Open Access

Digital transformation urges organizations to strategically invest in information technology (IT) to keep up with the competition. The responsible strive to choose the right digital initiatives that can maximize the benefit. Thereby, they still struggle to communicate IT costs and demonstrate the business value of IT. The goal of this paper is to get a deeper understanding of the perception of IT costs and business value and support their effective communication. Applying the focus group method, we analyzed in four interview sessions that stakeholders perceive IT costs and business value differently and that a common perception serves as the basis of communication. We then identified and evaluated 20 success factors to establish effective communication of IT costs and IT business value. Hence, this paper enables a better understanding of the perception and the operationalization of effective communication mainly between business and IT executives regarding IT costs and IT business value.