Optimizing IT investment as a driver of enterprise transformation

IT is no longer a cost—it is a strategic asset that directly shapes corporate value. Against this backdrop, IT departments now face an extremely difficult question: how should limited people and budgets be allocated between new, growth-oriented investments (“offense”) and the maintenance and operation required to keep the business running (“defense”)?

The key lies in making the current state visible and redesigning how resources are allocated between offense and defense. We spoke with Daisuke Suezaki of Fujitsu’s consulting business Uvance Wayfinders (hereafter “Wayfinders”), who supports clients across multiple industries—from IT strategy formulation to IT management transformation—about the direction IT departments in Japanese enterprises should pursue.

“Over the past few years, the environment surrounding IT departments has changed dramatically. Among CIOs and CDOs, there is a growing sense of crisis that ‘traditional approaches can no longer meet management’s expectations,’” says Daisuke Suezaki of Wayfinders.

With advances in digital technologies such as AI, expectations from executives and business units toward IT departments have risen sharply. IT is no longer a backstage function focused on operational efficiency—it is increasingly becoming a decisive factor in business transformation and growth strategies.

“In the past, IT departments primarily responded to business requests, managing subsidiary SI companies or external vendors to develop and operate systems as specified. Today, as companies take the lead in defining IT strategy, the role expected of IT departments is fundamentally changing,” Suezaki explains.

The shift from cost center to profit center—contributing directly to value creation through IT—is now often taken as a given. Yet existing responsibilities have not disappeared.

“Operational ‘defense’ tasks such as stable core system operations, cybersecurity, and aging system maintenance are actually becoming heavier. As DX progresses, systems multiply and grow more complex, driving up operational costs. In many companies, most of the budget is consumed by maintaining existing systems, leaving little room for strategic ‘offensive’ investment,” says Suezaki.

IT departments are expected to fulfill both defensive responsibilities for stable operations and offensive roles as engines of value creation. With limited talent and budgets, balancing the two is no easy task. As a result, gaps are emerging between management’s ideal vision and the reality on the ground.

“While expectations from management continue to rise, IT teams are consumed by day-to-day operations and struggle to take sufficient action for the future. Managing the dual responsibility of offense and defense is the core challenge many companies now face,” Suezaki notes.

How can companies slim down the costs of “defensive IT”—such as stable system operations and security—and redirect resources toward “offensive DX”? According to Suezaki, the answer lies in resource allocation: redistributing people and budgets more strategically.

“The first step is always visibility. You need to clarify which systems cost how much and whether those costs are truly justified. Once you do, you often find unused licenses, underutilized cloud environments, or overly generous maintenance contracts that have gone unchallenged for years,” he says.
Many companies cannot clearly explain how their IT costs are structured.

“In many organizations, 60–70%—and sometimes close to 80%—of IT budgets are spent on Opex, or maintaining existing systems. Yet in many cases, companies don’t fully understand where that money is going. When management asks, ‘Why does IT cost this much every year?’ IT departments struggle to answer with data. This is not negligence—it’s the result of increasingly complex IT landscapes driven by aggressive investment and M&A,” Suezaki explains.

Accelerated digital investment has increased the number of systems and services in use. Left unchecked, costs will continue to rise over the mid to long term.

“At some point, you have to declutter. Fujitsu itself has worked to consolidate and streamline internal systems. Drawing on that experience, we propose long-term approaches to reduce siloed, partially optimized systems and overlapping functions,” says Suezaki.

In recent years, executives have come to recognize DX as a core management agenda, making it easier to secure IT budgets. However, managing IT investment portfolios and making investment decisions has become more complex and difficult than ever.

“At first glance, IT budgets appear to be growing year by year. But fixed costs—cloud fees, subscriptions, operations, maintenance, and security—continue to rise, so allocations for strategic IT investment are not increasing as much as they seem,” says Suezaki.

Changes in development methodologies further complicate budget allocation.

“In the past, waterfall development allowed budgets to be fixed early by defining requirements upfront. Today’s volatile business environment makes multi-year large-scale development impractical, leading to lean and agile approaches that deliver continuous improvements in small increments,” he explains.

This shift demands more flexible IT budget management.

“If budgets are rigidly allocated only to projects approved at the start of the fiscal year, organizations cannot respond flexibly to change. Companies must manage investment portfolios that reserve funds for strategic, growth-oriented initiatives and allow for agile investment in opportunities that emerge mid-year,” says Suezaki.

At the same time, streamlining existing systems remains essential.

“CIOs and IT departments understand the need to consolidate bloated system landscapes. But arguments based solely on ‘reducing the number of systems’ often fail to gain buy-in, especially from business units that rely on those systems,” he notes.

Even lifting existing systems to the cloud does not immediately translate into higher revenue or lower costs. That is why companies must articulate value that cannot be measured by simple ROI alone.

“Few companies clearly document IT strategies or mid-term IT plans aligned with management strategy. As a result, investment decisions fall back on short-term ROI by project, delaying critical long-term investments. Overcoming this barrier is the first major hurdle in optimizing IT investment. Wayfinders supports clients by leveraging Fujitsu Group’s own hands-on experience in IT investment optimization,” Suezaki says.

One recent DX trend is the internalization of system development.

“More companies are reintegrating IT subsidiaries into headquarters. Agile development works better when organizations operate as a single unit. Even when using external vendors, relationships are shifting from transactional contracting to true one-team collaboration,” says Suezaki.
However, internalization is not easy. It requires building agile teams, redesigning processes, and developing talent—all while allocating limited resources effectively.

“Internalization doesn’t mean doing everything in-house. Most companies lack sufficient internal resources in both quantity and quality. As a result, more projects now involve blended teams of consultants and client staff working together from the planning stage. I believe this trend will only accelerate,” he says.