Conversations from the Mirror42 Team

Meet Mirror42 at the Tooling Event in Utrecht, The Netherlands, from October 31 to November 1.

This article describes the concepts of Critical Succes Factors (CSF’s), Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), Metrics, and Outcomes & Benefits. It describes these concepts and it includes some examples within the context of IT service management.

This interesting blogpost made think of what is necessary from a management perpective when a company outsources (parts of) the IT infrastructure, applications, people and processes. The blogpost states, among others:

• SLA’s and KPI’s rule the day. Make them the centerpiece of periodic business reviews and use them to determine penalties and rewards.
• Include reward/penalty statements in each SLA/KPI.
• Importantly, require the provider to report how they are meeting the SLA’s and KPI’s, not just the volume.

But imagine what kind of information infrastructure is required to manage such outsourcing contracts based on SLAs and KPIs. Most often, companies tend to have a multi-vendor strategy, which suggests that with each vendor SLA/KPI information needs to be shared, and, for e.g. comparision and ease of reading, consolidated.

At Mirror42 we believe that this flow of this kind of information, not only from vendor to client but also vice versa, should be managed via a “Supply-and-Demand Information Hub”. This hub is responsible for connecting the IT management information flow between the supply-side (IT outsourcers) and the demand-side (clients), and if multiple vendors are responsible for the delivery chain, even between players on the supply-side.

This “Supply-and-Demand Information Hub” enables efficient and effective information sharing on for example SLAs and KPIs. In this world ‘old reporting technologies’ will not suffice, since the information is silo-ed either on supply or demand side. The hub, based on Internet technologies (such as webservices and RSS), enables collecting the relevant data and sharing it by distributing it in personalized dashboard-like ’spaces’ for members playing a part in the IT supply and demand chain. Envision a Facebook or Linkedin like network that enables sharing management information accross organizations, making sure that each member has the right information at the right time.

If you are interested in a demo or are interested how our customers implement these kinds of solutions, I would suggest that you visit our website for more information.

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p>KPI Library News, October 4 2007

The best rated KPIs in the category ‘IT Management’ as rated by our users are as follows: