Archive for September, 2010

I am willing to bet this is the only place on the Web where you will find these two subjects discussed jointly.

I owe you additional efficiency ratios, but before I get to that, I am happy to share with you the birth of my third daughter, last week. As you probably gathered from reading my blog, my wife is into organic, natural stuff and as such insists on having her babies at home. As a supportive husband and a responsible guy, that makes me a “professional midwife.” So, just like with our first 2 daughters, I had the pleasure of personally delivering my babies at home. By now I am considered an expert.

Luckily, this time, the real professional midwife made it on time (unlike with my second daughter) so I had the comfort of backup if I screw up. All went fast and smooth.

While we are discussing a personal subject that needs to be done in an efficient way, it is probably a good idea to share with you efficiency ratios I typically see when managing personal computing: desktops, laptops, e-mail , mobile devices and so on. Usually not a huge portion of IT budget, anywhere from 5-10%, but still an area with potential for a lot of waste and customer satisfaction issues, so please don’t ignore it.

Here you go:
♦ Total Cost per PC
♦ # of PC’s/Corporate FTE
♦ # of PC’s/Personal Computing Support Personnel
♦ % of Laptops/Desktops
♦ # of Email Mailboxes/Corporate FTE
♦ # of Mobile Devices/Corporate FTE
♦ # of Total Printers/ Branches or locations
♦ % of Virtual Desktops/Physical Desktops

An important aspect of running your IT shop in a cost-effective manner aligned with business objectives is to measure efficiency ratios or metrics.

This, as everything in business, keeps you and your team in line with your plan and most importantly, gives you perspective, or in other words tells you how you compare to the herd, a general one or a more industry-specific one. This seems funny but it is extremely important in knowing where to focus your improvement efforts and where not to waste time.

What to measure is a very good question and the answer varies from business to business, but I will try and share our experience on what matters and what is most commonly used.

I will start with general Enterprise IT efficiency ratios, and in future posts will expand to specific areas within IT.

IT Spend as a % of Total Revenues
IT Spend as a % of Operating Expenses
IT Spend per Corporate FTE
IT FTE count/Corporate FTE count
IT Contractor Usage (% FTE In-house vs. Contractor)
IT Capital spend as a % of Total IT spend
IT Operation spend as a % of Total IT spend

As to what are the specific industry values one should expect for each one of these, that varies from industry to industry and probably requires a longer conversation than this post.

Hope this helps.