How Roto Frank’s Used EA to Build Transparent IT Costing With Ardoq

Export Pressure, a Cost Mandate, and a New CIO Who Needed Answers Fast

ike many manufacturers with a global footprint, it has felt the squeeze of the last few years. Export regulations, sanctions, and a volatile political climate put real pressure on management to reduce costs across the whole company, and IT was no exception.

Just over a year ago, a new CIO joined with a clear first challenge: bring IT costs down. That’s hard to do when nobody can say exactly where the money goes. Michael Bodenmüller, Roto Frank’s Lead (Enterprise) Architect, saw the opening immediately and went to his new boss with a simple pitch: before any architecture conversation, get transparency on what IT costs and why.

“It was interesting that me as an architect and the new CIO, we talked only about finance for the first 10 to 12 weeks. That was our main and daily topic, not technology.”
- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Michael had studied economics, not IT, so the pivot came more naturally than it might for most architects. More importantly, he understood where the priority sat. Management asked about cost, so cost became the core focus.

No Architecture Function and No Big Picture on Cost

When Michael joined Roto Frank four years ago, the company had no formal architecture management. Consultants brought in to help restructure the organization had recommended hiring an architect, and despite uncertainty about a new architecture function, leadership agreed. Like many companies that have grown over decades, no one team or person had the full view of what was connected to what, or why. The company could change, but without that data it was very hard to follow a clear strategy.

Leadership was keen to start with a tool. Michael pushed back and insisted on defining what they actually needed first, then running a proper evaluation. The original brief was an application inventory, and in hindsight he’s candid about its limits.

“If cataloging applications is your one and only challenge, sure, you can just use a spreadsheet. A lot of companies are failing with architecture because they only look at the application portfolio. You need it, but you also need to understand the portfolio’s wider context in the business.”
- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Without management backing beyond a willingness to “have it,” Michael knew there was a risk of this becoming an expensive tool that just held a list of applications. When management cost pressure arrived, the question changed. It wasn’t “What’s in our application portfolio?” but “What is the true total cost of ownership of an application, who actually uses it, and ultimately, is the value it provides appropriate in relation to its cost?”

Knowing who actually uses each application also creates the basis for fair and transparent cost allocation. When IT services are charged back to individual companies, costs can follow actual consumption: if a tool is used only in Brazil, there is no reason for Austria to pay for it.

Behind each line of spend sat layers of hidden complexity. A cloud subscription might carry ongoing consulting and third-party support. An on-premises application might run on separate virtual machines for the database and the application, plus interfaces, single sign-on, and a data center behind them. Even the basics could be painful to find.

“If you do not have a well-maintained repository, you end up spending a lot of time writing emails and digging for files. And even after all that, you’re never sure what you have is the latest version.”
- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

How Roto Frank Implemented and Leveraged Ardoq

A License Model That Doesn't Punish Success

Michael evaluated five or six tools before reaching a shortlist. He knew LeanIX well from previous roles, and with Roto Frank's strong SAP footprint and SAP's acquisition of LeanIX, it was a natural candidate. Bizzdesign was also on the list for consideration, since another division had already signed up for it.

Ardoq's modern user interface made the first impression, but the deciding factor was commercial. Ardoq's core platform is licensed enterprise-wide, so growing adoption doesn't mean going back to the CFO for more money every time a new team wants in.

"The worst that can happen to you is if you're successful with the tool, you have to pay more."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Today, when colleagues ask whether their team can get access, the answer is easy. "If I open the door, you are in. There are no additional costs. It's just a matter of access control."

From Application Inventory to an IT Bill of Materials

Roto Frank started where most do, with an applications workspace, and then extended it to demands and projects, since every demand either asks for something new or changes something that already exists. Moving from ServiceNow to HaloITSM as the IT service management platform meant rebuilding some technical data along the way, but the foundation held. Ardoq now provides them with cost insights into IT for their 32 legal entities worldwide and 776 applications.

The heart of the cost work is a service model Michael designed in Ardoq. Alongside traditional business services and technical services, he added a third type, people services, to handle personnel and overhead costs that need tighter protection. Services stack in layers, up to eight or nine deep, from the business service a department consumes down to the infrastructure behind it. Virtual machines are now priced individually based on their CPU, RAM, and storage, so the full cost of running the data center rolls up into a specific price for each machine.

"It's like putting together a bill of materials of services from different teams and products consumed directly. For example, the infrastructure team delivers infrastructure services, and they also now get a clear price for delivering this service. This is transparency we have never had before."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

The model also covers fixed assets. Subscriptions dominate modern IT spend, but hardware and other capitalized IT investments still contribute to the total cost of ownership, so every piece of data needed for the calculation lives in Ardoq.

Michael is quick to credit the people behind the build, too. For him, another key success factor was the close collaboration between architecture and implementation. Christian Herzog, an experienced senior developer, worked alongside him with a strong hands-on mentality and a knack for translating architectural ideas into working solutions. Michael calls that partnership instrumental in turning the vision into reality.

People Data That Maintains Itself

Bringing people into Ardoq early was a deliberate choice. Using the Microsoft Entra connector, Roto Frank pulls in each employee's department, location, job title, and cost center, which later proved essential for invoicing. Michael timed this with a parallel project connecting the HR system to Entra, which helped make the case.

Entra group memberships now feed calculated fields in Ardoq. Because access to an application like Microsoft Copilot is granted through an Entra group, Ardoq knows who holds a license without anyone maintaining it by hand.

A Partnership That Shapes the Product

Michael has spent more than five years working inside software companies himself, so he knows how hard it is to balance one customer's requests against everyone else's. He's been impressed by how quickly Ardoq listens and acts. Several of Roto Frank's feature requests are now part of the product, including the export button that later helped retire about 70% of their reports.

"I'm now very happy with my decision because we are working so well together. It's a real partnership."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Key Outcomes With Ardoq

1) Fair, Transparent IT Invoicing Across Every Entity

Roto Frank's promise to the business is simple: IT costs will be transparent and fair. Each company can now see how its charges are calculated, what it pays for employees, cost centers, and legal entities, and where it can reduce costs by unsubscribing from services. Getting there took four to five months from the start of the finance work to the first invoices. Michael is quick to point out that the data model was only half of that effort.

"It took four to five months. In the end, it depends on how fast you can build the data model and also convince the relevant stakeholders to deliver data and work closely with you. In my opinion, this is only possible with top management support and prioritization."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Two complex reports built in Ardoq make this work. The first consolidates the IT charge for each company, using three consumer types: individuals through their Entra groups, cost centers for team resources such as shared virtual machines, and legal entities for company-wide services allocated by headcount. The second, requested by the controlling department, breaks each company's charge down to cost center level. Together they give finance a base for both invoicing and budget forecasting, and the CFO now relies on the outputs.

Transparency also changes how cost conversations happen. Michael's own Ardoq subscription is broken into components, so if budgets ever get tight, his boss can see exactly what each piece costs instead of facing an all-or-nothing decision.

2) 70% Fewer Reports to Maintain

Many of Roto Frank's reports existed for one reason: someone saw the data and asked for it in Excel. After Roto Frank proposed it, Ardoq added the ability to export inventory data directly to Excel and JSON. That removed the need for most of those workaround reports almost overnight.

"We got rid of about 70% of our reports, because we now had an easy way to get data out of Ardoq into other tools."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

The remaining reports are mostly about data quality. They have weekly cleanup reports flagging services with missing relationships or no service manager, giving colleagues a clear nudge on what to fix.

3) Leadership Self-Serves With Ardoq's AI Assistant

The CIO took to Ardoq's AI assistant straight away. Once the finance data was in Ardoq, he started prompting it daily for the answers he needed, and stopped asking for dashboards.

"The moment he got the assistant, he never asked for any dashboard again. The questions he had, he can now ask directly."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Michael has used the AI assistant in ways he suspects the product team never planned for, including generating a full invoice as a markdown file from Ardoq data. He's also used it for business continuity stress tests, asking what happens if a specific developer of a custom-built solution leaves the company. For him, the payoff with the AI assistant is less time spent on cosmetic dashboard requests and more time on architecture.

"With dashboards, people tend to keep coming back with tweaks and changes. Now with the assistant, people can access the information directly themselves, and this frees my time to focus on what management cares about most."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Michael’s Advice to Enterprise Architects

If management has a key focus area and you don't address and prioritize it, this is always a bad idea. Management is always your main customer.

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Michael hears the same complaint from architects at other companies: no management support. His answer is to meet leadership where they already are. For Roto Frank, that meant cost, and finance data turned out to be the fastest route to backing that years of architecture arguments hadn't secured. He's clear it's a starting point. The full application portfolio, the tech stack, data privacy, and security all still matter, and connecting more data makes every strategy easier to follow.

He's equally clear about who architecture serves. Rather than building a large team of architects, his goal is to give the organization a framework, governance, and tools so teams can design solutions themselves, with business people who understand IT and IT people who understand the business.

"Never forget, it's all about business. I like IT, I work in IT, but we're here to support the business and not just to celebrate ourselves."

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

Live Integrations, Contract Data, and Company-Wide Answers

The least glamorous goal is the one Michael cares about most: valid, current data. Much of what feeds Ardoq today, from SAP, fixed assets, and HaloITSM, still arrives as periodic file imports. He has already written the solution designs for event-driven integrations, so that when a new supplier and contract appear in SAP or HaloITSM, Ardoq knows within seconds. Next is contract data, bringing renewal dates, costs, and subscribable components into the same model.

Roto Frank has also started connecting Ardoq to its company GPT through Ardoq’s MCP server. Michael sees this as the step that takes Ardoq’s data to people who don’t know it exists. For example, they can ask where the legal entity in Brazil is registered, and the answer comes from the architecture repository, with a link back to the source.

“Lifecycle and contract data make much of the future IT workload predictable. It shows us how much capacity will be needed for mandatory maintenance and renewal activities, how much remains for new initiatives, and where we need to strengthen critical resources and capabilities early.”

- Michael Bodenmüller, Lead (Enterprise) Architect at Roto Frank

With IT Strategy now part of his remit, Michael wants to spend more time on strategic portfolio work: connecting processes, business capabilities, and applications into a target architecture for the next one to three years. That matters for a group that regularly acquires smaller companies, each arriving with its own ERP system. He’s also exploring process modeling with Ardoq ShiftX, which would let him frame IT risk in the language of business continuity and risk management. His closing advice to himself is the same he’d give anyone: “Never give up.”

About Roto Frank

Roto Frank is a family-owned German manufacturer of window and door hardware, roof windows, and related services, headquartered in Leinfelden-Echterdingen near Stuttgart. Founded in 1935, the Roto Group operates through three divisions: Window and Door Technology, Roof and Solar Technology, and Professional Service. With 18 production sites and a net turnover of EUR €861.1 million in 2025, it supplies customers worldwide.