The primary question is, ‘What is the cheapest way we can accomplish the intended outcome?’ We are not concerned with how we did it before or how everyone else does it.
The goal is to allocate as large a portion of the budget possible to functional spend. Does this spend help us to achieve our objective? Plug a cost/benefit analysis on top to justify it and you are good to go.
Clearly, the hardest part is not the budgeting or the justification. The hardest part is accurately defining and prioritising our objectives. Once we know what is critical and what is nice to have, it’s easier to fit it in the budget.
Now for the biggest question.
What outcomes do we actually want?