How do you measure whether or not you have enough IT resource to support the needs of your business?
Is there a key metric you watch? A productivity or financial ratio? Is there any industry information to compare to?
We are a distributor with a large online presence, supported by an in-house sales and customer service team, so we are fairly invested in technology, but struggle to figure out how to know if we need more (other than it just “feels” like it).
The best guideline might be your IT spend as a percent of your revenue. Most industries have a ratio of 3-9 percent. Financial industry tends to spend more and Government tends to spend less. If you are less than 3 percent you know that you need more at least based on statistics. The better question to ask is “Is IT providing sufficient value in your business?”. A business/IT assessment can reveal the answer to this question. If you have good IT governance or a good CIO, you should know the answer to this question. Please e-mail me at mgarg@ viellc.com if you want to discuss more.
Manoj Garg