With regards to revenue, the Pareto Law is that 80% of your revenue is derived from 20% of your customers, however it can also be applied to costs and spend. When looking at IT spend (and areas of the business responsible for the majority of costs), there will be a small number of initiatives or investments that account for 80% of the benefits and cost savings.
It is a useful rule of thumb to apply Pareto’s law to your IT spend and look deeper into the results. If 80% of your IT spend maintains and supports existing systems and only 20% is spent on innovation then where is the relative benefit in that equation to ensure that you are mapping spend and investment to where it can be most valuable?
It is never too late in the planning cycle to reassess spend against value and ensure the 80% reflects output, value, and growth. The Pareto Principle