Chapter 4(Measuring the sucess of strategic initiatives)

MEASURING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY’S SUCCESS

1)Key performance indicators(KPIs)-the measures that are tied to business drivers those KPIs

2)Metrics are the detailed measures that feed business intelligence that is neither   technology-nor  business-centered,but this area requires input from both IT and business professionals to find success.

3)Performance metrics fall into a nebulous area of .

 EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS 

1)Efficiency IT metrics-measure the performance of the IT system itself including through output,speed,and availability

THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS IT METRICS

Efficiency IT metrics focus on technology and include :

•      Throughput - the amount of information that can travel trough a system at any point
•      Transaction speed - the amount of time a system takes to perform a transaction
•      System availability - the number of hours a system is available for users
•      Information accuracy - the extent to which a system generates the correct results when executing the same transaction numerous times
•      Web traffic - includes a host of benchmarks such as the number of page views, the number of unique visitors, and the average time spent viewing a Web page
•      Response time - the time it takes to respond to user interactions such as a mouse click

Effectiveness IT metrics focus on an organization’s goals, strategies, and objectives and include:

•      Usability – The ease with which people perform transactions and/or find information. A popular usability metric on the Internet is degrees of freedom, which measures the numbers of clicks required to find desired information.
•      Customer satisfaction – Measured by such benchmarks as satisfaction surveys, percentage of existing customers retained, and increases in revenue dollars per customer.
•      Conversion rates – The number of customers an organization “touches” for the first time and persuades to purchase its products or services. This is a popular metric for evaluating the effectiveness of banner, pop-up, and pop-under ads on the Internet.
•      Financial – Such as return on investment (the earning power of an organization’s assets), cost-benefit analysis (the comparison of projected revenues  and costs including development, maintenance, fixed, and variable), and break-even analysis (the point at which constant revenues equal ongoing costs).