The ROI of Support Part I

Each month, I highlight one Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for service and support. I define the KPI, provide recent benchmarking data for the metric, and discuss key correlations and cause-and-effect relationships for the metric. The purpose of the column is to familiarize you with the KPIs that really matter to your organization and to provide you with actionable insight on how to leverage these KPIs to improve your performance!

This month, I begin a two-part series on Return on Investment (ROI) for service and support. In part 1, I’ll define how value is created in IT service and support. Next month, in part 2, I will go through a case study that calculates the ROI for a particular support organization.

Most IT departments can tell you how much they spend on support. But very few can quantify the economic impact of support. The result is that many IT service and support organizations are on the defensive when it comes to budgeting and spending and often struggle just to get the funding needed to deliver adequate levels of support.

In recent years a handful of pioneering organizations have adopted a different strategy when it comes to support—a strategy that emphasizes value over cost—and they routinely deliver benefits far in excess of their costs. Support groups that understand and quantify their ROI gain a number of important advantages; chief among them is the ability to obtain funding and other resources based upon the economic benefits of the support they deliver.

IT support has the potential to deliver positive ROI in at least three ways.