A recent study released by the Digital Enterprise Journal takes a novel approach to looking at the positive and negative impact of IT performance: it attempts to quantify it in dollars.
Based on a survey of 2,300 organizations and using an “average company” of 1,238 employees, the study estimates the cost in dollars of various IT performance issues and distinguishes between the impact seen by what it deems top performing organizations (TPOs) and everyone else.
While the summary does not indicate either the demographic data of the survey participants, nor how it arrived at these figures, it does reinforce the financial stakes for enterprises as they attempt to compete in a digitally-enabled experience economy.
Some highlights from the study:
- Average annual cost due to lack of capabilities for user management: $14MM
- Average annual cost due to lack of capabilities for managing remote work: over $4MM
- Average annual cost due to the inability to proactively prevent performance issues: $36MM
Without greater transparency, I’m not sure how much I trust this data, but it does offer a glimpse into the high costs of poor IT performance and its impact beyond subjective views of the experience quality.