Good is not good enough, and the aspiration for innovation, integration, alignment and digital disruption seems to be fuelling the demand for the benchmarking discipline ever more
An IT Benchmark is a crucial management tool. It ranks first in EMEA and a second globally in a list of management disciplines. It is no surprise that more business and technology leaders seek to dispassionately baseline the present IT state and contrast it against peers. Obtaining a metrics based and therefore clear and unbiased perspective helps businesses to identify the best optimisation and transformation avenues.
Furthermore, the ability to learn from the environment is necessary for evolution. Modern businesses demand continuous improvement to gain a competitive edge or improve efficiency. This is increasingly achieved through best-in-class technology strategy, alignment and delivery. Improvement is however, difficult without knowing the exact starting point. An IT benchmark will provide that by helping to draw an accurate ‘line in the sand’.
There are multiple reasons for carrying out an IT benchmark and contrary to popular belief improving performance, cost-efficiency and processes need not be contradictory objectives. Traditionally, an IT benchmark is undertaken periodically, to reassure management of good value service, with the primary objective to assess relative efficiency of the IT spend. In some instances the main reason for an IT benchmark to be commissioned is to explore the challenges in troubled transformational programmes.
Broadly speaking there are four popular reasons for measuring, benchmarking and monitoring key metrics of IT services:
However, it is worth noting that not all executives who have carried out an IT benchmark had their expectations met. This is largely because the analysis performed was not granular enough and thus able to provide only high-level trend comparisons. None or few actionable insights for decision support and planning changes or improvements can be derived from such high-level reports and surveys.
ImprovIT understand these limitations and have developed an improved approach to IT assessment and benchmarking of IT costs called Metrics Driven Analysis.
In recent years IT benchmarking studies are being increasingly used as the sharp-end of a multi-pronged approach to develop the most appropriate IT Strategy:
Good is not good enough, and the aspiration for innovation, integration, alignment and digital disruption seems to be fuelling the demand for the benchmarking discipline ever more. The imperatives and debates being addressed require the diagnostic and analytical value only an IT benchmark can deliver.
Let us know your details and we will get back to you soon.