How to Understand Enterprise Software Support Ratios

ByPrimary Researcher

Executive Summary

    • Background on Software Support Ratios
    • What Causes Support Ratio Variance

Experience on the Software Support Ratios

Ratios are greatly underemphasized of enterprise software. Think about how often you have heard of someone discuss support ratios? A support ratio is a ratio between the number of users and support individuals. Support and maintenance consume the most significant percentage of the total cost of ownership of enterprise software. It is also the most underestimate cost. When companies understaff support, it disables their ability to leverage the functionality within the applications they have purchased and paid good money to implement.

Here are some interesting statistics about IT support ratios:

  1. According to Robert Half, the IT support staffs are 42 percent smaller than they ideally should be. In this survey, the ratio was 112 to 1, while the average CIO said the average should be 65 to 1. This survey was conducted in 2011 and was also held in 2007 with just about the same results. “Farthest from their ideal were CIOs from midsize firms (250-499 employees), who said that their ratio of end-users to IT support staff is 131:1 when in a perfect world it would be 64:1.”
  2. CNET’s Justine Nguyen begins with a baseline of 60:1.

These ratios are also a stretch. Unfortunately, ratios are often quoted, which provide the absolute minimum of support necessary — however, every company that we go into has some shortcomings that could be addressed with more support. This extends from understanding the applications better to maintain data.

Support Ratio Variance

At Brightwork Research & Analysis, we estimate support ratios for all applications that we create a total cost of ownership analysis for. Our ratios vary by the following criterion.

  1. The Specific Application
  2. The Application Category (so ERP, BI, CRM, Supply Chain Planning)
  3. The Complexity of the Configuration
  4. Whether there is Customization
  5. Whether the Solution is Delivered as SaaS or OnPremises. (This is greatly underestimated in terms of how this lowers support overhead. SaaS-delivered solutions allow the entity that knows the software the best to maintain the software. This is a significant improvement in support — if logic prevails, more and more support will transfer to the software vendors offering SaaS-delivered solutions.)

Some of the biggest brands in enterprise software also have some of the highest support ratios.  We rate applications along with the following criteria:

  1. Functionality
  2. Usability
  3. Implement-ability
  4. Maintainability

Unfortunately, it is rare to see maintainability as a focus of IT analysts.

References

Whitney, Lance. Companies Say They Don’t Have Enough IT Support Staff. 2011.

Sheesley, John. Deciding the Proper User/IT Support Ratio. TechRepublic. 2008.

ERP at Risk: Poor Support Means Poor Returns. Booz Allen Hamilton.