Table of Contents
IT leaders are under constant pressure to handle an increasing influx of requests as digitalization and complexity grow. While many rely on demand management processes to bring structure, achieving an efficient way is not so easy. Without a clear understanding of the origins of the demands and their prioritization, a shared accountability between IT and business, and clear responsibilities, IT is left reacting instead of steering. Standardized processes alone cannot resolve this. Instead, a strategic, integrated demand management approach is needed. It should foster a joint decision between IT and business, filter unrealistic or unsound demands early, and ensure that IT capacity is invested in initiatives that deliver real value. Without this, the system risks grinding under its own weight, leaving IT reactive, misaligned, and overwhelmed.
Our approach for outlining such an integrated demand and portfolio management was to build a concept, that is first based on academic literature, research and consulting experience. Second, to test the proposed solution via conducting a focus group with five experienced leaders in IT management with a current background in the manufacturing industry. The workshop format was designed to bridge the academic insights, research and consulting experience with the CIO’s daily and longstanding hands-on experience. The session was recorded, and the discussion was analyzed to share the practical insights of the participating digital leaders. This report shows the results to the interested executives like CEOs, CIOs and CTOs and serves as an information basis to derive suitable actions on your demand and portfolio management. As the CIOs in our focus group all came from the manufacturing industry, the findings we made (see chapter 3) may be derived only with limitations to other industries (e.g., due to higher market volatility in other industry sectors or less dependencies of the business model from legal requirements).
The report starts with the common challenges of CIOs in chapter one. This is followed with an introduction to the proposed solution for a more strategic view on demand and portfolio management in chapter two. Chapter three gives a new perspective with the practical experience and found solution of the CIOs and with the comparison with academic theories and empirical evidence. All insights are summed up in chapter four.
1 | The Initial Situation: Common Challenges
In our daily work, we see that CIOs and IT employees are handling too many demands without having the matching capacity. This is accompanied by a felt loss of control of the demand inflow and information on the delivery of demands. To diminish the huge number of demands to a manageable amount, evaluation criteria are usually used to filter the incoming demands.
A common challenge IT faces during demand evaluation is ensuring the reliability of estimates for both the anticipated business benefits and the required resources. Disguised tool wishes that come from the business as demands are another factor that creates friction between business and IT. Additionally, the IT evaluates demands that will never be executed due to limited available capacities. The time used for evaluation of these demands will just be additional overhead for the IT and binds capacities that could not be used for value-generating tasks. If the business strategy is not operationalized adequately (e.g., by using initiatives), the mutual demand prioritization from business and IT is getting even harder. Especially, if the prioritization is overruled by the executive management or through shadow leaders, the demand prioritization lacks real priority gradations. In this case everything becomes important without an orientation point where to start. If, additionally, the responsibilities between different business domains and the IT are unclear, then the situation is ideal for chaos and ensures overload as everybody does everything. Additionally, a lack of the right resources and tools to do demand management or having the transparency about the current full IT functionality is hindering the process. Regarding the latter, one is thus not able to state whether the demand can already be fulfilled with the current IT or whether and where it needs something new. A last challenge is changing the mindset from business decisions to joint business and IT decisions, which then blocks shadow IT.
To get rid of the overwhelmed feeling and to help the IT escape the trap of being reactive, we propose to have a more strategic view on demand management. The proposed solution focuses on a deep understanding of demand origin and managerial driving forces, the integration of demand management with other management areas, (e.g., capacity and resource management), and having clear responsibilities in place that fit to the organizational business and IT structures. This will broaden the perception of IT and enable a mutual understanding between business and IT.
In the following two chapters, we elaborate four key statements on successful demand and portfolio management that we discussed with the CIOs. These contain 1. the effects of demand origin on demand assessment, 2. demand’s managerial driving forces and their classification, 3. an integrated demand management set-up, 4. the effects of organizational structures on areas of responsibilities, in detail.
2 | The Proposed Solution: Strategic Perspective on Demand and Portfolio Management
This chapter provides the theoretical and experience-based foundation for the following chapter that evaluates these messages from the CIOs perspectives.
Demands arise from different origins. A clear understanding of these origins supports the demand assessment.
In a nutshell, demand management is a process or capability that filters incoming demands. A demand reflects change, but not every change should be implemented. For filtering and evaluating the demand, it is essential to take a holistic perspective and understand that organizations are embedded in a multi-layered environment. Demands do not arise in isolation but are shaped by interactions between the organization and its environment. A central tool for analyzing external influences is the STEEP model (Social, Technological, Economical, Ecological, Political) (Nurmi and Niemelä, 2018) (see Figure 1). It helps identify external drivers that also indirectly affect IT through the continuously digitalization and change of business processes. Understanding whether a demand originates internally or externally provides valuable context for assessing its strategic relevance.
Clarity on the drivers of change (facts, fears, faiths) and their priority for the organization enables focused decision- making.
Additionally, market mechanisms such as market-pull (e.g., customer expectations) and technology-push (e.g., emerging technologies) further amplify external demands. These mechanisms influence strategic direction and increase the urgency for change. For focused decision-making the classification of the change’s drivers can be very helpful. An established classification scheme for demands is the differentiation between fact-, fear- and faith-based ones. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics.
While many demands are hybrid, assigning a primary category or splitting them into sub-demands supports faster and more action-oriented decision-making. This classification helps management to allocate the scarce IT resources to initiatives that reflect the organization’s values and risk appetite.
Effective demand management needs to be viewed integrated with other management areas.
To enable effective corporate management, demand management needs to be closely integrated with various other management areas within an organization (McKeen, 2012). Enterprise architecture management (EAM) provides the structural foundation necessary for capturing and implementing demands, while simultaneously being influenced by those demands. On the one hand, demands drive the evolution of the enterprise architecture and, on the other hand, the current architecture constrains or enables the fulfillment of demands (Würtz & Sandkuhl, 2023). Capacity and resource management play a critical role as it determines what can realistically be implemented with the available resources. Capacity transparency fosters realistic planning, prevents bottlenecks (Meskendahl, 2010) and increases delivery reliability. Typically, around 75 % of the available capacity in an organization is bound by set strategic initiatives and by operational services. Around 20% is used for continuous improvements. Continuous improvements bundle smaller, often decentralized enhancements for existing services. And only 5 % addresses tactical initiatives on the portfolio level (see Figure 2). Portfolio management has a dynamic interaction with demand management. Demand management feeds the portfolio with prioritized initiatives, while portfolio decisions determine which demands will be accepted to align with strategic objectives (ibid.). Financial management, in turn, sets the economic boundaries for implementation and benefits from demand forecasts for informed budgeting and investment decisions. To sum up, demand management acts as a connector across the management areas that enables information flow, easier priority setting and better decision preparation.
A comprehensive understanding of business and IT organization structures helps setting up the right responsibilities.
Besides an integrated set up with other management areas, effective demand management requires clearly defined responsibilities. A comprehensive understanding of the organization structures helps setting up these responsibilities. Especially the different degrees of centrality of process responsibility determine who can decide on demands in which area of responsibility. Figure 3 illustrates and summarizes the characteristics of a centralized, decentralized and federated IT organization and includes a differentiation on the handling of smaller and bigger demands. Decisions regarding smaller demands are made jointly by one representative from IT and one from the business side, within the budget for continuous improvements. Bigger demands are discussed in an IT committee (IT Council). The responsibles from the IT and business side including the CIO and management decide which big changes should be implemented. These are temporary and relatively unique endeavors with defined goals and scope with a dedicated and fixed budget and resources.
3 | The Found Solution: On the Road to a Strategic View
External factors like laws & politics, technological breakthroughs, and crises shape demand. Timing and organizational maturity influence how the demands are managed and assessed.
The CIOs had different opinions about the influence of the external multi-layered environment on demand emergence.
On the one hand, our participants argued that organizations cannot develop if they neglect being part of a larger ecosystem. They do not exist in isolation. One participant put it succinctly: “If we say that there is no external influence, then the thesis would be: We all live in a closed ecosystem, like a glass ball in a company as IT.”
Recognizing this interdependence helps CIOs better understand the origin of a demand and stay attuned to the demand’s origin’s developments. The CIOs agreed that external forces, particularly new laws and regulations, significantly shape the nature and volume of incoming demands. For instance, the Supply Chain Act requires (re)action from all German companies, leaving no room for negotiations.
Despite this, most CIOs reported that they still assess and evaluate such regulatory demands, even though they questioned how much real choice their IT departments and organizations have in opting out of compliance. One example cited was the GDPR, where organizations might choose not to comply fully, accepting the associated risks. This stands in contrast to the Supply Chain Act, where non-compliance is rarely considered a viable option. Only one CIO noted that their organization generally preserves the freedom of choice by evaluating each demand and deliberately choosing not to implement it.
However, another participant challenged this stance, arguing that such decisions may be short-lived, as legally or politically driven demands often become inevitable over time. CIOs also acknowledged that their IT organizations are influenced by technological advancements. The emergence of generative AI, for instance, triggered a wave of new demands that would not have surfaced without the underlying technological breakthroughs.
On the other hand, the CIOs highlighted the bidirectional influence. Not only does the external environment impact organizations, but organizations also shape their surroundings. They especially focused on the timing and organizational maturity. Moreover, they raised the aspect of time, that it takes for an external trigger to be transferred to a demand. For unforeseeable events such as wars or natural disasters, the urgency and intensity of resulting demands are far greater compared to more gradual or predictable developments.
Consequently, half of our participants concluded that typical demand requestors are less influenced by the external environment and more by their immediate operational needs, such as acquiring a new project management tool. Another factor identified was the maturity of the IT organization. Less mature IT units tend not to consider external influences, as they often lack a structured demand filtering process. These organizations typically focus on “keeping the lights on” and perceive themselves as reactive service providers. This mindset leads to unstructured processing of incoming demands without placing them in a broader strategic context.
Clarity on drivers of change (facts, fears, faiths) is helpful for decision-making but with limitations. Strategic alignment and trust are preferred over strict business cases for decisions.
The CIOs had different opinions on the suitability of a classification system of drivers of change (fact, fear, faith). The first limitation of the classification method the CIOs addressed is the abstraction level. For some of the CIOs the classification categories were too broad. Consequently, one CIO summarized: “It can help to know the context and circumstances of demand origin, but it is not a necessarily required condition.” The participant underpinned this with the argument, that the exchange of knowledge and understanding of a demand’s origin can be valuable to set up a project from an accepted demand and implement it, but it must not. Overall, the CIOs specified the scope where the drivers of change can be helpful to strategic and big projects or long-term topics. The practice also shows that not all CIOs can say that they currently have a profound understanding from which factor the demand is driven but see this as a target state for such big projects. Regarding fact-driven demands, the CIOs object to the common fallacy that for every demand or requirement from the business a business case needs to be calculated to enable fact-based decisions about future projects. The purpose of a business case is to set out the rationale for a project investment while considering alternative options and recommending a preferred solution and obtain management’s commitment and authorization to proceed (Einhorn et al., 2019). Business cases are often not fully utilized in practice, for example many organizations only use it for approval, but not for controlling or tracking benefits (Einhorn et al., 2019). Thereby, business cases are more likely driven by CFOs, to whom the CIO or the IT oftentimes reports to. The CIOs criticized that the business case calculations can be too rosy because of too optimistic or unrealistic assumptions. By doing so project benefits will be presented better, e.g., more cost-saving or revenue generating, than they really will be. The consequence is a loss of trust in business cases as an appropriate assessment method for projects or demands. This leads to questionable information quality and reliability for the fact-based decision-making. Therefore, business cases should be used where calculations can really be made, e.g., calculate the savings from downgrading the subscription of Microsoft Office from E5 to E1, and should not be used where the whole business case is just based on assumptions.
In summary, the reality of the CIOs is that none of them is proactively driving the creation of business cases (fact-driven) for business needs. Instead, the majority fosters risk mitigation for demands (fear-driven) as well as ensures top management alignment concerning visionary topics (faith-driven) for which a mutual alignment and trust is key. One CIO even uses a mix (faith- and fact-driven) as the demand is driven by strategic trust to bring benefit to the company and by the belief in bringing measurable improvements, such as cost savings.
As the CIOs do not wholly trust business cases and admonished their application when it comes to demands, they use the following methods or approaches instead. One CIO works with different scenarios to illustrate when and how a demand can be implemented under differing circumstances (e.g., provided resources, required costs, resulting project timeline). Important to mention is that the scenarios are generated by a tandem of IT and its business counterpart, that has the responsibility for the impacted process or capability. In general, using counterparts to evaluate demands is beneficial, because it promotes understanding of the tasks and work done in the business departments, as well as of the conditions in IT (e.g., enterprise architecture, resource situation, etc.). Further, another possible approach to evaluate demands is using success probabilities. Success probabilities do not claim to provide exact numbers at the end but open the spectrum on the effects of the demand coming from outside the company. Finally, one CIO focused more on value creation and focusing on the willingness to pay more for a more valuable product or service (value stick model) (Stobierski, 2022). This is related to explore the blue ocean and create new products or services (faith) in comparison to the red ocean strategy trying to exploit existing markets with the lowest cost (threat) (Kim, C. & Mauborgne, R., 2025).
A multi-gate demand management process balances strategic alignment, capacity restrictions and EAM dependencies which enables effective corporate management.
Of course, integrating all management areas into demand management is a no brainer, but how to do it and how to deal with capacity restrictions while deciding on the portfolio is the difficult part. This was also the case for the CIOs. The CIOs used decision gates for covering different aspects of other management areas. There was no special focus on reducing the effort in the demand evaluation phase in comparison to our theory.
Our CIOs agreed, that after a demand was recognized as valuable it must pass an EAM assessment. In this gate the demand needs to fulfil all the requirements necessary so that more time is justified to spend on demand evaluation. The positive assessment is based on reasonability by an IT employee and communicated to the business counterpart.
Nevertheless, as capacity is always restricted, not even all valuable demands can be implemented. Additionally, it is important to not lose too much effort and energy in the qualification and evaluation part. Thus, our CIOs approved that using a first pre-evaluation with T-Shirt sizes about the capacity needed is beneficial. If this turns out into a manageable demand implementation, a more detailed evaluation from subject matter experts is needed which can then lead to a much higher effort estimation. For example, for an automation of a machine, the IT needs to set up the infrastructure, the integration, end data, the building of the event-driven approach, data lakes and so on. All efforts in total were oftentimes not seen initially and by the business. Business can then reevaluate the cost-benefit ratio. The CIOs also raised, that it is still the question whether the expertise needed is inhouse. Thus, many wish for a good tool-based skill management. However, experience tells that this unfortunately is more a theory and a wish to implement this well. E.g., for most organisation below 150 FTE in IT, there are one or two people that have the ability and those are known without having to track these skills in detail and in a tool.
If the gained information is not sufficient to decide, a pre-project can help to gather reliable data for further assessment. In a last gate, the demand is transferred to a project that needs to be discussed in the respective committee. The committee will decide whether the project will be put on the portfolio or not.
No need to say, that quality gates are a necessary institution to guarantee that only valuable ideas or projects are included in portfolio discussion. Also demands and projects that do not align with the overall corporate strategy should not make it to such a committee. Consequently, demand management and portfolio management are building one strategic entity when it comes to an integrated demand management set-up.
A comprehensive understanding of business and IT organization structures helps defining the right responsibilities and decision-making processes.
In the following we describe the organizational structure of the organizations of the participating CIOs. They were all set in a manufacturing context which comes with formal standards and country-specific regulations. However, business development exhibited a wide range of dynamics, spanning from declining and competitive markets where the recycling of old machinery is prevalent to expanding markets. The IT sizes ranged from 25 to 500 IT employees. Everywhere, IT strategies provided a framework and goals that are developing dynamically. The operating model correlated with the size and ranges from asset- to service-oriented. Moreover, the leadership styles depended on size and structure: With increasing size and complexity from laissez-faire to transformational and paternalistic for family- based organizations. They were all centrally organized with different production locations and global delivery. For some product parts they had federated organizational structures and were split into different business units. Relatedly to the central organization were the consolidation, harmonization and standardization trends of IT. The bigger the company was, the clearer were the areas of responsibility. Conversely, the smaller the company, the greater the concentration of responsibility. This means responsibility couldn’t be taken at lower levels, but all decisions needed to be made by the management.
The CIOs agreed to the finding that the organizational business structures determine the organizational IT structure and therefore define the areas of responsibilities. In a globally harmonized organization, the decision about adding new IT demands to the portfolio is made globally in the end. This is important as this follows the highlander principle (Leanbase, 2025), that only one person with the appropriate competency decides and takes the responsibility. Having clear roles and responsibilities within an organization requires discipline but helps to establish stability through confusion reduction and improves efficiency through streamlined decision-making (Leanbase, 2025). For instance, the decision about the roll- out of a new sales platform by the Global Process Owner will address all employees in Turkey negatively but will be the better alternative in the long run for the whole company. As the organization is globally harmonized the decision could not be taken individually by the local representative as this exceeds his area of responsibility. In contrast, a local responsible might decide about local legal requirements for a not globally harmonized organization.
Dependent on the organizational structure and the resulting areas of responsibilities the four CIOs used different approaches to evaluate and prepare demands for portfolio discussions. The approaches differ in their degree of detail and assessments to fulfil. As a prerequisite to do so, the CIOs agreed that distinguishing between projects (bigger demands) and continuous improvements (collection of smaller demands) facilitates demand evaluation and speeds up decision-making and the evaluation process.
For bigger organizations the portfolio discussions take place in respective committees with differing participants. Coming from overall corporate strategy one CIO stated that the demands, that are elaborated as projects, have a project plan with stated benefits and already passed several quality gates (e.g., enterprise architects checked whether the new functionality is new or already existent), need to contribute to one of their initiatives to execute their strategy. Another CIO uses a committee that puts all IT and Business heads together in a meeting. As all business domains want to have IT resources, they discuss the resource distribution of IT there. If there is a restriction, the upper management needs to decide on the priority. This committee decides based on elaborated project candidates which project should be executed and put on the portfolio. In preparation of the committee meeting the project’s benefits for the company and the hand-over to service after implementation as well as cost efficiency need to be clarified as: “Something implemented sensibly does not necessarily mean it will continue to be operated sensibly.”
In contrast to those two approaches, for the smaller organization one CIO uses different scenarios with a rule-of-thumb value for the expected costs instead of a detailed project plan. The scenarios, which are prepared by an IT employee and its counterpart in business, are presented and pitched by them to the top management in a committee addressing new digital and non-digital initiatives.
The CIOs criticized that having one central IT committee is reaching its limitations for a federated organization of business and IT as the company and the IT grows and more complex structures are set up. They brought up the example, that with a distinct company size putting all business domain representatives, e.g., finance and logistics, together in one room to decide about demands or new projects is not an efficient usage of the participants’ time. In their view this is due to too less overlapping or mutual requirements from the different business domains. Moreover, the CIOs stressed out the practical problems that come with complex governance structures: Having multiple committees in place brings up the question in which committee overall portfolio decisions should be made. For example, a new production solution should be discussed and be weighed up against a new project from another business domain, e.g., Sales. Following a harmonized strategy, one central IT committee will be enough until the company and the IT reaches a size, where one central IT committee is not manageable anymore.
4 | The Essence of a Successful Demand and Portfolio Management
We validated a concept for successful demand and portfolio management developed from academic literature, research, and consulting experience through direct dialogue with digital leaders actively managing real-world IT portfolios.
First of all, tools like the STEEP model (Social, Technological, Economical, Ecological, Political) help identify external influences that indirectly shape IT needs. Recognizing where demands come from provides valuable context for prioritization and ensures alignment with strategic objectives. In practice, the CIOs confirmed the relevance of external factors especially for bigger demands but did not consider it necessary to always know the broad origins of demands in detail. Less mature IT organizations even noted that internal operational needs frequently outweigh external triggers in shaping actual demand. Overall, demand management in practice is shaped by both external ecosystem dynamics and internal organizational conditions, requiring a balance of strategic foresight and practical responsiveness.
Secondly, the fact-fear-faith framework helps organizations classify demands based on their drivers: data-driven (fact), risk-avoidance (fear), or visionary trust (faith). This supports clearer prioritization and more effective allocation of scarce IT resources. The CIOs acknowledged the value of the classification but found it too abstract for daily use. They rarely rely on business cases due to unrealistic assumptions and limited practical use. Instead, they favor risk mitigation (fear) and strategic alignment (faith) over strict ROI (fact).
Third, effective demand management must be integrated with other management areas, such as enterprise architecture, capacity and resource management, portfolio management, and financial management, to support strategic alignment and informed decision-making. Theoretical models emphasize that demand management acts as a connector across these domains, enabling better prioritization, realistic planning, and efficient resource allocation. In practice, CIOs implement this integration through a multi-gate demand management process that balances strategic alignment, capacity constraints, and architectural dependencies. Key insights include: 1. EAM assessments are used early to validate whether a demand is worth deeper evaluation; 2. T-shirt sizing helps estimate capacity needs quickly; 3. Detailed evaluations follow only if initial assessments are promising; 4. Pre-projects are used when more data is needed before a decision; 5. Committees make final portfolio decisions, ensuring alignment with strategy.
Fourth, a comprehensive understanding of business and IT organizational structures is essential for defining clear responsibilities and decision-making authority in demand management. The degree of centralization, either centralized, decentralized, or federated, directly influences who is responsible for which decisions. In theory and consulting practice, this clarity enables efficient evaluation of demands.
In practice, CIOs confirmed that organizational structure shapes IT governance and responsibility areas. In centralized and globally harmonized organizations, decisions, especially for larger demands, are made at a global level by committees.
As organizations grow and adopt federated structures, the complexity of governance increases, often requiring multiple committees and raising challenges in coordination and prioritization.
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About the autors
Dr. Julia Schreier (Bee360)
Leveraging experience across different fields – from Industrial Engineering and Management to People, Julia‘s passion is enhancing knowledge and creating value by exploring and sharing innovative concepts and management insights. A key facet of her expertise involves effectively bridging the gap between academic insights and practical applications, particularly in addressing management topics and organizational challenges. This multifaceted background uniquely positions her to contribute valuable impetus to initiatives aimed at fostering comprehension, continuous growth, and progress.
Tamara Huber (Bee360)
With her extensive experience as an industrial engineer, Tamara looks at IT management challenges from both a technical and business perspective.
As an innovation expert, she is aware of future developments. She has
gained practical experience at the interface between science and business in numerous innovation and transformation projects, which has sharpened her understanding of the associated challenges. Her holistic view of companies and her drive to develop comprehensible solutions for complex challenges bring new ideas and aspects to the composition of the management of IT organizations.
Sönke Claussen (Bee360)
Sönke draws on decades of experience when it comes to managing corporate IT from a holistic perspective. Over the years, he supported and drove transformations of various firms in B2B and B2C industries. He is a generalist with an eye for details – whether it is the joint conception of a digital strategy or the precise implementation in various areas. His rich background enables him to draw the bigger picture and determine the right lever for driving change.
Andreas Polak (Flender GmbH)
As the Group CIO Andreas is responsible for the global IT organisation, which was spun off from
Siemens in a complex project in 2001, following the sale of Flender to The Carlyle Group. He has
successfully established his IT department as a valuable business partner. He is currently focusing on
achieving the optimal balance between internal and external IT resources, having used an innovative
methodological approach to determine the competencies and costs of the IT organisation. Prior
to joining Flender, he began his career as a global infrastructure specialist at BT Global Services,
occupying various roles at different levels. He then assumed the role of Head of Infrastructure, Voice
and Security Operations at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.
Nora Legittimo (Marantec Group)
Nora Legittimo has been part of the management team at the Marantec Group since January 2025.
She is responsible for Corporate Transformation & Digitalization. Previously, she spearheaded
transformation at Schöck and led the development a
Stefan Orbach (Herrenknecht AG)
Stefan is an internationally experienced senior IT executive with 30+ years of extensive experience in
strategy alignment, business process optimization, digitalization and IT-Management.
He spent the first half of his career in consulting and switched after 15 years into various CIO, CDO
& process optimization roles in discrete manufacturing. Currently he holds the position of the CIO at
Herrenknecht AG, one of Germany’s hidden champions and world leader for tunnel boring machines.
