The survey, based on input from 1,200 respondents from SMBs globally, compares the practices of IT departments based on their IT management maturity level. The IT management maturity model, developed by Kaseya specifically for SMBs, consists of five levels:
- Reactive: Responding to individual user challenges and requests
- Efficient: Having a systematic approach to solving known issues and dealing with daily tasks
- Proactive: Taking a proactive approach to IT management, automating repetitive tasks and many remedial actions
- Aligned: Tracking and managing against SLAs of availability and performance expectations
- Strategic: Achieving IT operational excellence and taking a strategic role in driving business innovation
Strong Correlation Between High Revenue Growth and IT Management Maturity
According to Kaseya's research, there is a strong correlation between the maturity level of an IT organisation and their company's revenue growth rate. 36 per cent of the companies with the higher IT maturity levels (Strategic and Aligned) have grown their revenue at greater than 10 percent between 2014 and 2015. Only 21 per cent of the less mature companies (companies falling in the Reactive, Efficient or Proactive categories) saw revenue growth grow greater than 10 per cent.
Outsourcing IT Services Important for Mature IT Organisations
The survey findings also indicate that more mature IT organisations highly leverage outsourced services, such as backup and recovery, virtual desktop services, remote monitoring and management, and private cloud management, to enable their success. Companies at higher maturity levels outsource on average 20 per cent more services than those at lower levels.
In addition, the more mature IT organisations use cloud services associated with PaaS, IaaS and SaaS 50 per cent more often than the less mature IT organisations.
Other Highlights
Other highlights from Kaseya's 2016 survey include:
- Forty-five to fifty per cent of IT organisations at all levels of maturity indicate that they will be strongly considering outsource cloud services in the next 12 months.
- Of the top three IT priorities for 2016, 'Completing Projects on Time' was the top priority named by respondents in the survey, followed by 'Delivering Higher Service Levels' and 'Improving Customer Experience';
- Most (86 per cent) of IT Groups at SMBs remain in the early stages of IT maturity. Only 14 per cent of respondents consider their organisation as mature, a three per cent increase from last year's survey;
- 44 per cent of companies that fall in the higher maturity levels are required to report and achieve on their service level agreements (SLAs), while 48 % track mean time to recovery (MTTR). These rates are 120 % and 70 % higher than the next highest cohort.
