IT Key Performance Indicators that Need to be Tracked by Managed Services for Small and Medium Businesses

Without having goals set in place and metrics to evaluate the success of those goals, how do you know your business is doing as well as it should be? With IT key performance indicators (KPIs), you can keep track of the relevant aspects of your IT projects. They will help your projects to stay on time and on budget, with modern KPI software automating processes by generating immediate insights. The aim of good IT KPIs is to guide your decision-making strategy to improve your spending. Let’s talk about what factors managed services for small and medium businesses should consider consistently monitoring and measuring.

IT Support Tickets

Customer service software consists of tools that are used to organize and respond to requests for customer support, which come in the form of tickets. This KPI is both functional with regard to measuring how well your IT department operates, and transformational with how acceptable your customer experience is. Keep this in mind whether you are being supported by in-house IT staff or an outsourced managed service provider (MSP).

Number of Tickets Generated

You need to monitor the progress of your IT support tickets. If there are issues arising that are coming up again and again, track recurring issue trends. For instance, if certain computers keep having the same hardware problems, they may need to be replaced. Or if an employee has complications using a software, they may need more training. By standardizing your IT solutions, you save time on problem resolution and maximize employee productivity.

Mean Time to Respond to Tickets

When your business tracks IT support tickets, you should be looking at how long it takes for your IT staff or MSP to respond to and resolve tickets. This may show you that one member of your team is producing responses much more quickly than the rest. The mean time to respond (MTTR) is a service desk metric that shows the average time duration to resolve an issue. This information gives you an idea of whether your IT department staff has time management or training issues. Should you be using an outsourced MSP, it can be used to hold them to their Service Level Agreement terms.

Customer Satisfaction

As a small or medium business, you need to ensure that you can provide quick access to resources so that customers keep purchasing from you or working with you. It is a foundational KPI because it is the driving goal for service desk teams. Your aim should be to provide a first contact resolution. This is the percentage of incoming support requests that are resolved in a customer’s first interaction.

IT Infrastructure and Systems

When it comes to your technology performance, the information gathered in your KPI analysis can be used to maintain the efficiency of your systems at a lower cost. Consider factors like crisis management, security, and cost and time savings to determine how your resources should be distributed.

Server Downtime and Uptime

Managed services will minimize downtime for small and medium businesses alike. Your server performance management benefits from tracking the amount of time your IT infrastructure is not working. Downtime may either be planned for maintenance or unexpected from a system crash. With managed services taking a proactive approach to monitoring, you can secure a favorable uptime of 99.9%.

Mean Time Between Failures and to Recover

System failures include crashes and network connectivity issues. With the mean time between failures (MTBF), you see the average time between that system failure and its resolution. The mean time to recover (MTTR) is the average time it takes to repair that system in order to resume operations. On top of diagnostic and fixing time, this involves alignment, calibration, testing, and waiting.

Number of Successful Backups

Always back up your data. Managed services for small and medium businesses are well-versed in the best IT practices for protecting your sensitive information. One thing to keep track of with backups is your recovery point objective (RPO). This is the maximum amount of data you can afford to lose after a system failure. Your essential systems should have a low RPO, based on industry-specific factors, data storage, costs, and compliance requirements.

Total IT Spend vs. Plan

Looking at this metric shows you a comparison between your expected IT budget and your actual spending. This is a financial KPI that provides insight into the financial health of your small or medium business by measuring your economic growth and stability.

Money Saved in Negotiations

The money you have saved in the current fiscal year by negotiating vendor contracts showcases how much you benefit from having those extra conversations. As a contract management KPI, these negotiations are carried out with the intention of reducing contract risk. Make sure that your vendor relationship is going well so as to avoid future conflicts with operations and arrangements. If you are currently saving, have you been able to deliver longer-lasting, quality solutions?

Return on Investment

IT return on investment (ROI) analyzes the primary question of how profitable your investments are. It is measured by dividing the benefits from that investment cost. ROI shows you how efficient your IT spending has been. Keeping in mind all levels of performance relative to your projects, managed services for small and medium businesses will produce the right results to achieve desired outcomes for both employees and clients.

Percentage of On-Time Projects

This is the most common way to measure your business’s performance. When a project is complete, it has met specific requirements that fulfill your desired outcomes. You may choose to record this monthly, quarterly, and or annually so that you have a better sense of how much progress is being made throughout the year. If you continue to be on time, on budget, and on spec, or even the opposite case, you will know how to plan and assign projects accordingly.

Prioritizing the IT KPIs that measure your unique goals allows your business to focus efforts on specific areas of improvement. Your KPIs should look into quality, compliance, efficiency, economics, and resource utilization. By enhancing your performance management with fact-based information, you can tell the true story of your business and determine where the future is headed. No matter what product or service you are selling, your organization needs strategic and operational measures. At Centre Technologies, part of our services includes quarterly Technical Business Reviews (TBRs) with a dedicated vCIO that goes over some of these numbers. We’d love to hear from you to discuss what managed services your small or medium business needs to fulfill your goals.