Benchmarks: Helping Your President Understand IT Investments

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Benchmarks Helping Your President Understand IT
Investments

• David Smallen, Hamilton College
• Educause 2004
• October 13, 2004

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Fundamental Assumptions

• IT has become essential (IT does matter)
• IT has become financially significant
• Therefore
• IT can/ must be managed/ explained/ understood in
  ways similar to other traditional institutional
  resources
• Explainable costs
• Reasonable alternatives

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Todays Presentation

• How much should IT cost?
• High level views of budgets and staffing
• Making useful comparisons
• Focus today on BLA and HC Peer institutions

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Data fromThe COSTS ProjectCost Of Supporting
Technology Serviceswww.costsproject.org

• Project began 1997
• Co-director Karen Leach
• Data collected
• Institutional demographics
• IT budgets
• IT staffing
• IT Benchmarks developed

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Presidents ask

• How much should IT cost?
• Benchmarks
• IT budget as a percent of institutional budget
  (Budget Impact)
• IT budget per capita (Budget Support Level)

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IT Benchmark Techniques

• Select Peer/comparison Group
• Look at the typical range
• Look at multi-year trends

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The Typical Range
25th percentile
75th percentile
Strategic emphasis? Exceptional
quality? Efficiency opportunity?
Economies of scale? Effective strategies? Inadequa
te resources?
Upper quadrant
Lower quadrant
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Budget Impact (IT budget as percent of
institutional budget)
2003/2004 HC 4.6 BLA MA
25th Percentile 4.2 3.9
50th Percentile 4.9 5.2
75th Percentile 5.9 6.3
of cases 68 29
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Budget Support Level -Comparison Group is
important!!!
2003/2004 HC1,572 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 989 1,502 516
50th Percentile 1,391 1,693 618
75th Percentile 1,682 2,150 819
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Budget Support Level
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What drives per capita spending on IT?

• Institutional or IT Service Level?
• Institutional Size?
• Is there evidence of economies of scale?
• Complexity of IT environment?
• Other?

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Budget Impact (IT Budget/Institutional
Budget) X Institutional Budget per
capita (Institutional Budget/Total campus
population) Budget Support Level (IT
Budget/Total campus population)
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Institutional budget per capita
2003/2004 HC34,311 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 21,674 28,787 10,000
50th Percentile 26,031 32,800 12,082
75th Percentile 32,400 36,497 15,466
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Presidents ask

• What are the key components of an IT budget?
• What alternatives exist to manage that budget?

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Budget Profile (Percent of overall IT budget)
2003/2004 (averages) BLA MA HC
Personnel 51 52 50
Student Help 3 3 5
Contract/Consulting 4 5 5
Hardware/Software/ Capital 37 35 37
Professional Development 1 1 2
Other 4 4 1
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IT Staffing Benchmarks
?
Service Level
Aggregated Service Level
Institutional Level
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Student IT staff as a percentage of overall IT
Staff
2003/2004 HC 34 BLA HC Peers
25th Percentile 19 19
50th Percentile 27 27
75th Percentile 37 34
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Aggregate Service Areas - definitions

• Infrastructure support
• Repair
• Installation
• Network
• Enterprise Systems Support
• ERP
• Web
• User Support
• Help Line
• Curricular
• Student
• Training

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Service staffing as a percentage of overall IT
staffing (averages)
BLA HC 1999-2000 2000-2001 2001-2002 2002-2003 2003-2004
Infra-structure 26 14 25 23 24 24 22
Enter-prise 24 21 25 23 24 25 21
User support 39 55 40 42 40 41 49
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Faculty/IT Curricular Support Staff
2003/2004 HC 43 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 32 25 85
50th Percentile 49 39 126
75th Percentile 82 49 259
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Campus Population/ Help Desk
2003/2004 HC 609 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 464 431 826
50th Percentile 649 531 1568
75th Percentile 902 714 2588
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Campus Computers/ Network Support Staff
2003/2004 HC 637 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 539 432 819
50th Percentile 771 655 1220
75th Percentile 1023 795 1860
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Students/ Student IT Support Staff
2003/2004 HC 184 BLA HC Peers MA
25th Percentile 215 221 465
50th Percentile 374 372 810
75th Percentile 662 544 1279
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Strategies Programs gt Staffing/Budget Levels
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Strategies that could affect IT services

• Infrastructure
• Replacement schedule
• Standards
• Sourcing
• Enterprise systems
• Integration
• Customization
• User support
• Service level
• Sourcing
• Partnerships

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Programs that could affect IT services

• Infrastructure
• Number of technology classrooms
• Enterprise systems
• Self-service (Web)
• User support
• Number of computers
• Institutional emphases

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IT Services
High
Opportunity for change???
Strategic/ innovative??
Cost
Best Practice??
????
Low
Low
High
Quality
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Takeaways General

• Utilize ratios (benchmarks) NOT absolute numbers
  in comparisons
• Compare with similar institutions (peers)
• IT benchmarks are reflective of overall
  institutional resources
• The typical range is a starting point for
  exploring institutional alternatives
• Staffing/budget changes should reflect
  programmatic changes
• Fine grained benchmarks may be less reliable

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Takeaways Specific

• (BLA and MA institutions) IT investments have
  moderated in the last year after several years of
  outpacing institutional budgets
• IT budget typically between 4 and 6 of
  institutional budget
• IT Budget per capita reflects available
  institutional resources.
• (BLA and MA institutions) Approximately 50 of IT
  budgets are for staff
• (BLA institutions) IT staff support loads are
  leveling out after several years of outpacing the
  growth in the campus population

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Takeaways Specific

• (BLA institutions) Student help provides
  approximately 25 of total IT support
• (BLA institutions) Staffing for IT is
  approximately
• 25 for infrastructure,
• 25 for enterprise systems
• 40 for user support
• Each IT staff member at MA institutions support
  approximately twice the number of people as IT
  staff at BLA institutions

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Additional Resources

• COSTS project www.costsproject.org
• Educause Core Data Service www.educause.edu/apps/
  coredata/index.asp
• CIC paper Information Technology Benchmarks, A
  practical guide for College and University
  Presidents www.cic.org/publications/books_reports/
  index.asp