Benchmark approach

Benchmarking will establish the extent of an organization’s existing maturity with best practice and will help in understanding how that organization compares with industry norms. Deciding what the KPIs are going to be and then measuring against them will give solid management information for future improvement and targets.

A benchmark exercise would be used as the first stage in this approach. This could be either one or other of:

• An internal benchmark – completed internally using resources from within the organization to assess the maturity of the service management processes against a reference framework
• An external benchmark – this would be completed by an external third-party company. Most of these have their own proprietary models for the assessment of service management process maturity.

The results and recommendations contained within the benchmarking review can then be used to identify and rectify areas of weakness within the IT service management processes.

Viewed from a business perspective, benchmark measurements can help the organization to assess IT services, performance and spend against peer or competitor organizations and best practice, both across the whole of IT and by appropriate business areas, answering questions such as:

• How does IT spend compare to other similar organizations – overall, as a percentage of revenue, or per employee?
• How does IT spend compare for similar function s, e.g. payroll functions either within an organization or with other organizations?
• How does IT spend compare across business unit s or business process es?
• How does IT spend compare across locations or technologies?
• How effective is IT service delivery (and identify opportunities and measures for improvement)?
• Which is the most appropriate sourcing option?
• Is the value of a long-term sourcing contract being maintained year on year?

Benchmarking activities need to be business-aligned. They can be expensive exercises whether undertaken internally or externally, and therefore they need to be focused on where they can deliver most value. For internal service provider s, cost benchmarking can assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the IT unit. For external service provider s, especially outsourced service s, they can help to ensure the right IT services for the right price. Results of benchmarking not only provide a statement of performance, but can also be used to identify, recommend and plan improvements. They can also demonstrate value to the business and set targets for improvement levels, with subsequent benchmarking to assess achievement.

Comparisons of service performance and workload characteristics between peer organizations, the effectiveness of business process and the IT contribution to IT are also of value as part of a TCO assessment. Third-party specialists are available to conduct benchmarking and assessments, giving the business an external perspective and helping to lend credibility to the results and recommendations for improvements.

There is a variety of IT benchmarking types available separately or in combination, including:

• Cost and performance for internal service providers
• Price and performance for external service providers
• Process performance against industry best practice
• Financial performance of high-level IT costs against industry or peers
• Effectiveness considering satisfaction ratings and business alignment at all levels.

The context for benchmarking requires information about the organization’s profile, complexity and relative comparators. An effective and meaningful profile contains four key components:

Дата добавления: 2015-10-02