An IT cost audit for a Czech subsidiary is a structured review of what the local company actually pays for in IT and what it gets in return: software licences, supplier contracts, cloud services, in-house capacity and running projects. To get results in weeks rather than months, list every contract and subscription, compare licences with real usage, and give each project an owner, a deadline and a budget. The hard part is the decision to stop something.
I am Jiří Lichý, and I see the same pattern in subsidiaries of foreign groups again and again. Local IT grows by accretion: a new system after an acquisition, a local supplier hired in an emergency, a project started under the previous managing director. Nobody at headquarters sees the full picture, and nobody on site has the mandate to clean it up.
When an IT cost audit for a Czech subsidiary makes sense
If you are a group CFO or regional director responsible for a Czech or Central European entity, these signals usually mean an audit is overdue:
- IT costs are rising faster than revenue and the local team cannot explain why.
- The IT department works in firefighting mode and planned projects keep slipping.
- Key know-how sits with an external supplier who is paid the same or higher rate year after year.
- After an acquisition or a change of management, several systems do the same job in parallel.
- Invoices arrive that nobody can assign to a project or a team.
The audit in six steps
The audit does not need months. One to two weeks of focused work is realistic if the person leading it has access to both the contracts and the people. This is the sequence that works:
- List all contracts and subscriptions. Go through twelve months of accounting records and card payments. Services nobody remembers are usually found here.
- Compare licences with real usage. For each piece of software, match the number of paid seats with the number of people who logged in during the last thirty to ninety days.
- Sort the external suppliers. For each one, record what they do, at what rate, and whether the activity belongs inside the company.
- List running projects. Write down the owner, deadline, budget and expected benefit of each. A project missing any of these four items is a candidate for stopping.
- Decide in order of impact. Cancel what is unused first, renegotiate overlapping services next, and move key roles in-house last.
- Set rules for the future. Simple SLAs, planned release windows and a quarterly cost review so the problem does not return.
The same logic applies to cash discipline more broadly. If the subsidiary is under liquidity pressure, see our guide to a 13-week cash flow forecast for a Czech subsidiary. An IT audit is one of the quickest ways to release cash.
Where Czech subsidiaries typically overpay in IT
I will not quote averages, because they differ from company to company. The places where findings appear, however, are remarkably consistent:
| Area | What to check | Typical finding |
|---|---|---|
| Software licences | Paid seats vs. actual logins | Unused licences left over from departed staff |
| External suppliers | Rates, scope, notice periods | Long-running work billed hourly that belongs in-house |
| Cloud and hosting | Environments nobody uses, oversized capacity | Test environments running for years without a purpose |
| Running projects | Owner, deadline, budget, return | Projects dragging on because a lot has already been invested |
| Overlapping systems | Several tools for the same function | Duplicates after an acquisition or a leadership change |
Why a spreadsheet is not enough for an IT cost audit
A spreadsheet and a good analyst will find the savings. Deciding is harder. Stopping a project that absorbed six months of work, or terminating a supplier on whom operations depend, takes a mandate and a willingness to carry the consequences. This is where audits usually end: a presentation is produced, but nobody acts on it.
In a retail chain with dozens of branches, our interim manager found dozens of unused licences, expensive external know-how and projects without owners within a week. He stopped three low-return projects and moved key roles in-house. The full story is in our case study: over CZK 16 million a year saved in IT.
Common mistakes in an IT cost audit
Most of the mistakes I see have little to do with technology. They are management mistakes:
- An audit without a mandate. Whoever runs the audit must have the right to stop or terminate something. Otherwise it ends as a list of recommendations.
- Cutting by invoice size. The biggest line is not necessarily the most wasteful. What matters is what the company gets for it.
- Protecting sunk costs. A project is not worth continuing just because a lot has already been invested. This is the hardest decision psychologically, and often the most profitable.
- Treating it as a one-off. Without regular review, unused licences and subscriptions build up again within a year.
- Losing know-how. When key roles move from suppliers to in-house staff, knowledge transfer must be planned, or the company saves money and loses operational stability.
Who should lead the audit
There are three realistic options, and each has its place:
- The local team. They know the company but often lack distance and time. People who run IT every day find it hard to judge their own decisions.
- An external consultant. Writes the recommendations and leaves. Works where it is already clear who will carry out the changes.
- An interim manager. Arrives without operational blindness, with a mandate from the owner and responsibility for the result. He or she does not only propose the changes but carries them out. It is the fastest route when you need an outcome, not a document.
If the problem reaches into the management of the whole subsidiary, consider an interim CEO. If it is mainly about budget and cost discipline, an interim CFO is the better fit. You can also browse our interim projects to see how similar assignments run.
FAQ
How long does an IT cost audit take in a mid-sized company?
The inventory and first findings take an experienced person one to two weeks, provided they can access contracts and people. The actual savings are then realised over several months, depending on contract notice periods.
What is included in an IT cost audit?
Licences and subscriptions, cloud and hosting, external suppliers, hardware, in-house capacity and running projects. Small subscriptions paid by card and projects that formally nobody owns are what get forgotten most often.
How much can an IT cost audit save?
Nobody can give you a credible general figure; it depends on how long IT has gone unchecked. In our retail case the saving exceeded CZK 16 million a year, but that is not a typical result. Every company is different.
Is an audit worthwhile for a small Czech subsidiary?
Yes. The smaller the company, the more visible the findings are in the budget. A simple inventory of contracts and licences and a few hours of conversations with the people who use the systems is enough to start.
Need someone on the ground to run it?
If you manage a Czech subsidiary from abroad and need a result in weeks, not years, contact Big Interim. We will tell you whether the audit can be led locally or whether an interim manager with a mandate is the better route.
