The 12 Days of Benchmarking - Day 1
Digital technology as a business enabler
One of the most important questions any CIO, Head of IT, or Digital leader should ask is this:
Does the business genuinely believe that digital technology helps them succeed?
- Not whether systems are up.
- Not whether SLAs are green.
- But whether technology is seen as a true enabler of business performance.
This is exactly what the first metric in the ITIL Performance Benchmarking Model measures.
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What this metric is
Digital technology as a business enabler measures how senior and middle managers perceive the extent to which digital technology supports enterprise goals and business performance.
In simple terms:
đ Do your business leaders feel that IT helps them achieve their objectives?
It is captured using a simple satisfaction score, on a 1-5 scale, gathered from executives, business unit heads, and key stakeholders who rely on digital capabilities in their work.Â
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Why it matters
You can have excellent technical performance and still fail this metric.
Iâve seen organisations with:
Yet business leaders still feel that IT is slow, complex, or misaligned to their priorities.
That gap is exactly what this metric exposes.
A high score here tells you:
- IT is aligned to business strategy
- Digital investments are landing in the right places
- Leaders trust IT as a partner
A low score tells you something far more important than any technical KPI ever could:
đ The business does not see the value you think you are delivering
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What good looks like in practice
In high-performing organisations, you tend to see:
- Business outcomes leading technology decisions
- Digital initiatives are driven by measurable business goals, not just technical upgrades
- Strong engagement between IT and business leaders
- Product owners, service owners, and business leaders co-create solutions
- Clear line of sight from investment to value
- Leaders can see how digital spend translates into outcomes
- Technology spoken in business language
- Conversations are about growth, experience, efficiency, and risk⌠not just systems and uptime
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How to improve it
If your score in this area is low, the answer is rarely âimprove the technologyâ.
Instead, focus on these areas:
1. Strengthen business engagement
Regular, structured engagement with faculties, departments, and professional services teams. Not just during incidents or projects, but as an ongoing partnership.
2. Link services to outcomes
Map your services to business capabilities and outcomes. Show how each service contributes to organisational priorities and operational efficiency.
3. Improve value realisation
Ensure that every major digital initiative has clear success measures and post-implementation reviews to confirm whether value was actually delivered.
4. Use experience data, not just operational data
Combine this metric with user experience metrics such as digital workplace satisfaction and service experience scores to get a complete picture of how technology is perceived.Â
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A simple reflection
If you asked your Executive Team tomorrow:
âHow well does digital technology enable you to achieve your objectives?â
What would they say?
And more importantlyâŚ
Why would they say it?
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Take part in the benchmarking
The ITIL Performance Benchmarking Model is designed to give organisations a clear, evidence-based view of how well digital technology is performing across value, experience, agility, resilience, and cost.
By contributing your organisationâs data, you will:
- understand how you compare to your peers
- identify your biggest improvement opportunities
- and help shape the future global benchmark for digital service performance
đ Take part in the PBM survey and contribute your data - ITIL Performance Benchmarking Survey 2026ďťż ďťż
Tomorrow Iâll be looking at the next metric in the series:
Digital Value Realisation - are your digital initiatives actually delivering the value you promised?
