CA Technologies announced the results of sponsored research that shows a strong relationship between use of an executive dashboard and the revenue growth of the overall business.

The study, Making Your Investment in an Executive Dashboard Count: What to Look for and Why, revealed how IT and business leaders are using executive dashboards to support effective IT service delivery and ultimately drive business growth. An executive dashboard is a tool that provides information regarding business impact and overall performance of IT services in support of more effective IT service delivery.

A full two-thirds of the 250 respondents surveyed claim to have seen clear financial benefits from their dashboards by improving operational efficiency (64 percent), uptime for critical services (51 percent) and company productivity (44 percent).

The average estimated bottom-line contribution of their executive dashboard (without subtracting costs for ROI) was approximately $250,000 over a 12 month period, while about 25 percent claimed to have seen more than $500,000 in value from their dashboard.

“Given trends such as cloud, the growth of IT business ecosystems, cost pressures to outperform, and business pressures to deliver increasing value, the right executive dashboard can become one of the most positive and catalytic investments a company can make,” said Dennis Drogseth, VP, EMA. “If chosen well, an executive dashboard will promote awareness and communication, and provide the flexibility needed to assimilate the information resources most relevant to an organization without sacrificing easy access and without requiring high administrative overhead.”

The research also showed data that supports the importance of correlating IT service performance and IT activities with desired business outcomes, thus improving service delivery and business-IT alignment.

Chief among these data are:

* A viable tool: A significant percentage of IT and line of business (LOB) executives today leverage executive dashboards for information about business impact and overall IT performance. Nearly 80 percent of IT executives and 70 percent of LOB executives use executive dashboards two or more times per week.

* Most important benefits: Respondents cited better alignment of IT resources to the business (48 percent) and good communication between IT and the LOB (34 percent) as the top benefits expected from executive dashboards.

* Main drivers of purchase decision: Difficulty sharing IT metrics more broadly across IT and with business stakeholders and lack of real-time awareness of service health and performance were cited as two of the primary pain points that drive the purchase of executive dashboards.

“Information-overloaded executives aren’t interested in every detailed metric and they don’t want to be bombarded by information that isn’t directly relevant to their concerns,” said Mike Sargent, general manager, Enterprise Management, CA Technologies. “They want to know about the performance of critical services that directly impact business value – such as end-user experience, brand reputation, and opportunities to drive revenue and profit. They want to be able to consume this information easily, whenever or wherever they are working, and in a format that’s focused, interactive and supports their rapid decision-making."

“CA Executive Insight for Service Assurance enables IT to be a more strategic partner to the lines of business. By providing visibility into real time performance metrics and gaining a better understanding which metrics are most important to the business, IT can better align resources with business priorities and help drive bottom-line impact. Access to early warning signs of success or failure help the lines of business minimize risks and pursue opportunities.”

Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) conducted the study on behalf of CA Technologies. EMA surveyed 250 active users of executive dashboards in North America. Strict priorities were placed on achieving a truly executive mix among respondents, which included 60% C-level, VP or Director-level respondents within IT, and 15% line-of-business executives, managers and strategists. A targeted balance between IT and non-IT respondents helped ensure that a meaningful population came from business rather than IT sectors. Top verticals were Financial Services, Manufacturing and Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals, which represented 53% of the respondent base.