IT Metrics

Companies striving to better manage the costs and quality of in-house or outsourced IT services can benefit greatly by the careful use of IT metrics. When well defined and intelligently applied, IT metrics can help a company gauge the current performance of its IT services, compare their performance to that of industry peers and top performers, and measure the impact of process improvement initiatives. With many businesses bringing renewed attention to IT costs and service requirements, The Hackett Group® recently completed a comprehensive study of IT metrics and service levels across a range of specific IT-service areas. The Hackett Group’s findings are valuable for companies needing guidance in developing service level management processes, including the effective use of IT metrics and service level agreements (SLAs).

Finding the right IT metrics for your business

It’s important to recognize that individual IT metrics vary both in their relevance to particular businesses and in their usefulness for reliable, efficient measurement. For example, in the case of IT metrics for help-desk performance, some metrics are universally relevant and easily measurable, such as call abandonment rate, speed to answer, and ticket resolution rate within target timeframe; while others are less easily measured or vary in relevance depending on the business context, such as customer satisfaction, user ID administration, and password resets. In any specific IT area, it’s essential to carefully assess what the potentially applicable IT metrics are, which of those IT metrics are most consequential for your particular business, and what will be entailed in accurately measuring and reporting on those metrics. It’s also valuable to know how typical companies in your industry perform by those IT metrics, and what level of performance is attained by industry leaders.

The Hackett Group can help you identify and apply the right IT metrics

As a leading global strategy consulting and operations consulting firm, The Hackett Group offers a range of services to help companies improve their IT operations, including executive advisory programs for IT executives, IT performance benchmarking, and consulting for IT strategy development and process transformation. We can help you to identify the IT metrics most important for your business, to measure your current performance and evaluate your performance in relation to peers and to top performers, and to identify and implement process improvements to drive greater efficiency and effectiveness in your IT operation. We also offer expertise in particular IT deployments such as Oracle implementation or SAP implementation.

With offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia and clients in nearly 60 countries, our team can help you navigate global process transformation challenges. We have provided business advisory and executive advisory solutions to nearly 8,425 companies across the globe, including 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials Index companies, 89% of the Fortune 100 and 70% of the DAX 40, helping deliver more than $90 billion in sustainable cost savings and more than $25 billion in improved cash flow.

To learn more about The Hackett Group’s IT consulting services as well as our solutions for other back-office needs such as business cost management or shared services design and implementation, contact us.