Have you measured your IT performance lately?

Despite its apparent importance, the performance of IT continues to be measured in a haphazard and somewhat perfunctory manner. A study commissioned by HP has revealed that there is a growing need for IT performance measurements to be more automated and more closely aligned to organizational objectives in the APAC region.

According to the study in which senior business and technology executives from in Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore participated, while nine out of ten business recognize IT performance measurement as a critical tool, only half of them use actual measurement data to arrive at a decision pertaining to IT.

It is critical that businesses have real-time visibility into and control over the IT that underpins many of the innovations they provide to their customers and citizens. These include online payments, mobile solutions and social media services. Organizations need to manage not only the delivery of the services but have the right insight to balance resources and IT investments.

In the survey, more than 70 per cent executives said that IT should be measured against their organizations core performance metrics. However, actual findings revealed that the most common assessments of IT performance today are traditional IT metrics, such as quality of service (71%) and speed of ticket resolution (66%). Meanwhile, business-focused metrics, such as cost and customer satisfaction are used by only 56 per cent and 41 per cent of respondents, respectively.

As organizations use IT to communicate and deliver services to customers and citizens, it is critical that IT performance is measured against business metrics to ensure alignment with an organizations objectives.

The research also suggests that information silos are hindering alignment between IT and the organization. Only 44 per cent of executives said that IT performance information is shared widely across the organization. This figure underscores a deficiency in the important communications link between IT and the business.

The study also highlights a need for increased IT automation. More than 70 per cent of executives said that manual processes are part of their IT monitoring. Among those respondents, 71 per cent said manual processes add time to or delay valuable information and feedback to the organization. These delayscombined with insufficient IT measurementfurther hamper organizational agility. Air Max