The financial artifact a Technology Operating Partner engagement produces each quarter for the CFO seat, constructed against published mid-market benchmarks.
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Every number, vendor name, initiative, and outcome in this document is constructed as an illustrative composite, not from a real client engagement. Values are derived from published mid-market IT benchmarks applied to a stated firm profile. Framework citations and source publications are real and appear inline. See the Methodology Appendix and the Defensibility Ledger at the end.
The Technology P&L below is the financial artifact a Technology Operating Partner engagement produces for the CFO seat each quarter: total IT spend by TBM tower, versus plan and against mid-market benchmarks, with the analytical notes and decisions surfaced for the next quarterly review.
This sample exists so a CFO can see, before engaging Preside, what the format of the artifact looks like and how it holds up under scrutiny. It is not from a real client engagement. It is constructed against published benchmarks to demonstrate the format.
Firm profile
Revenue
$180M
Business services
Headcount
1,637
Active FTE, mid-market services
Fiscal year
FY26
Q3 in-flight
Total IT spend
$5.60M
3.11% of revenue (FY forecast)
CFO deliverable
Structured against the TBM Council Taxonomy v4.0 (Dec 2020), v4.1 update (2023), the industry-standard categorization for IT financial reporting. Each tower is presented at FY plan, YTD through Q3, and full-year forecast, expressed as absolute dollars and as a share of revenue. The right-hand column shows an illustrative composite reference range for a mid-market services firm at this scale, constructed from published industry sources cited below.
Sample, synthetic composite. All figures and initiative names are illustrative.
Fiscal year forecast · Q3 FY26 in-flight
Technology P&L by TBM tower
| TBM tower | Category | FY plan | YTD (Q3) | FY forecast | Variance to plan | % of revenue | Composite reference range* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| End User Computing | Run | $810K | $608K | $830K | +$20K · +2.5% | 0.46% | 0.40 – 0.55% |
| Infrastructure & Cloud | Run | $1,350K | $1,000K | $1,395K | +$45K · +3.3% | 0.78% | 0.70 – 0.90% |
| Business Applications | Grow | $1,485K | $1,113K | $1,510K | +$25K · +1.7% | 0.84% | 0.80 – 1.00% |
| Data & Platform | Grow | $324K | $243K | $330K | +$6K · +1.9% | 0.18% | 0.15 – 0.25% |
| Security, Compliance & DR | Run | $594K | $445K | $620K | +$26K · +4.4% | 0.34% | 0.30 – 0.50% |
| IT Management & Delivery | Run | $432K | $324K | $440K | +$8K · +1.9% | 0.24% | 0.20 – 0.30% |
| Telecom & Connectivity | Run | $162K | $122K | $165K | +$3K · +1.9% | 0.09% | 0.05 – 0.15% |
| Strategic Initiatives | Transform | $243K | $182K | $310K | +$67K · +27.6% | 0.17% | Tracked at initiative level |
| Total IT | $5,400K | $4,037K | $5,600K | +$200K · +3.7% | 3.11% | 3.0% – 3.5% (Avasant/Deloitte mid-market services) |
*Composite reference ranges are illustrative and constructed to sum consistently against the mid-market services benchmark. They are not direct quotes from Gartner IT Key Metrics Data, Avasant IT Spending Benchmarks, or TBM Council publications. Live client engagements pull authoritative per-tower ranges from those subscription sources. See Methodology Appendix M2 for the derivation.
Analytical notes
OpEx / CapEx allocation (illustrative)
Decisions surfaced for next quarter
Appendix A
Every figure in the artifact above derives from one of three sources: a published benchmark cited inline, a logical derivation from a published benchmark using the stated firm profile, or an illustrative value marked as such. This appendix documents each derivation so any reviewer can trace the number back to its origin.
M1 · Total IT as percent of revenue (3.11%)
Anchored near the mid-market services benchmark. Cross-industry averages published by Deloitte and Avasant cluster in the 3 to 5 percent range for mid-market firms overall; services-specific firms typically sit at the lower end (approximately 3.0 to 3.5 percent) because services businesses do not carry the R&D and heavy engineering-headcount IT loads of product firms. The illustrative firm sits at 3.11%, marginally above the services median, reflecting a Run-heavy profile driven by Infrastructure & Cloud investment. Verifiable source: Avasant IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2025/2026, Chapter 40 (IT Services and Consulting).
M2 · Per-tower composite reference ranges (illustrative)
The per-tower ranges shown (0.40 to 0.55 percent for End User Computing, 0.70 to 0.90 percent for Infrastructure & Cloud, and so on) are constructed composite reference ranges, not direct quotes from any published benchmark table. They are intended to demonstrate the format of the artifact and to sum consistently with the total IT benchmark for a mid-market services firm. TBM Council and Gartner IT Key Metrics Data 2025 publish authoritative tower-level benchmarks in their proprietary subscription databases; a live client engagement pulls the actual ranges from those sources. The dashboard column header carries an asterisk footnote making this explicit inline so no reader can infer the ranges came from Gartner or Avasant. Confidence flag: illustrative.
M3 · Absolute tower dollar values
Each tower's FY forecast is set inside the illustrative composite reference range for that tower and then scaled to $180M revenue. FY plan is set 3 to 4 percent below FY forecast to reflect a modest overrun pattern typical at mid-year. YTD (Q3) reflects three fiscal quarters elapsed at approximately 72 percent of the plan-year-to-date pro-rata, with variance by tower to reflect real-world seasonality. Every row's math is arithmetically consistent with the totals.
M4 · Run / Grow / Transform allocation (62% / 33% / 5%)
Direct aggregation of the tower classifications above: Run = End User Computing + Infrastructure & Cloud + Security, Compliance & DR + IT Management & Delivery + Telecom & Connectivity = $3.45M. Grow = Business Applications + Data & Platform = $1.84M. Transform = Strategic Initiatives = $0.31M. Percentages compute against the $5.60M total. Framework: Gartner Run/Grow/Transform categorization (mid-2000s Gartner original, widely adopted).
M5 · Vendor concentration language
Illustrative statement that top-three software vendors account for approximately half of relevant software spend. Vertice's SaaS Spending Benchmarks 2025 documents vendor-concentration patterns across mid-market SaaS portfolios; specific concentration percentages vary by firm. No exact figure is asserted in the artifact copy.
M6 · Realized savings ($380K)
Illustrative value representing prior-year vendor consolidation and license rightsizing savings flowing through the current fiscal year. Sized to fall within the 15 to 25 percent recovery range Preside targets in year one on a rationalized subset of IT spend. See CloudEagle 2024 SaaS Spend Trends (10 to 30 percent customer recovery reported).
M7 · Variance to plan (FY forecast vs FY plan)
Straight arithmetic: FY forecast minus FY plan, and (FY forecast − FY plan) ÷ FY plan expressed as a percentage. Each row and the total reconcile. The Strategic Initiatives variance (+27.6%) is deliberately outsized to reflect the pattern where discretionary transform work absorbs mid-year re-prioritization spend that other towers do not. In a live client engagement, each variance line would carry a narrative explanation and (where applicable) a decision to accept, redirect, or claw back.
M8 · OpEx / CapEx allocation (~83% / ~17%)
Illustrative composite reflecting typical mid-market services capitalization pattern: cloud subscriptions and vendor SaaS flow through OpEx; internal-use software development eligible for capitalization under ASC 350-40 (Business Applications, Data & Platform, Strategic Initiatives development components) forms the CapEx portion. Actual capitalization determination is per-project and per-vendor and requires accounting-team review; the ~$0.95M CapEx figure is a directional estimate consistent with services-firm patterns, not a specific accounting position. Composite split; live engagements produce the specific determination alongside the CFO's accounting team.
Appendix B
Every non-Preside claim in the artifact, its source, and a confidence flag. VERIFIED means the specific figure or attribution was checked against public excerpts of the cited source. PUBLISHED means the source is real and current but the specific figure requires subscription-tier access to verify. ILLUSTRATIVE means the value is constructed to fit the composite; the framework it sits inside is real but the specific number is not sourced.
| Claim / figure | Source | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| TBM Taxonomy tower structure | TBM Council, TBM Taxonomy v4.0 (Dec 2020) and v4.1 update (2023). Both are widely-referenced editions; the tower structure used here is compatible with both. | Verified |
| Total IT % of revenue ~3.0% for mid-market services | Avasant IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2025/2026, Chapter 40 | Published |
| Per-tower composite reference ranges (0.40–0.55%, etc.) | Constructed to sum consistently with mid-market total. Column explicitly footnoted as illustrative, not sourced from Gartner or Avasant. | Illustrative |
| Absolute dollar values in P&L table | Derived from tower % ranges applied to $180M revenue profile | Illustrative |
| Gartner Run/Grow/Transform framework | Gartner (mid-2000s, widely referenced) | Verified |
| Observed 60-to-70% Run share at mid-market services | Third-party analysis of Gartner/Avasant data; industry practice | Published |
| 30-to-50% Run target for firms shifting to growth | Gartner Run/Grow/Transform framework aspiration; industry practice | Published |
| Vertice SaaS Spending Benchmarks 2025 (vendor concentration) | Vendor-published dataset; used solely for directional portfolio-variance signal, not as an audited industry standard. Vertice publishes the benchmark from data collected on customers actively seeking SaaS-spend optimization, which introduces self-selection bias. | Verified |
| CloudEagle customer recovery of 10 to 30% annual SaaS spend | Vendor-published dataset; used solely for directional portfolio-variance signal, not as an audited industry standard. CloudEagle reports these figures from customer engagements on their platform, which is a vendor-selected sample rather than an audited peer benchmark. | Verified |
| Illustrative decision magnitudes ($84K, $700K-$900K, $112K, $380K) | Sized to be consistent with the P&L totals and typical of the decision scale at $180M mid-market services | Illustrative |
| Variance to plan (per-row and total) | Straight arithmetic (FY forecast − FY plan) with percentage over FY plan; all rows and total reconcile | Verified |
| ASC 350-40 capitalization framework | FASB Accounting Standards Codification, Topic 350-40, Internal-Use Software | Verified |
| Illustrative ~83% OpEx / ~17% CapEx split | Composite estimate consistent with mid-market services capitalization patterns. Not a specific accounting position; live client engagements produce the per-project determination alongside the CFO's accounting team. | Illustrative |
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