You are responsible for a pool of developers that are distributed across multiple “software factories”. A “software factory” means the organization that builds and maintains one single software system.
You are responsible for the costs of the developer workforce and the delivery effectiveness for the business side of your company (your customers).
You have “best-cost” all-star teams and also “low-cost” teams with average skills, e.g., provided by a far-shore vendor. To improve the cost-benefit ratio, you must make sure that many software systems are maintained by the low-cost teams and the best-cost all-star teams work on the systems with high importance to the business.
You are in the sandwich position between the demanding customers (business units) and the delivering IT organization. In cost-cutting situations, you are the unlucky one who needs to find suitable strategies with which the IT department delivers the same with fewer costs.