#4 What does keeping the technical “lights on” cost us annually?

“Lights on” is the effort it takes to keep a business or even a building running with no improvement. It’s also known as KTLO “keeping the lights on.” It’s basically your baseline spend of resources without making anything better.

Why do you care about the cost of this across your technical systems, your customer offerings, and the technology you use to deliver? Because if you’re spending the majority of your time and money keeping the lights on, then you aren’t innovating, and your shelf life is limited.

Don’t just take my word for it:

900 CIOs, IT leaders, and financial decision-makers from around the globe were surveyed in 2020 about IT innovation and obstacles facing their organizations. The results showed that 89% of those surveyed thought that their organization ought to be spending more on innovation. Additionally, 77% believed that spending too much on KTLO is a major obstacle for their organization.*1

Need more?

Although 80% of IT decision-makers in 2010 were keenly aware of the fact that if they didn’t embrace IT transformation, their companies wouldn’t be competitive, organizations still spent 80% of their IT budget on “keep the lights on functions,” with only a 20% spent on innovation, according to TechTarget research”*2

Executives spent up to 85% of their 2014 IT budget just “keeping the lights on” — and reported that their businesses were being held back as a result. *3

“In 2020, almost half (44 percent) of IT and cloud operations teams’ time goes on manual, routine work. This practice of “keeping the lights on” *4

“Responding to a question regarding their ability to innovate on behalf of the organizations they work for, 69% of IT leaders in 2020 surveyed said they felt they were working just to keep the lights on versus innovating.” *4

Follow-up Questions:

• Do we encourage innovation in our cost centers?
• Across the company, how much time do we spend on innovation?

One quick PSA:
Sometimes when I bring up KTLO, executives will tell their teams to reduce their KTLO but without providing time and dollars. This won’t net progress but will net an increase in employees’ frustrations. See the 3rd in this blog series #3 What’s the retention rate of our technical personnel? for the result.

1: https://www.bmc.com/blogs//keeping-the-lights-on-ktlo

2: https://asysco.com/news-media/keep-the-lights-on-strategy-and-the-death-of-digital-transformation/

*3: https://www.bmc.com/blogs/keeping-the-lights-on-ktlo/

*4: https://www.itproportal.com/news/it-teams-spend-most-of-their-time-just-keeping-the-lights-on/

*5: https://blogs.mulesoft.com/api-integration/strategy/keep-the-lights-on-vs-innovating/