What is IT Maturity and why should it matter to my company?
IT maturity is a measure of a company’s adherence to IT industry best practice methods and processes.
The extent to which an IT support team can achieve these best practices, overall efficiency and productivity, customer satisfaction will increase. The performance of an IT support team is closely correlated to proper operational methods, traits and characteristics, all of which are measurable. Optimization of each of these methods and characteristics advance or mature overall IT service delivery performance.
IT service best practice measurables include aspects of running an IT service delivery team. These include areas such as standardization, documentation methodology, service request tracking, staffing, service time tracking, and more. These commonly accepted best practices are interdependent and the lowest performing characteristics fundamentally limit the overall ability to achieve best in class IT support.
Why does it matter if our IT is best in class?
Even though you are not in the business of IT, there is a direct correlation between IT maturity and cost, efficiency and scalability. Lower maturity IT is the most expensive, least efficient and will not scale up to accommodate company growth. In contrast, higher maturity IT drives down the cost per service request, achieves higher efficiency and predictably scales along with company growth.
As an example, let’s consider standardization. Standardization would be described as the extent to which technology standards are enforced across the majority of the organization.
- Troubleshooting is simplified since the number of variables are reduced, and can be handled by the lowest level support staff
- Lower cost of service provided and higher service quality through narrower technology standards
- Less training, a greater degree of specialization and expertise in IT staff training
- Lower cost of having the right parts on hand as spares due to limited number of stock required
- New user training and ramp up time is reduced due to consistency
The concept of IT maturity comes from an expert study of the highest performing IT support groups. Each best practice process and method have similar justifications and benefits but ultimately, cost, efficiency, and scalability justify the ROI on efforts towards achieving a high performing IT support team.
How do we measure IT maturity?
IT maturity is measured by comparing the IT service team’s operations, planning and processes to the industry best in class support characteristics. Through a questionnaire or benchmark, each of these process characteristics can be measured against best practices. The degree to which a company can successfully adhere to the best practices is an indication of their ability to leverage technology to their competitive advantage.
For a quick self-check of your score, you can take a self-assessment. See button below. For a more comprehensive evaluation of your IT service function, please contact us.
