By Dale Vile

 

Industry best practices such as ITIL, COBIT and ISO equivalents are increasingly being discussed as a way of optimising IT service delivery. This research note looks at how best practices are being adopted in the area of internal IT support and the impact they can have on end-user satisfaction.

 

Online research study in which information was gathered from 2,630 respondents, predominantly ITC professionals from a mix of industries and company sizes, via a Web based questionnaire.

 

 

Overall, 11% of organisations appear to be committed to industry best practices for internal IT support delivery. A further 25% review best practice guidelines but just extract and apply selected ideas they think are relevant to them. The remainder do not see the relevance, are too busy just getting on with things to take notice, or are simply unaware that best practices exist in this area.

 

Activity varies by industry, with the highest levels of commitment in financial services and the public sector. We see a slight variation by geography, with Europe generally ahead of the USA and the rest of the world. The most striking differences observed, however, are by organisation size. Large enterprises are five times more likely to be committed to IT support best practices than smaller companies at the other end of the spectrum, who often say finding the time and the resource for implementation is too hard.

 

In terms of effectiveness, indications are that best practice adoption drives a significant increase in end user satisfaction with IT support when applied in a large enterprise environment. The picture for midsize organisations is less conclusive, however, with a suggestion that better results can be achieved from selective adoption of specific ideas rather than full-blown implementation of best practice guidelines.

 

 

The lesson from these findings is that it is certainly of benefit for large organisations to consider the adoption of industry best practices. Most of the best practice guidelines in this area were originally conceived as a way of optimising processes in larger and more complex environments, so there is a good match, which can give rise to the positive results observed.

 

Midsize and smaller companies, however, should analyse the cost/benefit very carefully before driving down the industry best practice route and unquestioningly committing to guidelines that may not have been designed with their scale of operation in mind.

 

Over the course of time, it is possible that “light” versions of popular best practices will emerge that are more suitable for adoption by small and midsize organisations. In the meantime, the advice to smaller organisations in particular is to pay attention to developments in this area, extracting useful ideas as appropriate and practical.