Are Your Budget Priorities Aligned with Business?

A recent article by Larry Bofante of the US Tennis Association raises some important points about making sure that your budget priorities are aligned with your organization:

• What is the return on investment for each item? Does that match with a priority of the organization's leadership? Does it provide a quantitative or qualitative benefit? If not, it needs closer examination.
• Lower your operational costs in order to be able to fund innovation and improvements rather than seeking additional funding.
• Does each project have a business sponsor? If it is not important enough to the organization to be able to recruit a sponsor, perhaps it is not important enough to be done.
• Can the project be done better or cheaper by an outside vendor? If so, make sure that the vendor will represent your organization right.