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Application Project Timeliness and Budget Metrics
Project performance is often measured in terms of on-budget or on-time, but most business units fail to understand the repercussions of project changes after work has begun.
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February 2012

Application Project Timeliness and Budget Metrics: With 57% of application development projects completed on-time, and 67% of projects delivered On-budget many IT organizations attribute their inability to meet project schedule to poor initial scope, project scope creep and resource constraints.

January 2012

2011 IT Spending as % of Revenue and 2012 Forecast: IT spending as a percent of revenue is the most common measure of total IT investment relative to top-line business results. IT spending as a percent of revenue needs to be considered in tandem with the context of business objectives, the rate of change and the overall circumstances affecting the numerator as well as the denominator.

Forecast Alert: IT Spending, Worldwide, 2008-2015, 4Q11 Update: Gartner's U.S. dollar growth forecast for global IT spending in 2012 has been revised downward from 4.6% in the previous quarter to 3.7%. Faltering global economic growth, the eurozone crisis and the impact of Thailand's floods on hard-disc drive production have taken their toll on IT spending.

December 2011

Leverage Benchmarking Clauses to Reduce Outsourcing Costs: Enterprises that outsource IT services should consider including benchmarking clauses in many of their contracts. Benchmarking reduces the price of outsourcing deals and ensures that contracts remain cost-effective and efficient.

Client & Peripheral Support FTEs as a Percent of Total IT FTEs: End-user computing staff makes up roughly 12% of the total IT FTE. Variables to consider in tandem with this metric include: IT staffing distribution: contract vs. insourced FTEs, the percentage of the environment outsourced (supported by a third party), as well as the evolving business requirements.

November 2011

IT Investment Relative to Business Scale and Operational Performance: IT spend as a percent of operating expense is another view of IT investment levels in terms of the role IT plays in overall business spending patterns.

October 2011

Project Management Staffing Metrics: Project managers take care of the administrative activities of application development projects with a view toward smooth operation and the achievement of its aims. Activities include coordinating, following up and scheduling the activities of the development teams.

September 2011

Strategic IT Spend to Run, Grow, and Transform the Business: Many organizations are challenged with communicating IT investment as it relates to business stakeholders. Classifying IT spend into categories that show impact on business outcomes or success can aid alignment and quantify underinvestment in information technology.

Measuring Application Support Assets & Activities for Improvements: Forty eight% of Applications spend is dedicated to support activities. By measuring Application Support spend distribution by assets class as well as by activity, organizations can gain insight into what cost areas are consuming applications support budget. More...

Windows Server: Cost per OS Instance: Best in class organizations measure cost efficiency metrics with the associated quantity and quality of services delivered. However, we find some organizations have difficulty taking inventory of the total cost structure. More...

Mainframe Cost per Installed MIPS vs. Mainframe Utilization: Mainframe cost per installed MIPS is often used to evaluate the relative cost efficiency level of the mainframe environment, although with only 67% of the environment utilized, many organizations find the need to dig beyond this metric.

August 2011

Unix Server Support FTEs as a % of Total IT FTEs: Understanding the relative level of IT support dedicated to an IT environment can also assist in identifying whether staff size is appropriate. Receive a complimentary report containing Unix Server Cost & Staffing measures from Gartner by completing a short survey.

Mainframe Cost per Installed MIPS vs. Mainframe Utilization: Mainframe cost per installed MIPS is often used to evaluate the relative cost efficiency level of the mainframe environment, although with only 67% of the environment utilized, many organizations find the need to dig beyond this metric.

Applications Staffing Metrics — Development vs. Support Contractor Use: The distribution of Applications staff helps to determine the level of external and "temporary" support applications receive. Higher levels of external support can expose an organization to risk of losing critical knowledge and processes that may leave when the contractors' terms are up.

IT Help Desk Annual TCO is Driven by Personnel Costs: The IT Help Desk environment is made up of Personnel and non-personnel (Hardware, Software, Transmission and Occupancy) related assets & expenses. While all of these are important, one category dominates the cost to support the environment.

Gartner Application Project Measures Study: Free Application Project Metrics for Participants Include: Percentage of Applications Projects Completed On Time; Variance From Planned Project Delivery Schedule; Percentage of Projects Completed on Budget; and Variance From Planned Project Budget.

July 2011

Outsourcing Dollars Managed per Vendor Management FTE increased 115%: All companies who outsource require internal resources to manage their contracts. IT outsourcing dollars managed per FTE helps to evaluate the level of workload supported by the vendor management support staff in terms of contracted outsourced dollars spent.

Data Loss Prevention Ranks as #1 Information Security Priority: While information security breaches remain at the top of global headlines, Intrusion Detection & Prevention had the largest drop in Information Security & Risk Management priority ranking (from 1 to 6 ranking) based on the IT Key Metrics Data 2011 publication.

Q2 Forecast Alert: IT Spending Worldwide: Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.67 trillion in 2011, a 7.1 percent increase from $3.43 trillion in 2010, according to the latest outlook. Gartner has slightly raised its outlook for 2011 from its previous forecast of 5.6 percent growth largely due to US dollar exchange rate fluctuations.

IT Spending Forecast, 2Q11 Update: The outlook for IT Spending growth in 2011 remains modestly positive despite a short-term downgrade in global economic growth. The time is right for the disruptive force that is cloud services to gain traction.

June 2011

Wintel Server Personnel vs. Non-Personnel Costs: Non-personnel expenses make up 55% of the annual TCO of a Wintel server environment. The degree in which an organization outsources can play a significant role in altering this distribution as can the depreciation cycle related to hardware or software investments.

Baseline Your IT Spend per Employee by Industry Sector: IT spending per employee is often used to determine the amount of IT support the average organization's workforce receives. This measure helps to establish a link between IT investment and automation levels within the context of the workforce that supports revenue.

Measuring Client & Peripheral Support Cost Efficiency: In terms of per unit cost efficiency, large organizations do have an advantage when it comes to economies of scale. However, as organizations grow in size, they tend to become more complex coupled with an elevated level of demand requirements.

Measuring Application Development Lifecycle & Spend Distributions: Distribution of work across the applications project lifecycle can be an effective measure to understand where time and effort are typically spent and can help identify opportunities for performance improvement.

May 2011

Voice & Data Network Cost per Employee Metrics Report: Complimentary Metrics Include: Data Network Budget/Cost as a % of Total IT Budget, Data Network Budget/Cost per Employee, Voice Network Budget/Cost as a % of Total IT Budget and Voice Network Budget/Cost per Employee.

Complimentary Enterprise Storage Management Metrics Report: Free Metrics Include: Installed Terabytes per Dedicated Storage Support FTE, Storage Cost per Installed Terabyte, Hardware % of Storage Cost, Software % of Storage Cost, Personnel % of Storage Cost, DR % of Storage Cost, and more...

Complimentary IT Outsourcing & Vendor Management Metrics Report: Free Metrics Include: IT Outsourcing spend as a percentage of IT budget by industry, dollars managed per vendor management FTE, service distribution by function, service satisfaction level by function, and more...

IT Budget: Information Security & Risk Management Spend Metrics: Free Information Security & Risk Management Metrics Include: IT Security Spend as a % of IT Spend — By Industry, IT Security Spend Per Company Employee, Distribution of Security Spend: Hardware, Software, Personnel, Outsourcing, Information Security Priorities, and more...

Client and Peripheral Support Metrics for Survey Participation: Annual Client & Peripheral Support costs consume roughly 11.2% of the total IT budget. As complexity and demand increases, cost metrics should be positioned alongside quality and quantity metrics to provide a complete picture of IT services delivered in the context of increased user demand.

April 2011

Free Application Support Metrics with Survey Participation: Annual IT Application support & maintenance of existing systems consumes roughly 48% of the Applications budget, with the total Applications spend (development and support) driving 34% of the total IT budget.

Unix Cost Efficiency, Complexity and Demand considerations: While total OS instances represent total capacity under management, it should be considered within the context of business requirements (service levels); utilization levels, virtualization density, and overall enterprise compute strategy.

Q1 Forecast Alert: IT Spending Worldwide: Overall IT forecast growth in U.S. dollar terms has been revised up from 5.1% to 5.6% for 2011 and from 4.4% to 4.5% for 2012.

IT Spending Forecast, 1Q11 Update: While there remain budget challenges for both enterprises and consumers, there is at least a willingness to look forward and plan for a more optimistic future. It is in this environment that IT will flourish, enabling new usage models and new growth opportunities.

March 2011

Measuring IT Tactical Spending to Provide Transparency: The distribution of spending between hardware, software, personnel, and outsourcing costs can show the dynamics of IT investments. To best understand the value of such high level metrics, best practice is to understand what may be driving these investments directionally.

Driving Network Visibility with Total Spend Metrics: 17% of an IT budget is spent to support the enterprise data and voice network environment (10% and 7% respectively). Given the growing interdependencies with sourcing solutions and the network infrastructure, measuring your network cost is essential to managing the environment.

Application Portfolio Management, Development vs. Support Spend: Annual IT Application development and support investment is roughly 34% of total IT spend. 52% of that investment is for new development projects while the remaining 48% is for maintenance of existing systems.

Mainframe Resource Profile, Cost and the IT Portfolio: On average, the mainframe budget consumes 7.1% of the total IT budget. Understanding this metric is helpful in identifying the relative level of IT costs to support the environment from an IT portfolio perspective as well as helps to identify between cost transfers and efficiency gains.

February 2011

Leverage Benchmarking Clauses to Reduce Outsourcing Costs: Enterprises that outsource IT services should consider including benchmarking clauses in many of their contracts. Benchmarking reduces the price of outsourcing deals and ensures that contracts remain cost-effective and efficient.

Information Security Spend, Are You Spending Enough?: On average, 5.6% of an organization's total IT budget is allocated to information security. While this may be acceptable in some industries, it may fall short for others that are high-visibility, in regulated environments or require higher levels of risk mitigation.

Application Project Performance, On-Time & On-Budget: With 57% of application development projects completed on-time, and 67% of projects delivered on-budget, many IT organizations attribute their inability to meet project schedules to poor initial scope, project scope creep and resource constraints.

Communicating IT Spend Relative to Business Performance: 2010 IT spend increased 2.5%, almost twice the expected increase of 1.3% clients indicated last year. Yet, 2010 IT spend as a % of revenue increased by only 0.1% to 3.5%. Understanding IT intensity relative to revenue, expense and the workforce is now a communication mandate.

January 2011

IT Spending Forecast, 2010 Ends on the Upside: Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.6 trillion in 2011, a 5.1 percent increase from 2010, according to the latest outlook. Join Gartner's Chief Forecaster, Richard Gordon as he discusses the latest IT Spend data.

Forecast Alert: IT Spending, Worldwide, 2008-2014: Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.6 trillion in 2011, a 5.1 percent increase from 2010, according to the latest outlook. In 2010, worldwide IT spending totaled $3.4 trillion, up 5.4 percent from 2009 levels.

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