The ultimate test of IT performance is end-user experience.
And poor performance gives new meaning to the phrase 'time
is money.'
Customers have choices. They can and will quickly leave you
in favor of the competition if they perceive response time
to be too slow. They make decisions based on their experiences,
and they don't consider - nor should they - the IT magic that
makes it all happen. Meet their expectations, or they're gone.
Beyond customer expectations, there is also a general emphasis
on improving efficiencies and driving down operational costs
for businesses today. IT is the primary target, where significant
time and money savings, as well as innovation and competitive
advantage, can be gained through the adoption of new technology
and process standards. All of this makes the business increasingly
dependent on the success of the IT infrastructure. And success
in IT has to be defined, at least in part, in terms of end-user
experience.
IT organizations have to step up to this challenge by shifting
away from an IT components and technology focus to a more
customer-centric business orientation. IT organizations
can demonstrate business contribution by talking about performance
and availability in terms of a more meaningful end-user
experience.
When we talk about end-user experience in IT terms, we're
really talking about end-to-end response time. For example,
a customer initiates a stock purchase on a financial site,
then waits, then receives a response that his transaction
is completed. That delay experienced by the end-user is
the end-to-end response time.
It is important to include end-to-end response objectives
in service level agreements. This is a balancing act that
requires you to understand costs versus potential revenue
gains. At times, you may net greater savings by relaxing
response time objectives. Other times, potential revenue
gains warrant the expense of faster response times.
|
