The difficulty when discussing funding for anything related to disaster recovery is explaining the
subtle difference between a purchase that??™s a cost of doing business vs. a purchase that has an
expected return on investment. I??™ve encountered numerous layers of management??”even CFOs??”
who don??™t understand within IT/IS the difference between a business cost and an investment with
an expected return.
Company spending falls into two categories: the cost of doing business and an investment. The
terminology changes from organization to organization, but the basic idea remains the same: spend
money to make money. Spend money either to support or expand existing infrastructure, to create new
business activities, or to improve existing ones. Examples of cost-of-business spending include
??? New-employee needs (such as desk, chair, phone, computer, software, and so on)
??? Facilities management
??? Legal services and insurance
Examples of investment spending include
??? Custom software development
??? New product development
??? Research and development
??? Company expansion
During the dot-com boom, the industry??™s fast adoption of new technology and incredible success
stories led most companies to give IT/IS a blank check.
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