines who are accountable for being able to influence the cost. Application Owners, for example, are mandated to oversee application TCO. By tracking these metrics, TBM elevates the product conversation, ensuring discussions between Finance, Technology, and Business focus on value rather than simply challenging the numbers. TBM tools empower product leaders to prepare defensible budgets and proactively track spend items that align to strategic themes.
2. Leveraging TBM for Strategic Control and Decision-Making
TBM data is not merely historical reporting; it is the fuel for high-impact strategic decisions across the entire product lifecycle, from initial investment to eventual retirement.
Investment and Portfolio Optimization
Product Owners are empowered to make smarter decisions about technology investments by utilizing TBM insights to track performance and justify financial expenditure. Organizations frequently leverage TBM data in the business case creation and scenario planning process. For instance, TBM reporting is routinely used as the basis for all new business cases, providing visibility into both run costs and the infrastructure utilized by applications.
This capability is particularly vital when evaluating architectural alternatives. Product owners utilize TBM insights to compare cost perspectives and assess the full financial impact of options, such as whether to keep an application on-premise or transition to a public cloud environment. Similarly, detailed TCO analyses help identify and validate cost savings associated with application rationalization. Application Owners utilize TCO playbooks to quickly determine if an application is eligible for decommissioning.
Power in Negotiation
The rigorous data provided by TBM can be weaponized in commercial discussions. One application owner, when evaluating a potential migration to a vendor’s SaaS platform, successfully conducted a thorough cost-benefit analysis using TBM data which was then used as a benchmark to negotiate with the vendor. Having a central platform for all vendor costs and operational performance metrics enhances commercial insights, giving Product Owners factual leverage.
Alignment with Agile Delivery
For organizations that have embraced Agile or lean portfolio management, TBM integrates financial transparency directly into product funding models. This integration allows for the funding of value streams based on manpower and prioritization rather than individual projects. Product teams actively collaborate with the TBM Office during the demand submission step to articulate and refine requirements and receive cost estimations. TBM ensures that even when resources are shifted throughout the year, Product Owners have continuous visibility into costs and performance to guide adjustments.
3. Guidance: Championing TBM Adoption as a Product Owner
The value TBM provides is directly proportional to its adoption across the enterprise. Product Owners, as key consumers and owners of technology value, are positioned perfectly to champion the TBM discipline.
- Demand Data Quality and Taxonomy Adherence: A Product Owner should make the alignment of costs to the TBM taxonomy a non-negotiable requirement for their product. They must ensure that any new service onboarding must align with the TBM taxonomy service layer. High data integrity, particularly for consumption drivers and CMDB data, is critical because it ensures their Product TCO accurately reflects reality, giving them trusted data for budgeting and resource allocation.
- Actively Partner with the TBM Office: Product Owners should actively engage with the TBM Office during the initial stages of new vendor onboarding to discuss TBM requirements. They should participate in governance bodies, such as the Apptio User Council or TBM Advisory boards, which comprise leaders from Technology, Business, and Technology Finance. Participation in these forums is crucial for providing feedback, setting the TBM roadmap, and ensuring that new reporting use cases benefit their product line directly.
- Use TBM Outputs to Drive Actionable Decisions: A championing Product Owner uses the cost transparency provided by TBM reports not just to read the numbers, but to drive behavior. This includes utilizing consumption reports to identify cost savings opportunities by pulling financial levers, such as optimizing the consumption of IT services and eliminating consumption of unused or redundant capabilities. By consistently focusing conversations on value and measurable outcomes like savings identified versus achieved, the Product Owner reinforces TBM as a strategic tool rather than a mere reporting obligation.
In essence, TBM provides the Product Owner with a unified language and a clear lens through which to measure and communicate value. By transforming cost visibility from a challenge into a transparent asset, TBM empowers the Product Owner to become a genuine business partner, optimizing the entire value stream from code to customer.
