Just as with any service, making sure your IT support runs effectively and efficiently is imperative to your business’s everyday functionality. When things go wrong with your tech and you have no idea how to fix it, it can be daunting waiting on your IT team to react to the issue in a timely manner. For many, it can feel like your IT support behaves a little like this:
By measuring IT performance in your company, you can assess whether your support resources are in fact like Roy from the IT Crowd or not. Some things to look at when doing an IT performance review are:
IT issues are addressed quickly and in order of priority and impact
Your IT support service should understand what is of highest importance and impact as they occur in your business. Timesheet reviews can be an indicator of how much time is spent on certain problems, when they were received and when they were actioned. By measuring IT performance without direct interaction, you reduce the risk of micromanaging your IT support and potentially affecting your review.
IT documentation is always up to date and thorough
If your IT support resources aren’t providing up-to-date documentation, especially for growing companies with maturing needs, there may be reason for concern. As a standard procedure, your IT support should be handling their own IT performance reviews on your company’s software and data to ensure it’s working at its optimal level. At each stage of your company’s life, you should receive reports showing a need for upgraded tech and software from your IT support. If you haven’t seen this, or you know that your IT documents haven’t been renewed in more than 18 months, your IT support resources may not be performing adequately.
Your IT resources operate a help desk system with a pre-set service level agreement for response times and tracking of all work
A ticketing system is the easiest way for your IT support to handle problems, which should be part of the help desk operation. An SLA (Service Level Agreement), on the other hand, acts to give general details for tasks. An SLA should include:
- Availability and uptime — the percentage of the time services will be available
- The number of concurrent users that can be served
- Application response time
- The schedule for notification in advance of network changes that may affect users
If your current IT support system doesn’t include a help desk system and SLA for response times, your IT performance review will show issues in the time management of administerial tasks like responding to issues and handling queries.
The IT team adhere to a budget for operational and capital spending
Creating and adhering to a budget is the same across each division of your company, and should be no different for your IT support service. Budgeting helps your company to gain an insight into where funds are failing and even provide room for growth. By reviewing your budget each year and assessing what’s working and what’s not in your IT department, you have clear facts that will guide your spend in the future.
The business leverages the IT team for strategic planning and growth activities
Global research company, Gartner, said it best: “IT strategy is the discipline that defines how IT will be used to help businesses win their chosen business context.” In fact, business strategy has new opportunities created by IT which is increasingly changing the landscape for the workplace. Employees are now able to work remotely, share data seamlessly and in real time and reuse information stored for one purpose to suit another. Done correctly, with the use of the right IT support services, your company can gain the benefits of an IT strategy.
