Data Driven Diary
Metrics Blog
The focus here is on costs and benefits, trends and drivers, best practices and worst cases in enterprise IT: our consultants report on their day-to-day business and show how IT organisations today can set themselves up to be high-performance and future-proof. Their tools: comparative data from our data lake and experience from over 4,000 strategic projects.
20 Years – 20 Projects
Charity nominator: Marcus Frantz
Metrics - founded in 2001 as Maturity - turned 20 years old. Turbulent times between the dotcom bubble and Corona, during which many clients have continuously supported us. Therefore, it is time for us to give something back.
20 Years – 20 Projects
Charity nominator: Steve McCrystal
Metrics - founded in 2001 as Maturity - turned 20 years old. Turbulent times between the dotcom bubble and Corona, during which many clients have continuously supported us. Therefore, it is time for us to give something back.
Excellence & Organization
Dark Data is sustainably harmful
Dark data refers to unused data in the company that eats up money and energy. How can IT organisations and business units mitigate the problem?
Market & Sourcing
IT sourcing: all about cognitive biases
Contract negotiations between IT buyers and service providers are often determined by cognitive biases. Those who do not prepare themselves will have to pay the price in the long run.
Market & Sourcing
2022 IT budgets: aiming higher
IT budgets are aiming upwards in 2022, at least according to companies' plans towards the end of the previous year. No wonder that the self-confidence of many IT managers is very high.
Methods & Tools
Test your S/4HANA knowledge
With three short questions you can test your SAP S/4HANA knowledge in our quiz: from deployment to licensing model. Good luck!
Market & Sourcing
Friction points in a price benchmark
In many IT sourcing agreements, tensions between the partners can be resolved with a market price benchmark - if the clause in the contract is well designed. Otherwise it can lead to further dicey situations.
Market & Sourcing
Benchmark clauses in IT sourcing
Think about the future today - this also applies to IT sourcing. A benchmark clause in the sourcing contract can protect clients (and providers) against imponderables. What do IT managers and purchasers have to bear in mind?
Market & Sourcing
Impact of Market Price Benchmarks
It is a well-known fact that a market price benchmark can score advantages over an RfP in the case of an expiring contract. We show how the contractual option of the benchmark performs during the term of the contract.
Market & Sourcing
Best Practices 2: Day rates for consultants
Day rates for IT consultants have risen again after Corona. But companies can contain costs in a sensible way: for example, through T&M instead of lump sums, supplier consolidation and systematic skill prioritisation.
Market & Sourcing
Best Practices: Day rates for consultants
Day rates for IT consultants have risen again after Covid-19. But how can companies contain costs in a meaningful way? Best practices are long-term agreements, fixed purchase quantities and on-the-job training.
Market & Sourcing
Payroll costs -
curse and blessing
Payroll accounting is a large cost item for companies. Because of the high volume, however, savings also pay off quickly. A discount of up to 30 per cent is possible if you know the figures and the target.
Market & Sourcing
Sourcing Support – transparency matters
In IT sourcing, consultants practise different relationship models - sometimes on the side of the user company, sometimes between the client and the IT provider. We show what matters in which phases.
Market & Sourcing
IT trade press: Managed Services
The German IT magazine Computerwoche invited several experts to a roundtable. It turned out to be an exciting discussion about the impact of the cloud on managed services and the future of the industry.
Excellence & Organization
Agility - Sham or Substance?
More than 20 years after the Agile Manifesto, it is hard to imagine business without agility. Or is it just hype without substance? We took a look behind the scenes with a short survey.
Excellence & Organization
Making noise is part of the trade
IT is the most important discipline for making an organisation ready for the future. What is rarely future-proof, however, is IT's self-promotion skills, so what needs to be done?
Excellence & Organization
Open Office Spaces reduce interaction
Two empirical field studies by authors Ethan S. Bernstein and Stephen Turban published by the Royal Society show: open, unlimited offices reduce face-to-face interaction by about 70%.
Market & Sourcing
Software developers
day rates on the rise
After the decline in 2020 due to Covid-19, we are seeing a rebound in prices for sortware developers and architects. This applies to all skill and experience levels.
Costs & Benefits
Never touch a running IT service catalogue?
IT service catalogues pay off - if they are regularly updated. Our projects show that without constant maintenance, the gap between best in class and average is widening.
Methods & Tools
ISO 9001 – Metrics successfully certified
At the first attempt: Ralph Freude from TÜV Rheinland Cert GmbH and Metrics Managing Director Thomas Karg with the certificate for ISO 9001:2015.
Market & Sourcing
Optimising penalties
for IT outsourcing
A matrix for an outsourcing contract sorts the consequences of underperformance by a provider into several escalation levels.
Market & Sourcing
Sourcing prices:
one-way elasticity
It is a rule that demand falls when prices rise. The situation is usually different when it comes to the procurement of IT services.