In a world where managed services are essential for business operations, efficiency in their management makes the difference. Effectively measuring, optimizing, and structuring these services can determine an organization’s success or failure. But how do we make sure we’re optimizing our processes and measuring what really matters?

1. Key KPIs to measure efficiency

To ensure an efficient managed service, it is essential to have indicators that reflect real performance and allow for data-driven decisions. Some of the most relevant KPIs are:

SLAs Met (%): Measures the percentage of SLAs met as agreed with the customer. Low compliance can indicate operational problems or lack of resources.
Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR): Indicates the average time it takes to resolve issues from report to resolution. Reducing this time improves efficiency and user experience.
Customer satisfaction (CSAT): Regularly assessing customers’ perceptions of the service allows you to identify areas for improvement and reinforce strengths.
Cost per user/service: Analysing the costs associated with each service allows you to optimise resources and guarantee the profitability of the operation.
Number of recurring incidents: Identifying patterns in repetitive problems helps to implement definitive solutions and reduce the operational burden on the team.

Continuous monitoring of these KPIs allows deviations to be detected and improvements to be applied proactively. The key is not only in measuring, but in interpreting the data to make strategic decisions.

2. Automation to improve efficiency a

Automation is a great ally in the optimization of managed services. Integrating technologies that reduce manual loading and improve efficiency allows teams to focus on higher-value tasks. Some practical applications include:

Use automated flows in Power Automate for incident and approval management. For example, when a support ticket is assigned to a team, automatic notifications can be sent and the traceability of the process can be recorded.
Implementation of chatbots for recurring queries, reducing the burden on the support team and speeding up the resolution of frequent doubts without human intervention.
Automatic alerts for SLA compliance and detection of issues before they impact the end user. This allows you to act proactively and avoid serious incidents.
Reporting automation: Generating dashboards in Power BI that reflect the status of services in real-time helps make data-driven decisions.

The key is to automate without losing control, ensuring that the tools optimize management without creating unnecessary rigidity.

3. ITIL and Recommended Methodologies

ITIL is a well-established framework in service management, but it is not always applied efficiently. To take advantage of it without falling into bureaucracy, we can:

Adopt only the practices that bring real value to our context. It is not necessary to implement ITIL to the letter, but to adapt its principles to the reality of the organization.
Integrate ITIL with tools such as Microsoft 365 to document changes, manage incidents, and standardize processes in a structured and accessible way.
Train the team to understand the principles without seeing them as an administrative burden, fostering a culture of continuous improvement based on good practices.
Manage knowledge: Documenting learnings from past incidents and sharing them with the team helps avoid recurring mistakes and continuously improve.

ITIL should not be seen as an unnecessary bureaucracy, but as a flexible guide to improve the quality and efficiency of services.

ⓘ Optimizing the management of a managed service involves measuring what is important, intelligently automating your business processes and applying methodologies in a practical way.

The combination of well-defined KPIs, efficient automation and ITIL-based best practices can make all the difference in the delivery of quality services.

For example, let’s imagine a company in the financial sector that faces problems with the visibility and control of its SLAs. The lack of a centralized system for tracking issues causes delays in troubleshooting and affects the user experience.

To solve this, the company decided to implement a dashboard in Power BI that allows the status of managed services to be visualized in real time, facilitating informed decision-making. Some of the key indicators that this dashboard could include are:

SLA Status:

Percentage of SLAs met in a timely manner.
Alerts for upcoming or expired SLAs.

Incident management:

Total number of open, closed, and in-process incidents.
Classification of incidents by priority (High, Medium, Low).

Average resolution time and comparison with previous months.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT):

Average customer satisfaction score in question based on after-service surveys.
Distribution of positive, neutral and negative ratings.

Team workload:

Tickets assigned per technician and average resolution time.
Team workload and potential bottlenecks.
Availability and operational capacity depending on the volume of incidents.

Costs and optimization:

Average cost per ticket resolved.
Comparison of costs with previous months and allocated budget.
Efficiency analysis by team or service area.

With this dashboard, the team no longer has to go blind with incident management. They can now detect patterns, anticipate recurring problems, and better distribute resources, which translates into faster solutions.

In the end, having this type of tool allows you to go from constantly “putting out fires” to managing services proactively, with more control and fewer surprises.