Tool consolidation in an era of budget scrutiny: A federal IT leadership blueprint

BlackHays

3 hours ago

Originally published Tool consolidation in an era of budget scrutiny: A federal IT leadership blueprint on August 15, 2025 03:46 by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2025/08/tool-consolidation-in-an-era-of-budget-scrutiny-a-federal-it-leadership-blueprint/ at Federal News Network

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Federal IT environments didn’t become complex overnight. Over decades, agencies adopted tools piecemeal to solve immediate problems — whether to meet compliance deadlines, respond to emerging threats, or support mission-specific applications. Each tool, chosen in good faith, added another layer to an already fragmented infrastructure. Today, the result is tool sprawl: dozens of isolated products operating across silos with limited integration, inconsistent visibility, and overlapping functionality.

This fragmentation is more than a nuisance, it’s a growing liability. The federal government spends roughly $100 billion annually on IT, and more than 80% of that goes to maintaining existing systems. Redundant licenses, overlapping toolsets, inconsistent training requirements and siloed data all inflate operating costs while degrading cybersecurity posture.

The Department of Government Efficiency has made its expectations clear: Federal agencies must deliver more with less. Meeting this mandate demands a rethinking of how IT is structured and managed, beginning with consolidating tools and reducing technical debt.

Building a plan for tool consolidation

Consolidating tools is not a one-time procurement decision; it’s a modernization strategy. Successful agencies will enact a phased collaborative plan that involves multiple teams and aligns with the operational mission, security requirements, and makes the most of existing technical investments.

Step 1: Conduct a comprehensive audit

Before beginning each journey, you must understand your starting point. In this case, what tools are in place? Document the following:

What each tool does.
Who is using the tool.
Licensing and support details, including costs.
Overlap with other tools.
Which platforms (if any) the tool integrates with.
Total cost of ownership, including training.

Step 2: Define mission-critical requirements

Establish your goal, detail what the agency is trying to achieve, and what is necessary to reach this goal. Prioritize:

Regulatory compliance (e.g., EO 14028, CISA BODs, FedRAMP, DISA STIGs).
Agnostic visibility across multi-cloud and complex on-prem environments.
Current monitoring and actionable alerting.
Support for efficient incident response.
Exportable reports or dashboards for non-technical stakeholders.

This work will delineate which capabilities are mission-critical, which are desirable but not mandatory, and which tools no longer serve an operational purpose.

Step 3: Prioritize platforms that support multiple vendors and consolidate functions

Federal agencies shouldn’t just replace one tool with another — they should look for platforms that consolidate functions, reduce manual overhead, and enhance interoperability. Gartner research shows that consolidating standalone cybersecurity products into broader platforms reduces total cost of ownership while improving cyber readiness.

Effective platforms should offer:

Multifunctional capabilities: Asset discovery, threat detection, configuration analysis and compliance reporting in a single interface.
Cross-team accessibility: A unified platform for NetOps, SecOps and compliance to access and act on the same data.
Vendor-neutral integration: Platforms must integrate with existing agency investments such as Splunk, ServiceNow, Infoblox, Itential, Ansible, Renable, Qualys, Rapid7.

Selecting tools that integrate with widely used platforms ensure that the existing investment is optimized while preventing unnecessary manual (and error-prone) work such as transferring data from a point-use tool to the platform.

Step 4: Establish evaluation criteria and involve stakeholders

Create a scoring system based on your operational priorities. Suggested categories:

Operational criticality and previous reliability.
Total cost of ownership and expected future budgetary requirements.
Exportability of data to currently used or planned tools.
Ease of use and team adoption.
Vendor roadmap and expected support for anticipated agency goals.

This evaluation process should include IT operations, cybersecurity, procurement and mission owners to ensure broad alignment.

Step 5: Build a phased implementation plan

Consolidation doesn’t happen all at once. Agencies should structure a roadmap that sequences changes based on:

Contract expiration dates.
System criticality.
Training requirements.
Interdependencies between tools.

Focus first on eliminating obvious redundancies or tools near end-of-support. Then pursue broader integration efforts that unify operations across departments. Track success metrics such as cost savings, time recovered and reduced incident response time.

Cost and productivity impact

Tool proliferation is expensive and measurable. A study by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) found that 75% of organizations use more than 20 cybersecurity tools, and nearly 30% use over 50. According to Forrester and Flexera, organizations typically overspend by 15–30% on IT software due to underutilization, overlapping features and integration inefficiencies.

Further, IDC reports that organizations that consolidate their tools can reduce tool-related costs by up to 30% and improve staff productivity by as much as 25%, largely by eliminating swivel-chair workflows and centralizing visibility.

For the federal government, where $80 billion of the $100 billion IT budget goes toward maintaining legacy systems, even modest efficiency gains could yield billions in savings for reinvestment in mission delivery.

Aligning with federal priorities

Tool consolidation also advances strategic federal initiatives like the GSA OneGov IT Modernization Strategy. By reducing redundancy and increasing standardization, consolidation directly supports goals to centralize procurement, improve IT transparency, and increase reuse across agencies.

It also complements mandates from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of Management and Budget that call for improved visibility, faster incident response and better data sharing across departments.

A strategic imperative

Tool consolidation is no longer just a cost-saving tactic — it is a strategic priority for mission assurance, superior cybersecurity and operational efficiency.

Federal IT leaders must adopt an enterprise mindset by assessing needs and attempting to address them in a holistic manner that supports the entire IT organization instead of serving one team or addressing one concern. Work as a collaborative cross-functional team to adopt integrated platforms that will evolve with your requirements and to address the ever-evolving threat landscape.

With structured planning, strong leadership and commitment to modernization, tool consolidation can help agencies deliver on the DOGE mandate to “do more with less” while increasing their ability to protect, respond and serve.

Scot Wilson is federal technical systems architect for Forward Networks.

Originally published Federal News Network