The 7 KPIs for ROI from IT
How to ensure your business’s spend on IT is an investment, and never an expense
In the years we’ve been looking after businesses round here, we’ve noticed there are two different ways that owners and managers buy IT and technology.
- Some see it as an expense
- Others see it as an investment
We prefer to choose the second group. However, if you fall into the first group, we’ll explain how this isn’t the wisest idea for your business!
Don’t get us wrong; all businesses have moments where every last penny counts. That’s fine in the short-term. The problem is when that becomes the long-term driver of the business, and all spending decisions are made by asking “what’s the cheapest way to do this”. We’d rather deal with the second group of people. And certainly most of our existing clients fit into this category. This second group recognises that IT is their infrastructure; the backbone to their business. And they don’t want to take any risks on the quality.
No matter what kind of business you run, technology sits at the heart of it today. And it’s going to become more and more important in the future. Big thinkers see IT as a long-term investment. They understand the correlation between the short-term impact to cash flow, and the enormous long-term benefits of business growth, increased productivity and highly satisfied staff and customers. If you’re nodding your head and identify with what we’ve just written, we really should talk – our businesses sound like a good fit.
However, before you pick up the phone, here’s something else to think about. Just because our clients are big thinkers and are willing to invest doesn’t mean we don’t focus very, very hard on giving them an excel-lent ROI – Return On Investment. It’s a key driver for us when doing our technology planning and strategic reviews with clients.
As the saying goes, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure”. So here are 7 technology KPIs – Key Performance Indicators – that you could use to ensure you’re getting your return.
- Budgeted IT spend vs actual spend
- Percentage of infrastructure projects delivered on time, to budget and spec
- Average time to solve a problem
- Uptime vs planned/ unexpected downtime
- Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective
- Mean time between failures
- Mean Time To Recovery
Of course, there are other KPIs that you could measure to look even more deeply into your IT systems. But these are the ones we’d strongly recommend starting with. Not only will they give you a great insight into how well your current infrastructure is working for you, but they will also tell you a lot about how well your IT provider is performing.
Would you like help establishing the right technology KPIs for your business and measuring them?
We can help. Let’s talk t: 01522 718192 e: hello@lcsit.com
