A Call for Raising Industry Benchmarks in IT Service Delivery

For all the business insight information technology claims to drive, here’s something to consider about the IT industry for any business that consumes its services – on average you are a consumer of below par IT service delivery; you’re most likely aware of this and have accepted it as fait accompli. You’re learning to live with the uncertainties that an IT project brings, along with the unreliability of promises partners make – of time, effort, money.

Dec 11, 2007; Tata Consultancy Services ; http://www.tcs.com/

Research conducted by Tata Consultancy Services reveals:

- A widening gap between what IT delivers and what business expects. 33% IT projects fail to perform against expectations; 41% fail to deliver expected business value and RoI.
- High failure rates of IT projects on most parameters. 62% slip on schedule; 49% on budget. 47% have higher than expected maintenance costs.
- An acceptance of this abysmal performance by businesses. 69% managers and boards continue to provide financial support to these projects.

Business-critical software and services projects are clearly failing to deliver on the business objectives they set out to achieve. They take too long, cost too much and are riddled with defects.

A common root cause for these issues is that the partner organizations you trust to carry forward your business intent and strategy through the implementation of IT projects, are neither equipped nor focused enough on delivering these projects with the level of service quality you should expect.

We know this, because we deliver results far beyond what businesses have come to expect as the IT industry standard. Data from Tata Consultancy Services customer projects reveal the following:

- 87% projects delivered on time, as against an industry benchmark of 37%
- TCS clients rate the company at 89% for meeting quality standards, as against industry benchmark of 42%

Tata Consultancy Services is urging businesses to re-think their IT services and outsourcing strategies. Organizations need to work with partners that can explain the value of their work at a Board level and provide Key Performance Indicators to show the benefit of the investments made.

On the other hand, the IT industry needs to raise the standard of IT service delivery so that clients can realize the true benefits of their IT investments. As its active and responsible member, Tata Consultancy Services is committed to redefining service delivery standards of the IT industry by:

- Sharing our project metrics with clients to ensure full transparency
- Going beyond industry established process maturity frameworks by expanding these to fill gaps identified through our experience
- Collaborating with industry experts and leaders to validate and verify our approach. IT has long transformed from playing the role of an enabler to that of a differentiator. All IT projects are at the end of the day linked to the business’ intent to achieve results. Low service delivery quality directly impacts this ability to differentiate and achieve expected business results.

The effort to shed light on the state of service delivery standards of the IT industry is an attempt on our part to make IT, and therefore ourselves, more accountable for delivering measurable, real business results.

 

Contact our business strategist for more information about our services.