Quarterly Business Reviews and OKRs

Driving Business Impact in Managed IT Services 

I’ve been working in the managed IT services field for the last 25 years. Even after this many years, it’s still challenging to balance the day-to-day operational demands of “keeping the lights on” and supporting client end-users, while also thinking strategically with the client and making time for annual and long-term planning. 

This is especially true for our middle-market clients, where our goal is to build a unified IT department between the client’s internal IT staff and our managed services team. Our engagement teams meet frequently with clients, sometimes daily or at least weekly, to address tactical items and pressing issues. Our monthly meetings often cover operational KPIs around uptime, SLA breaches, and support-related analysis. 

However, it’s our Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) that I find most valuable. These meetings provide an opportunity for us to collectively evaluate and discuss the impact we’re having on the client’s business – as a combined team. I can imagine as an IT leader, you have to juggle the “firefighting” role of your job with the strategic, alignment-focused aspects that involve collaborating with enterprise leadership. You also often have to justify the cost and business value of third-party vendors and managed service providers. 

The Quarterly Business Review is a chance for us to accomplish four key objectives:

1. Get an update on the client’s business: Understand what’s new, if priorities have changed, and if there are any new initiatives requiring modifications in security requirements, or other factors impacting the organization.  
2. Provide an update on RSM: Share any new services, capabilities, industry trends, or other developments that may be relevant to the client.  
3. Deliver insights and upskilling: Share relevant insights for the client and their context (industry, etc). We tap into the broad capabilities of RSM (beyond IT, when appropriate). Recent examples include guidance on leveraging generative AI and updates on new government contracting regulations.  
4. Review our joint performance: Discuss our summary scorecard using the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework, focusing on who’s doing well and what needs improvement. This allows us to collaboratively set key results for the next quarter.

What are OKR’s?

Speaking of the OKR framework, let me provide some additional context. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal-setting approach designed to align and motivate teams by establishing clear, measurable objectives and associated key results. The “Objective” defines what you want to achieve – typically a broad, inspiring goal that provides direction and focus. The “Key Results” are the specific, quantifiable outcomes that drive and measure performance and progress to critical outcomes supporting the organization.

Setting achievable OKR’s

By setting ambitious yet attainable OKRs, organizations can maintain alignment across teams, foster accountability, and track progress over time. The simplicity of OKRs allows teams to break down complex goals into actionable steps, and by regularly reviewing key results, teams can adapt to changing priorities, ensuring everyone is moving in the same direction toward shared goals. 

1. Inspiration: In the sometimes mundane world of managed IT, we need to find ways to motivate teams. Crafting inspirational objectives that appeal to people at an emotional level can make a big difference. For example, instead of a generic “Reduce security incidents” objective, we might opt for something like “Build a fortress of digital trust, proactively safeguarding data and empowering our clients to feel secure and confident.”
    
2. Leading vs. Lagging Indicators: Don’t rely solely on lagging indicators, which measure past performance and current production. Focus on leading indicators that predict future events and results. Leading indicators are often more dynamic and challenging to measure, but they provide more actionable insights to drive the team forward. For example, instead of just tracking the number of security incidents (a lagging indicator), we might also monitor the number of phishing simulations conducted (a leading indicator). 

Real-world OKR examples

Now, let’s dive into some OKR examples we’ve used with clients. Envision a midsized organization that has recently switched managed service providers to bring scale and mature ITIL processes to its growing business. This client is very concerned about potential cyber events that could cripple the business, which has elevated the enterprise’s focus on resilient business operations. Like many organizations, they want to take a measured approach to AI this year and address some technology debt before embarking on a multi-year ERP project. 

Example #1

Objective: Empower Our Staff to Become a Human Firewall with Around-the-Clock Vigilance  

This objective speaks to the importance of end-user training in thwarting common social engineering attack vectors and the desire for robust 24/7 security monitoring. 

Key Results: 

• Phishing Prone Percentage (PPP) below 3%. This is a lagging indicator that shows the percentage of staff who click on our email phishing simulations. The client is currently at 6% and wants to halve that number, which is very doable as leading firms are around 2.5%.

• 100% phishing training compliance. The client currently performs annual 1-hour video-based security awareness training but has struggled to drive full compliance in the past. This quarter, we plan to work more closely with firm leadership on messaging and potential consequences for non-compliance. This is another lagging indicator, but an important one.  

• 98% of Priority 1 security events responded to within 1 hour. Research shows that longer cyber breach “dwell time” – the time between initial compromise and discovery – leads to attackers having more access to sensitive information, systems, and applications. This key result helps reduce that potential dwell time. 

Example #2

Objective: Transform Every Interaction into an Exceptional Experience for Our End Users  

This objective focuses on enhancing the user support experience and maturing the company’s ITIL service management processes after transitioning to RSM as the managed service provider. 

Key Results: 

• First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate of 60%+. We knew this was a stretch target with a new system and RSM as the new helpdesk, but we needed to set an ambitious benchmark to begin the process of measuring how often end-user issues were getting resolved in the first interaction. The gold standard is 70%+, but we agreed a “crawl, walk, run” approach was reasonable.

• Two end-user training sessions per month. This is a great leading indicator, as we know that end-user training boosts productivity, satisfaction, and self-service capabilities. While not overly prescriptive, it gives us the latitude to choose topics and formats, from instructor-led training on Microsoft’s AI Copilot to Office Hours and ServiceNow tutorials.

• Implement a Change Management Process. With a lot of technology debt, there is constant modernization activity requiring outages and potential business interruption. To minimize the impact, we implemented a simplified ITIL 4 change management process on ServiceNow. This ensures robust planning, full approval workflows, rollback procedures, and clear communication.

• Change Success Rate of 80%+. With the new change management platform, we want to track how successfully we’re implementing changes. Like the FCR target, we started with a relatively low bar, knowing we’ll increase to 90%+ over subsequent quarters.

• Client Satisfaction of 90%+. This is likely the ultimate lagging indicator, but still a critical measure of the end-user support experience. At RSM, we strive for 95%+ very satisfied experiences, but we need to be realistic given the amount of change and our service desk still building knowledge and client intimacy. 

By blending lagging and leading indicators across these objectives, we can maintain a balanced view of past performance and future potential. The simplicity of the OKR framework also allows us to break down complex goals into actionable steps and adapt to changing priorities over time. 

When presenting these OKRs during the Quarterly Business Review, we use a simple, visual scorecard format with red, yellow, and green status indicators, along with brief progress updates and any relevant trend analysis. This high-level summary is ideal for sharing with the client’s business leadership team, who may not need or want to dive into the operational details. 

OKR tools

To manage our OKRs, we use tools like Workboard and Microsoft Viva Goals, which help us align our enterprise strategies across various lines of business and down to the client level. This connectivity ensures we stay focused on what matters most and allows our leadership teams to visualize how priorities flow throughout the organization. 

Conclusion

Ultimately, the message I’m trying to convey is that Quarterly Business Reviews, when combined with the OKR approach, can be a powerful way to shift conversations beyond mundane operational areas and focus on what truly drives business impact. Of course, it’s also important to have a little fun along the way – consider including team-building activities like sports, games, or group outings after the QBR. 

We’re here to help. 

If you need any help thinking through OKRs for your business or determining how to measure the impact of your managed service provider and IT team, let us know. 

Diego Rosenfeld

Diego Rosenfeld is a principal in RSM’s Boston office, serving as the national go-to-market leader for managed IT services (MITS) and a member of the RSM managed technology services leadership team. As go-to-market leader, Diego oversees MITS product strategy and regional and market-based client engagement teams. He works hand in hand with RSM industry teams to develop managed services that integrate our rich capabilities into scalable, industry-relevant offerings.