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If you think of IT as a brand, then the CIO is its spokesman. CIOs must, therefore, get in front of their constituents and "sell" the brand on a regular basis. Gottron schedules one-on-one reviews with management committee members, where he recounts what he said IT would do and what it actually did during the past three months. He then previews and validates the priorities for the next three months.

The bank's vice chairman and CFO, Mike McMennamin, appreciates the meetings with Gottron. "I walk away knowing he's working on six things for us, three of which are crucial," he says. "I know exactly the time frame and what additional resources need to be dedicated to a project."

McMennamin realizes these meetings are also marketing opportunities for Gottron. "Sure, Joe's a marketer, but in the positive sense of the word," McMennamin says. "He keeps us tuned in, and we agree on a set of expectations. I feel like we're partners."

Whatever the frequency and format, communication must be two-way. Gottron confesses he sometimes gets so caught up in extolling IT's accomplishments that he's got feedback that he doesn't always slow down enough to listen for concerns. "If they've got something stuck in their head, they'll have a tough time listening," Gottron says. And if they're not listening, they won't get the message that IT is delivering value.

Put Out a Catalogue

A new category of IT marketing publications is the catalogue of IT services. Though still relatively rare, catalogues are perhaps the best vehicle for achieving cost transparency, according to Meta's Rubin. "Even if a company does not have chargeback, a catalogue is essential for creating a lingua franca for what IT does for the business," he says.

As part of an initiative called "Cost Transparency Now!" Merrill Lynch has produced an online IT catalogue that describes IT products and services in customer-oriented terms, defines service-level agreements and puts a price tag on all services that IT provides. For example, the BlackBerry entry has indexed tabs for product information (description and benefits), pricing (fixed and variable costs for e-mail and paging services), SLA details and user documentation by model. Qualified users can order a BlackBerry through an online purchasing system linked to the catalogue. Developing the catalogue is a precursor to moving to full chargeback at Merrill - by this September, 98 percent of IT charges will be billed to users as services consumed. Eventually, IT's customers will look at a simple bill and tell how many units of each service they've consumed. "They'll be able to say: 'Why am I consuming 6.5 terabytes of replicated disk?' They will start to manage their costs instead of looking to me to manage costs," says COO Norman.

Norman plans to add external benchmarking cost data to the catalogue later this year, both to assure customers that they're getting value for their money and to reinforce for IT service managers that they are competing with outside providers.

At telecom company Global Crossing, employees use IT's online catalogue to order hardware and any service IT provides, including access to applications. Managerial approval and delivery are automatically managed through a workflow process. Although CIO Dan Wagner does not operate a chargeback model, he says providing automated services through the online catalogue helps keep costs down and lets him easily track statistics on all services IT provides.

In developing an IT catalogue, it's critical to define services in terms of what customers want to buy, not a laundry list of IT tasks, warns Gartner's Gerrard. For example, if IT offers desktop provisioning for a new employee, a business manager doesn't want or need to know that this entails procuring a desktop device, loading software, setting up passwords, enabling e-mail, connecting to the LAN and arranging installation. She just wants a computer ready to go when the new employee shows up on Monday morning.