This week you create Reynolds' budget. This is a capital budget, so there's no need to address salaries. Be specific, show your numbers in an Excel spreadsheet, and defend your numbers in the executive summary.

MicrosoftExcelspreadsheet proposing the Reynolds Tool & Die company's IT operations' annual budget, including maintenance, licensing, and any proposed new investments, such as hardware, software, cloud services, and/or outsourcing.

NOTE: I will ONLY accept an Excel spreadsheet for this assignment.

executive summary defending your budget choices in terms of innovation and efficiency.

IT Budget

This is a two-part assignment. For this assignment, you are the Chief Information Officer, or CIO, of Reynolds Tool & Die. To complete this assignment, you will:

1. a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet proposing the Reynolds Tool & Die company's IT operations' annual budget, including maintenance, licensing, and any proposed new investments, such as hardware, software, cloud services, and/or outsourcing.
2. executive summary defending your budget choices in terms of innovation and efficiency.

Part 1: Spreadsheet

The example spreadsheet that begins on page 2 is a rough suggestion of an annual, itemized budget. You will create your budget in Microsoft Excel. Your budget headings may vary, but your budget needs to be as specific as possible. Within each category, you should include purchases for the IT strategic plan. For example, if, as the CIO, you are contemplating moving applications to a cloud solution, your budget needs to reflect that process. If you are implementing or expanding VMWare as a virtualization solution, your budget needs to reflect those purchases.

The actual numbers can be approximate. A little research can point you in the right direction. For example, desktops run about $200-$300. You can use approximate figures for items such as licenses, maintenance agreements, servers, etc. Just make sure you have some justification (i.e., references) for the numbers you use.

Part 2: Executive Summary

Your executive summary needs to explain your budget. Possible headings include:

1. Predictable Annual Expenditures

Simply put, fixed operational expenditures keep the lights on. They are mainly hardware and software maintenance items, licensing, etc. These are expected costs of doing IT business. If, however, you are purchasing more hardware or software that will require additional annual maintenance and license agreements, you'll need to defend those purchases and the annual expenditures that will remain for the company.

1. New Purchases

Any new purchases you recommend need to be justified. Why are you purchasing them? What benefit do you expect from the purchases? You'll need to justify the purchases relative to the previous week's assignmentsReynolds' business situation and goals. For example, how will a new investment in hardware, software, or services achieve a competitive advantage for the company? What do you think the company needs to purchase to achieve its expansion goals? How much will outsourcing cost?

1. Special Projects and Long-term Strategic IT Investments

As CIO, you need to look at technologies in the context of long-range strategic planning. Think of this section as your wish list. The investments in this category may not help the organization achieve its short-range goals, but they're considered a long-term investment in innovation to remain competitive. For example, a manufacturing facility may consider artificial intelligence and robotics as a long-range plan.

Example Spreadsheet

Your spreadsheet should look, roughly, like this:

Annual IT Budget for Reynolds Tool and Die

	JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEPT	OCT	NOV	DEC
Capital Purchases - Hardware
Servers	5000
Switches		600
Routers
Desktops		2300
Laptops		500
Mobile Devices
Printers
Firewalls
Capital Purchases - Software
CRM
ERP
MS Office
Security (endpoint)
Security (servers)
Mobile Management
Desktop Management
Virtualization
Specialty Software

	JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEPT	OCT	NOV	DEC
Maintenance - Hardware
Servers
Desktops
Routers
Switches
Firewalls
Mobile
Printers
Firewalls
Maintenance/Licensing - Software
CRM
ERP
MS Office
Mobile Management
Desktop Management
Virtualization
Special Projects
Outsourcing
Cloud
Managed Services
Monthly Totals
TOTALS: