Case Study: Cox Enterprises achieves technology cost transparency and acquisition integration with Apptio

Cox Enterprises integrates acquisitions in 72 hours with Apptio

Cox Enterprises, a privately-held conglomerate operating companies like Cox Automotive and Cox Communications, faced challenges in achieving cost transparency and efficiently managing technology across its autonomous subsidiaries. The lack of a standardized model made it difficult to explain IT costs, integrate acquisitions, and optimize spending on services like cloud and vendor contracts. To address this, they turned to the vendor Apptio and its Technology Business Management (TBM) solutions, including the Apptio Cost Transparency platform.

Apptio's solution, centered on the ATUM (Apptio TBM Unified Model) framework, provided a standard cost and KPI model adopted by all Cox technology organizations. This enabled integrated financial views, rapid integration of acquisitions like Manheim in just 72 hours, and data-driven optimization. Key results included rationalizing network carriers and contract labor for significant savings, using benchmark data to justify additional IT staff, and managing public cloud consumption. Apptio provided the transparency and operational cadence needed to align technology investment with business strategy across the entire Cox enterprise.

Cox Enterprises