How your business review works
The review, technology review, QBR, or business review is another of those mysterious items listed on many IT support websites with little or no detail as to what they involve.
These can often amount to little more that a regular attempt by the provider to upsell you the latest ‘shiny’ tech product. Or, an hour long monologue of how well they’ve done against all of their KPI’s, SLA’s and other measures that mean more to them than to you.
What information should you be getting from you IT company?
There are a couple of things that you should expect your IT company to be doing between business reviews;
Provide you with reports on how they are performing. These should be easy to understand and contain infromation that means something to you. Ideally this isn’t a generic report and evolves over time so it is personal to you.
You might want a breakdown of tickets, resolution times, performance against SLA’s or any of the myriad of stats we maintain and monitor. Or it may be as simple as the Customer Satisfaction score from your users with any ‘problem tickets’ highlighted.
Identify any recurring issues. If a particular PC breaks down every Tuesday when you do the payment run you don’t want to wait until your next review to hear about it. These things should be highlighted and acted upon much more quickly than that.
With this in place the review becomes time for a meaningful conversation about where you’re heading as a business and how technology can help you get there.
How Our Business Review Process Works
With Your IT Department you decide how often you have a review. At the beginning of a relationship it may be wise to meet more often as we work together to solve issues and get your IT to a good standard. Eventually it’s likely you’ll settle on either quarterly, bi-annual or annual reviews.
The report that was produced for you at the IT Assessment is the starting point for the reviews. This uses a traffic light system and, over time, we’ll work together to turn red and amber items to green.
Here’s a simple example. At the IT Assessment we find that all of your PC’s are over 5 years old. The PC’s square would be red. So you agree to replace half in quarter 1, and you’d move to amber. Then the other half in quarter 2 and the square would become green.
In this way you have a clear view of what’s good and what might need improving. This simple system helps build your unique IT Roadmap. The Roadmap prioritises and dates the moves from red, to amber, to green so you can see exactly how you’re moving forward and when.
At the end of each review meeting the next one is booked to maintain the agreed schedule.
What Regular Reviews Aim To Achieve For You
Remove as many nasty surprises as possible. Your computers, servers, switches and other equipment are monitored and maintained. You’ll know how old things are and when they will need replacing. You’re then able to budget effectively.
Understand where you’re heading with your technology. Your Roadmap lets you know the improvements your making to your systems and when they are going to happen.
Spot any problems before they occur. If you’re planning on recruiting 20 new staff you need to know your server can handle it. If a major update is due with a key piece of software your IT company can ensure everything can handle the upgrade.
Budget effectively. Because there are no nasty surprises, and you know where you’re heading, you know what you will be spending and when.
Keep up with technology. You won’t necessarily need the latest, greatest gadgets in your business. But when something becomes available that could really make an impact you’ll want to know about it. Your IT company live and breathe technology. They should also understand your business. So when something comes to market that will make a difference they’ll let you know about it.
Finding Out How We Can Help
Regular, meaningful communication is vital to any partnership. Through communicating effectively we build knowledge of each others needs and are better placed to meet them. Communication starts with an initial conversation. You can start one with us by booking an initial 15-minute call by filling in our contact form or calling us on 0115 8220 200