Smart-Grid Projects Raise Classic IT Question: Who Pays?

Source Article: (CNET, 10 August 2010)

Reflecting the challenge of accounting for IT costs, smart grids are becoming increasingly controversial because customers are shouldering a significant cost burden.
Our View: A common IT cost accounting question for companies is who pays for what across the company? Several of our clients recently laid out their methodologies for allocating costs in our Cost Accounting Forum, revealing common approaches: desktop costs (PC, e-mail, printers, etc.) are allocated by headcount; network is usually allocated to each business based on consumption of bandwidth; servers are allocated based on server count by business; help desk is allocated by call count; for specific systems, the users of the system are charged; and ERP-related costs are allocated on the basis of number of users.
How We Can Help: Use T. Rowe Price’s IT balanced scorecard to track business-focused operational metrics and monitor compliance.