New management tools will allow companies to slash IT budgets by a third while still improving value, according to Forrester. But the analyst warned that a complete offering will not be ready for two or three years.

Forrester claimed that the biggest fault of IT management so far has been its failure to build a view that allows IT executives to answer basic questions such as 'What is everyone working on?' and 'Why does that project require more funding?'

The analyst suggested that the development of integrated IT management 'dashboard' offerings will allow companies to reduce IT budgets by as much as 30 per cent while realising value increases of 10 to 15 per cent in the first year.

"We see integrated IT management as a natural progression of related management and execution practices that will provide a consolidated view across all IT with fact-based information on spending and human and technical resources," said Margo Visitacion, principal analyst at Forrester.

"Without this visibility, chief information officers lack the management information required to sit at the executive level, and risk being replaced by someone who can manage resources, whether internally or offshore."

Other benefits include a dashboard with priorities, resource allocation, schedules and completed activities, along with centralised IT work requests for a true sense of demands against IT resources.

The ongoing requirement for IT to demonstrate its business value is a major reason to bring together operational, new project, and existing system data in a single view, according to Forrester.

Although a complete offering is 24 to 36 months away Forrester is seeing signs of a burgeoning market and is already seeing results from the portfolio management disciplines that will make up integrated IT management.

For example, project portfolio management could save companies 20 to 40 per cent with a consolidated view of the project pipeline that allows IT to kill redundant projects and select those with the strongest payoff.