IT isn’t just an expense – it’s an investment in your business’s growth. But how do you know whether your investment is working out? Our 7 KPIs will help you measure ROI when paying for professional IT support.
At Perigon One, we’ve spent several years now supporting Australian businesses with their IT needs. And we’ve noticed that business owners tend to view IT support in one of two ways: either as an unwelcome expense, or as an opportunity to invest.
We’re not talking about the amount you spend. Some businesses have smaller budgets than others. It’s really about seeing IT as a tool that will help your business evolve, not as something you shell out for when you absolutely have to.
If the former describes your IT strategy, great! But how do you know whether your investment is working out? In this post, we’ll give you seven key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you get a handle on your ROI (return on investment) when it comes to paying for professional IT support.
Disclaimer: Our IT support is personalised, so we may not use every KPI with every client. We’re listing them here as a general guide.
Budgeted vs. actual spend
Long-term forecasting is a crucial part of any IT strategy. Investing in the right kind of good-quality infrastructure will make sudden, unexpected failure far less likely – so your costs will be a lot more predictable.
Percentage of infrastructure projects delivered on time, to budget and to spec
Tracking this percentage allows you and your IT support partner to see how well your partnership is really working, and exactly where extra time and cost need to be factored in.
Average time to solve a problem
Every IT problem is different. Some are a “turn it off and on again” situation and others need in-depth diagnostics. Some are urgent and others can afford to wait a while. The more information you give your IT partner during onboarding, the more effectively they can triage issues and reduce that average time.
Uptime vs. (planned/unexpected) downtime
Minimising downtime is a priority for any good IT support partner. Not just planned downtime for maintenance and updates, but also unplanned downtime. The latter can’t be eliminated totally – some things, such as local internet outages, are beyond anyone’s control. However, proactive IT support can do a lot to bring the overall proportion down.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
These two technical terms relate to data backup. RPO is about how often your data needs to be backed up. How critical is it, and how often does it change? RTO relates to what happens if your data needs to be restored. How long can your business hold out until the process is complete? The more critical the system, the lower both these values will be.
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
Tracking MTBF is an incredibly useful measure. You get a real-time view of how well your systems are working and how reliable your IT infrastructure actually is. Often, this is different to your own perception – for better or worse!
Mean Time To Recovery (MTTR)
When that failure does happen, how long does it take to get back to full function? That’s MTTR, and it tells you how effective your current IT infrastructure and strategy are.
Depending on your business, some of these KPIs may be more useful than others. If you want support to choose and apply the best ones for you, Perigon One can help. Just get in touch to schedule your free 15-minute consult.
