Can you improve efficiency and ROI in a recession?
Today’s ITSM process owners and service delivery managers are under unprecedented pressure from the business to gain insight and control over the IT function.
They must also demonstrate value in providing business performance support at the same time as introducing complex resource-optimising technologies such as virtualisation, and all the while controlling and reducing spend, using process efficiency to minimise the component costs of each service, without reducing the level of service delivered. Furthermore, on the back of the fallout from the current recession and financial system disarray, a cost-effective means of achieving best practice governance and regulatory compliance is now essential.
With the widespread adoption of ITIL, IT departments now generally embrace the idea that their role is to align the IT function to meet business objectives. However, what is the nature of the role of ITSM and process automation should fulfil in the quest for IT business alignment and business agility?
Without doubt, the IT department’s perceived contribution to the business has evolved significantly over the last few years, taking on a much more central role in driving business success through the provision of critical business infrastructure. In fact, in virtually every business, this role has arguably evolved to a point where the infrastructure provided by IT is the business – the infrastructure that enables the organisation to deliver goods and services to the market and run its internal operations. The link between an efficient IT infrastructure and an efficient business has become increasingly self-evident.
As a result ITSM, once ‘just’ a means of managing the IT function, is emerging as a key component of managing the business. Likewise, rather than simply offering a platform for negotiating with the business, the language of ITSM is subtly evolving to allow the business and IT to plan together symbiotically. Taking a unified approach creates a dynamic system that brings together the processes, IT infrastructure and ITSM functions in support of an on-going cycle of improvement – indisputably the route to lower cost of service and an increased ability for businesses to respond rapidly to market change.
In short, the mission of aligning IT with the business has seemingly become one of aligning the business to meet business objectives. Yet however productive it may be, such alignment comes with its own challenges.
Firstly there is the technology issue. IT technology is immature, constantly throwing up a moving feast of cutting edge ideas and opportunities with the potential to create a sea change in the IT function. Virtualisation is a prime example of this: an innovative technology, compelling for both operational and cost reasons, but one that immediately changes things at every level of the business.
IT should be accustomed to this uniquely rapid pace of fundamental change, whereas the ‘old school’ functions of HR, Finance and Sales etc. may not share this understanding. Placing IT at the heart of the business renders the methodologies provided by ITSM imperative to the successful planning and management of continual technology and process change.
Similarly, the cost of such change must be planned for strategically and operationally, rather than in functional silos, particularly as the demand for IT services is likely to continue to outstrip the budget available. Having a universally understood strategy of maximising the amount of IT provided to the business for minimum cost is vital. The more efficiently the business is run, the more cost reductions there will be, yielding a higher return on every pound spend on IT – and in turn reducing the unit costs of the business functions they support.
ITSM is in a unique position to provide a mechanism to define, fulfil, manage and cost services (the concept of Service Portfolio Management), with the service catalogue and the service desk acting as a conduit between the activities that involve the business and IT, along with a high level view of what must be achieved. Once a service is defined, supporting infrastructure and processes can be layered into the equation to provide an end-to-end view of services.
Automating processes is a key weapon in the quest for increased business efficiency and ROI. Where manual processes can be standardised, they can be automated thus lowering that all-important cost of service delivery.
Access to accurate and up-to-date data from across IT functions can also be automated using a federated CMDB. Crucially, this approach allows operational infrastructure such as network and application discovery tools, which have already been cost-justified, to deliver additional value over and above their original purpose. Using out-of-the-box integrations, as in the case of EMCs Ionix for Service Management solutions, the CMDB can seamlessly provide visibility and control of the entire IT environment, using latent data to drive alerts and manage incidents.
Indeed, aligning services with processes and the automated CMDB in this way creates the ultimate ‘learning circle’ – a truly systemic approach. Processes are driven by the quality of the service catalogue and the CMDB, which in turn are controlled and managed by these processes. Flaws or potential improvements to any aspect of the circle can be rapidly identified, leading to the continual service improvement that is germane to the ITSM business strategy of improving efficiency, while simultaneously reducing costs.
As an example, even a simple service such as printing an invoice shows how effective the combination of ITSM and a cross-functional planning strategy can be at providing all parts of the business with exactly what they need. The service user can print as required, the business can easily assess the cost of this service and its impact on productivity, while IT can view all the infrastructural components involved – from the physical system requirements to the people and processes – and proactively maintain the service.
ITSM is now about creating an environment where everyone gets as much as possible from the entire IT real estate, with standardisation and automation delivering cost efficiencies, service improvements and compliance; with unified planning providing a joined up approach to process improvement and execution: and with the crucial ability to manage change as technology innovations and the market demand. Business process owners can own, audit, measure and improve the process design, while service users can easily request and track services.
In this unified scenario, the boundaries between IT service management and IT management all but disappear to create, from a strategic, operational and planning view, a much more coherent, efficient environment. Joined at the process level and geared up to execute according to business goals, this inclusive approach to IT management provides a platform where it is truly possible to do more for less – while allowing the business to choose how to exploit increased efficiency, in terms of higher margins, lower market costs and operational performance.
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