As we try and profile all of our regular contributors in the Secret Of My Success section at the back of every VitAL issue, I decided it was high time I put myself in the chair and shone the angle poise lamp of truth in my own eyes for a change. So, this month we feature Matt Bailey, journeyman business-to-business journalist, editor and IT enthusiast.

VitAL: Name, company and job title please? Married? Kids?

Matt Bailey: Matthew J Bailey, editor, 31 Media. I have been married to Cath for 14 years and have two daughters, Maisie (9) and Martha (5).

VitAL: What got you started in IT?

MB: Like many of the respondents to these questions, I’ve never really worked in IT. I have worked in marketing for a large IT-based telecoms company and I’ve worked on a range of magazines in technical areas, from electronics to aerospace and beyond, but this is my first real in-depth IT-focussed assignment.

Also like many SOMS subjects my first meaningful brush with IT was courtesy of an early home computer, although – bucking the trend that has been developing here – my family plumped for the BBC Model B microcomputer, rather than the apparently more popular Sinclair ZXSpectrum option.

The Computer Programme, as it was predictably called, that complemented the BBC machine promised a world of home computing where the BBC Micro would take care of the family accounts and all manner of other important stuff from watering the plants to opening and closing the curtains (probably); the reality was that me and my three brothers became experts at Defender and Chucky Egg.

That said, my older brother did persevere and became proficient in BBC Basic, then machine code and then all sorts of exotic programming techniques and languages. He went on to become CIO of an international banking group. For his sins he’s working very hard at the moment!

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

MB: Being shallow and an early convert to the desk top publishing revolution, I’ve always preferred Apple products, but perhaps that’s just because they look nice and my Mrs will let them in the house.

VitAL:  What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

MB: My first IT triumph was getting the ZXSpectrums in the Bangor High Street branch of Smiths to repeat a rude word or phrase ad infinitum on the screen of a Saturday morning. It’s been downhill since then. Also mastering the world of DTP in the early days, but technically this is my first proper IT job – editor of VitAL!

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

MB: As part of my science degree I had to complete a course in ‘Computational Methods’. As I was going through my year’s course work on-screen (an ancient Vax system) with the tutor, my terminal crashed and wiped the disk. I had no backup and the tutor wasn’t sympathetic. What I learned was to always have a Plan B!

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

MB: Interesting subject matter. Nice people. No two days are the same.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

MB: To continue editing the top IT services title in the world and push it to even greater heights!

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

MB: I have played the guitar in various bands for years – since I was a teen – and even dabbled in the music business (I was stage crew manager for Englebert Humperdink – fact). I still record and play the odd gig with some friends which is great fun, but exhausting. Otherwise it’s family stuff that appeals the most: gardening, cooking, reading, holidays. I used to have a VW camper and hope one day to get another one.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

MB: I’m not sure I can answer that question when I’ve effectively posed it myself… Honesty, integrity and making a little bit of knowledge go a long way…. Actually my wife tells me the secret of my success is her… and she’s probably right.

VitAL: Matt Bailey, thank you very much.

Knowing that the roots of Cherwell are in the United States, I was always a little intrigued as to why the company was named after a river that flows near Oxford in the UK and lends its name to a service station on the M40. I suspected there must be a town or area in the States that could account for the brand. In fact the company is named after the Oxfordshire river. “The name Cherwell comes from the River Cherwell, which flows through the central part of England and joins the River Thames in Oxford,” says the company. “Even though we are a US-based company, we are fond of the history surrounding this river. The graphic in our logo is symbolic of these two rivers merging together.”

It turns out that CEO Vance Brown and the co founders of Cherwell are fans of the English fantasy novel as purveyed by Cherwell locals J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis. “As the story goes, J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis used to stroll along Addison’s Walk, a beautiful path alongside the Cherwell. And, it was during times like these that Tolkien developed the stories for The Lord of the Rings and Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. We’re big fans of Tolkien and Lewis, and their classic stories that have survived the test of time – stories about men and women engaged in noble causes”.

“At Cherwell Software, we’re passionate about our own noble cause; listening to our customers and caring for their needs. We are building a company that we believe will ‘survive the test of time’ by providing quality products with extraordinary customer care. We take seriously our tag-line: Innovative Technology built on Yesterday’s Values.”

And the final connection between the software company and the rural Oxfordshire idyll? Cherwell District Council now uses Cherwell Software for its service desk needs.

“We are not looking to just build a company and sell it. We want to build great technology – in an industry we enjoy – while building lasting relationships with both our employees and customers,” says Vance Brown. “Accordingly, our private company has no outside debt and no venture capital funding. We want to do this for a living; for the long haul. We have no ‘exit strategy’.”

IT veterans

With more than 30 years in the IT industry, Cherwell’s European managing director, Tony Probert has spent more than 18 years helping to build, develop and manage start-up operations for software companies within the UK and EMEA region. He spent eight years as European managing director for GoldMine Software Corporation (now known as FrontRange Solutions), growing the European business from a two person start-up to more than 100 people, with revenues in excess of $15m.

He subsequently held a variety of senior management positions with responsibility for sales, channel management, marketing and international business development for a number of software companies. Having been involved with the help desk and service management industry within the UK and Europe since the late 1980s, Probert brings a wealth of knowledge, relationships and practical operational experience to Cherwell Software.

VitAL: What are the origins of the company; how did it start and develop; how has it grown and how is it structured?

Tony Probert: Cherwell Software has been formed by members of the original management team from a company called Bendata, which was a pioneer and leader in the help desk software industry, being the original developers of the HEAT product line. The company was founded in 2003, as a result of a meeting between our CEO, Vance Brown and Arlen Feldman our CTO, with a view to bring a new solution and business model to the service desk industry.

The company has grown consistently year on year and even in this very challenging financial climate has been profitable for ten quarters in a row. This is no mean accomplishment, when in recent times we have seen many of our competitors have to cut staffing numbers, lose focus on product development or seeking to be acquired. Cherwell has gaining significant recognition from leading industry analyst groups such as Forrester, IDC, Ovum and Gartner, with Forrester recently citing Cherwell as an ‘emerging leader of ITSM solutions’ able to compete with the ‘megavendors’ of BMC, CA, HP and IBM. We have also been finalists for recent industry awards, Pink Elephant ‘Innovation of the Year’ and Service Desk Institute ‘Supplier of the Year’, terrific recognition of the advances we have made.

Cherwell is a privately-owned and privately-funded company, with no outside influence from VC companies or corporate investors. It has corporate headquarters in Colorado Springs, USA and European offices in the UK. We also have partner companies operating in North America, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Italy.

We are founded on the genuine principles of friendship, high morals and building for the future.

VitAL: What is the company’s specialist area or product group, if any?

TP: The development and delivery of IT Service Management solutions, based around the industry best practice requirements of ITIL v3, with 11 management processes covered by PinkVERIFY certification. In addition, our solution has an underlying .net-based application development platform called CBAT (Codeless Business Application Technology), which also empowers our customers to easily develop other integrated business applications, such as Project Management, CRM, Facilities Management, Bug Tracking,  Purchase Order and Student Record systems.

VitAL:  Is that specialisation to make the best use of skills in the company or because it fits the company’s world view or has it simply evolved?

TP: The specialism is based on the vast help desk/service management industry experience of the individuals involved with Cherwell, which from a technical and commercial perspective equates to hundreds of man years of knowledge, experience and passion.

VitAL: How has any specialisation influenced the company’s general stance?

TP: Aside from the obvious, I would call it more a desire than a specialisation. The vision of the Cherwell founders is to create a solution that changes the face of this industry for the benefit of the customer, by delivering a feature-rich, open solution that is more scalable and flexible, simply priced, with significantly lower ongoing management overheads and choice of deployment, than that of the legacy companies people have been used to dealing with in recent years.

VitAL: Who are the company’s main customers today and in the future?

TP: Our customers are essentially any medium to enterprise organisation that has a requirement for a corporate service desk solution, whether it be for internal IT or external customer support. A key objective for us moving forward is to deliver our version of an ‘AppStore’, where those customers and partners that develop additional business applications using the CBAT platform can share them with our customer community to use.

VitAL: What is the company’s business model, ie, does it select a market and then design solutions to meet the needs of that market  or does it specialise in particular solutions and seek markets where those solutions are needed?

TP: We have a specific market being service management but through the continued development of applications using our CBAT platform, we believe that solutions will be designed to both meet the changing needs of that market but will also see the development of solutions that will take us into new markets.

VitAL: What is the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility, ie, ‘green’ issues?

TP: We are very aware of the need to protect the environment and as we build our business take appropriate measures to consider and protect the environment where possible. Given the beautiful location of our corporate headquarters, set at the foot of the Rocky Mountain range in Colorado, you cannot but be aware of the need for environmental protection.

VitAL: How does the company communicate with vendors and customers?

TP: We look to have an open dialogue with other vendors and are members of a raft of industry organisations that constantly bring us in to contact with vendor companies. As for our customers Cherwell uses a number of traditional methods, including user groups and an advisory board. We are also increasingly using new social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter etc, to communicate with and develop our customer community.

VitAL: What does the product range cover?

TP: An extensive and fully featured IT Service Management solution, asset discovery, web portal and mobile device technologies.

VitAL: What is your view of the current state of IT Service Management and IT in business and the economy in general, the challenges and the opportunities?

TP: Considering the current global economic climate IT Service Management seems to be relatively buoyant. I believe this is because as organisations have to review their support strategies and have the need to be more efficient and productive, with few resources, at a lower cost they are having to review their legacy solutions and find more effective systems. The challenge in the main is financial and organisations being able to justify the projects required. The opportunities are many; the replacement of legacy enterprise solutions that are costly to support, manage and maintain.

I think the current situation, the economic climate and the recent change of Government is a good opportunity for Cherwell in the European market. We are bringing technology to the market that is more open and organisations that have to deliver more at lower cost are looking at their tools. Are they able to deliver with their existing tools? The big legacy software solutions are inflexible, expensive and not very adaptive. Their users need to look at alternatives and this is opening the door to us. We offer enterprise capability in a way that wasn’t there before. We can offer the ability to modify and customise without reprogramming or changes to source code, it’s all done through wizards. The big legacy systems simply can’t do that and that is an opportunity for us.

The window never closes it just moves. You need the right product at the right time and it’s the legacy vendors who are at risk now. We provide a flexible technology that delivers more in a more cost effective way.

VitAL: Has the company grown organically or by acquisition and how much is growth expected in the future?

TP: As a privately-owned and funded company, Cherwell has and will grow organically, which will provide us with a much more stable and stronger financial base for the future, by having no debt or outside financial influences that could put negative and unwanted pressures on future business decisions.

VitAL: What are the future plans for the business?

TP: Continue business growth in our target markets and extend the capabilities of our solutions to more functional areas within customer organisations. However, it is our aim that this will never be achieved without retaining the very strong focus we have on delivering a quality solution backed by a world class customer service ethos.

VitAL: Tony Probert, thank you very much.

www.cherwellsoftware.com

VitAL: Name, company and job title please? Married? Kids?

Gareth Davies: Gareth Davies, Managing Director, Frog. Married with two kids, Alex aged six and Evie aged three.

VitAL: What got you started in IT?

GD: I borrowed a friend’s Sinclair Spectrum when I was 11. My dad bought me a BBC Micro for Christmas – after tinkering with it for a while I realised that I could make it do anything I wanted. I wrote my first stock control system at 12, started developing games from home at 16 for two companies and left school at 16 knowing what I wanted to do.

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

GD: No, not really, I look at Steve Jobs nowadays, but no-one back then.

VitAL: What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

GD: My first IT job was on a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) in a mechanical / electrical engineering company where I was employed to help out in any way I could. I ended up developing a planning / spreadsheet system for them to do all their job scheduling on. My first triumph was probably the development of a complete ERP system from scratch for a group of textile companies.

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

GD: Too complicated to explain here, but I once forced an element of the textile system in because it was ‘technically right’ without thinking about human beings. I learned over that period that technology was all about people and not computers, which has served me extremely well since then – an embarrassing mistake that has shaped my career!

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

GD: The freedom to create whatever we want and the ability to make a difference – we are genuinely improving the quality of education in the UK and that’s more fulfilling than you can imagine.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

GD: To create an internationally trusted brand in Frog – we make a difference locally, no reason why we can’t do it abroad too!

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

GD: I love cars, keeping fit, reading (personal development stuff mainly), and of course the kids.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

GD: Understanding that people like to have fun – all the time – everyone! This influences the way our business runs, the way we write our software, the way we market ourselves, and the way we work with our customers. Frog is as much a family as it is a business. It’s a very big family nowadays, but a family nonetheless.

I guess also never giving up – building a business is really difficult, especially in the very early stages when both business and personal money is tight – giving up never entered my head, it just wasn’t an option. My personal experience of building a business is that it’s about building as much value as possible into what you do and then surviving long enough for the market to learn about what you’re doing.

VitAL: Gareth Davies, thank you very much.

www.frogtrade.com

The journey of service improvement can take the IT organisation from the reactive and technology-centric focus characterised by the helpdesk, to a vision of business-centred services which drive value to the ultimate benefit of the organisation.

The purpose of IT Service Management (ITSM) is to integrate IT strategy and the delivery of IT services with the goals of the business, with an emphasis on providing benefit to customers. The ITSM journey demands a shift in focus and culture, from managing IT within separate technology silos, to managing the end-to-end delivery of services using guidance from best practice frameworks such as the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

A service lifecycle approach

The current version of ITIL (v3) advocates a service lifecycle approach, starting with Service Strategy and moving through Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operations, with Continual Service Improvement closing the loop and feeding back into Service Strategy.

Unlike a journey, which has a final destination, the service lifecycle is more like a round-the-world trip. The traveller spends time planning the journey and embarks with excitement and trepidation, visiting destinations where the culture at first seems alien. After a period of time they settle into the culture and once familiar with the territory, they move on. As soon as they have arrived back at their starting point, they start the journey again, but on this second trip, they view the journey differently. Countries that were once alien are now familiar, so they visit the areas that have the most to offer and take in some new destinations to broaden their cultural horizons.

The ITSM journey also requires planning and involves taking in new cultures. One of the greatest mistakes made by adopters is to embark on a project to ‘implement ITIL’, without fully understanding the challenges they are trying to address, or setting measurable targets that enable them to identify when their goals have been achieved. ITSM programmes are initiated with high expectations of what can be achieved but aspirations are often tempered by common barriers to adoption, such as lack of resources (time, people and budget), cultural resistance and lack of business sponsorship.

For organisations adopting ITIL as the foundation for service improvement, the full framework is unfamiliar territory and can appear overwhelming. The paper ‘Chaos to Value: the IT Service Management Journey’ examines the early stages of the ITSM journey, starting with the initial steps out of a ‘chaotic’ IT environment, with due consideration given to the IT organisation’s cultural readiness to adopt any given set of processes at every stage of growth and maturity.

Using lessons learned from other adopters, the paper advocates a steady progression through the phases of the ITSM journey and explains how adoption of ITIL can provide fast benefit, capture management attention and set the stage for the next leg of the journey so that momentum is maintained.

Download the full white paper at www.hornbill.com/journey

Case study

ASPIRE Academy for Sports Excellence in Qatar excels in service delivery using Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM

ASPIRE Academy for Sports Excellence is located in Doha, the capital of the state of Qatar, in the heart of the Arabian Gulf. The wish of ASPIRE Academy’s founder HH Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al -Thani, was to create a world-class sports and educational institution which is able to develop elite champions who are highly educated leaders.

The rapid growth of the organisation was a catalyst for the service functions to invest in new help desk software, to provide a customer-focused and single, streamlined support administration and IT service management to its 480 staff and students.

“As an organisation, we want to operate on a world-class level and so it was important that our back-office services can support our business objectives. Hornbill’s solution has helped us to achieve our goal to create a corporate service desk that provides a single point of contact for all staff and student support services, ” said Ahmed Sharifai, senior IT services officer at ASPIRE.

ASPIRE selected Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM software to support its goal in providing a single point of contact for any enquiry to the separate business functions. In just three years the IT department has grown from six people to over 30, all of whom now use Supportworks ITSM customer service software to manage service requests.

“Increasingly we found that our processes were preventing us from accurately measuring the quality or performance of our service from our IT help desk. We were not matching customers’ needs and the lack of clear communication on tracking and monitoring services was resulting in a poor service,” explained Sharifai. “In addition, we lacked management information to support our decision making, which meant that we couldn’t support or keep pace with change that we need to in order to be a global player.”

ITIL best practice results in more efficient working

Following a review of service management software solutions, the IT Team selected Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM for its compatibility with ITIL best practice combined with the benefits to be gained from consolidating support for diverse business functions on the same service desk software platform.

“We chose Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM tech support software as it combines the business and technology focus that we required. As existing users of Supportworks helpdesk software prior to adopting ITIL, it was also a straightforward upgrade path for us,” said Sharifai

Using Supportworks ITSM for Incident, Change and Problem management has enabled the IT team to improve efficiencies. The ability to monitor and report on all aspects of its service provision has resulted in faster problem resolution.

Improved efficiencies reduce operational costs

“By using the single service desk software platform the IT team can handle incidents much more efficiently. Overall we have reduced our cost base as a result and we are able to report back to the business on specific performance criteria,” said Sharifai. “The business benefits have not only made us more efficient, we are more productive overall. The management reports have enabled us to become more proactive in our service delivery, which in turn has greatly improved our service. There is no doubt that Supportworks ITSM help desk software plays a significant part in our ability to meet our business objectives.”

Comet is a leading specialist electrical retailer with more than 250 stores throughout the UK, offering a wide range of electrical products. The company offers a unique all-round shopping experience with a range of services including home delivery, full installation of products such as televisions and computers, take back and recycling facilities for large products and comprehensive after sales service.

Service management solution

Comet employs 10,000 staff across its locations in the UK, many of whom use the IT systems that underpin the retailer’s successful sales and after sales service, for which the company is renowned. To ensure that the business systems operate to maximum efficiency, the IS department has invested in Hornbill’s Supportworks ITSM for its service desk.

The solution was selected for its ability to be used across several areas of the business, its ease of use and ergonomic design following an evaluation of competitive solutions. According to Rob Gwatkin, service desk manager at Comet Group Plc: “During evaluation, Supportworks ITSM was by far the most popular choice with end-users. We were looking for a solution that would give all round visibility of the service we were offering, so that we could see where improvements could be made.  Since implementation, Supportworks has given us that visibility and by concentrating on the top ten most common calls, and applying root cause analysis, we have been able to reduce weekly call volumes by 40 percent, through more effective incident and problem management.”

Rob Gwatkin continues, “Getting an early quick win, by implementing the vanilla version of Supportworks ITSM to give us maximum benefit for least effort has enabled us to show the business that we deliver what we say we can deliver. This has put the department in a strong position when we are in discussions with the business about service delivery. Instead of being dictated to by the business, we are able to take a more proactive and creative approach, whereby we go to the business with ideas for better service provision and more efficient use of our resources.”

Common sense

The IS department uses Supportworks ITSM for Incident Management, Problem Management, and is about to go live on Change Management. Supportworks is also used to manage IT assets through integration with Comet’s Altiris asset management and SAP enterprise solutions. Incidents with usage histories can be tracked-back to particular business units or individuals. This helps the IS team to identify potential training requirements.

Call statistics have identified that 20 percent of the calls received by the service desk relate to password resets. Gwatkin has introduced a nominal departmental cross charging system that could be adopted. By providing visibility of the cost of service provision, IT aims to encourage callers to initially look for answers on the company intranet before contacting the service desk.

“ITIL provides a best practice framework for service delivery, which we have used as a guide for our service improvement programme at Comet,” explains Gwatkin. “However, we don’t refer to ITIL when we talk to the business. We prefer to use terms like ‘common sense’, and ‘good practice’: underneath it is still ITIL, but business managers don’t need to know.  We find that we get greater buy-in from the business when we take this approach.”

80% of calls resolved ahead of SLA targets

One of the major benefits that Supportworks ITSM has brought is the ability to demonstrate the value of the services that the IT department provides to the business. The introduction of Service Level Agreements has provided clarity on the service delivered by IT and its performance. It has also enabled the team to measure the performance of third party suppliers.

“Our SLA rates consistently reach 94 percent,” said Gwatkin. “We are also able to demonstrate that of the fixes that we carry out, 80 percent of the time we are faster than the published SLA target.  This published information has helped to boost the credibility of the department. Now we receive many ‘thank yous’ from the business.”

The Major Incident Management records enable business managers to get an update on an incident within 15 minutes, which reduces the number of calls the service desk receives to enquire about progress. “Communication routes are a lot clearer now and everyone has visibility of what is happening, which is particularly helpful during a major incident as it enables us to concentrate on solving the issue in hand,” said Gwatkin.

Other departments benefit from ITIL approach

Following the successful adoption of Supportworks ITSM by the IS team, the HR department is also using the system for common HR queries relating to cost centre, employee service information and payroll. There is now a single corporate service desk, whereby users call a central service desk number, with queries handled by the respective teams.

It is not only the HR department which has seen the benefits of Supportworks – the facilities and property departments are now also interested in using the system. “It was always in our original plan to roll out Supportworks ITSM to other departments. We can use the platform and technology to facilitate a single consolidated service desk, which provides economies of scale and ensures that our customers get a consistent, quality service,” said Gwatkin.

Customer SelfService

A particular focus for the IS department is on enabling its users to be more self-reliant, explains Gwatkin. “SelfService through Supportworks ITSM is the next big delivery for us. The benefits of this will be huge – our target is to reduce our current call volumes by 50 percent, giving us a total reduction of 70 percent since implementing the system.”

As well as the built-in functionality, Gwatkin and his team have been pleased with the ease with which Supportworks ITSM can be configured, and the support from Hornbill and its customer community. “The project was delivered within three months and within budget, giving us much more functionality than we at first needed. We were able to deliver a lot out of the box, so didn’t have to spend a long time configuring the system to meet our needs. The dramatic improvement in service provision due to Supportworks and more efficient and proactive working has secured our reputation as a department that supports the business and delivers on its promises.”

www.hornbill.com

InfraVision says it enables IT departments of large and mid-sized organisations in all business sectors, to run as a business; a business with a clear service portfolio for its customers, adding value to the core business of the entire organisation. The company has many years of experience with ITIL, Bisl and ASL; the reference frameworks for setting up management processes within a service organisation. Unlike many other companies, it says it has proved to be capable of turning the theory of ITIL into pragmatic best practice solutions for customers.

The company delivers project-based services that make it completely clear from the outset what results will be achieved; what the deliverables will be; what the  costs are and the time frame; and also offers hosting and/or support of the solution.

In its projects it combines thorough application knowledge with broad know-how of ITIL. As a consequence it says it has very high standards when selecting software vendors to work with. Indeed, all of its vendors are leaders in their area of expertise.

With ‘out-of-the-box’ software InfraVision says it creates tailor-made solutions for the customer. And when implementing these solutions out-of-the-box thinking is employed to create a project that fits the needs, budget and time frame.

InfraVision’s Business Service Management model is best visualised as ‘four circles’:

Service Support: Covers the description, implementation and support of services delivered by IT to the business. Service Support uses processes like Incident Management (Request management), Service Level Management, Change Management and Problem Management. Service Support, like all circles has a very tight relation to the CMDB and therefore Configuration Management.

Service Assurance: Covers the monitoring and event generation of your service infrastructure. Service Assurance uses processes like Capacity Management, Availability Management, Problem Management, Continuity Management, Event Management and Security Management. Service Assurance improves availability and reliability of the services delivered by the IT department and enables IT to be proactive.

Service Automation: Automates tasks and processes that are usually manual tasks, thus saving time and money. Processes that particularly benefit from automation are; Operations Management, Change Management, Release Management, Identity Management and support of virtualisation.

Security: One of the major tasks of any IT service provider is to make sure all services are delivered in a secure way. In today’s environment with its many risks from outside but also from the inside it is of the utmost importance to have a clear strategy around security, a strategy that should be translated into policies for your environment and for every service you offer. InfraVision says its security offerings provide advice and the necessary tools to optimise security policy.

At the Service Desk and IT Support Show at Earls Court (see preview on p55) InfraVision will be unveiling two new products from BMC Software; the latest release of Service Desk Express with Alignability, Version 10, and the new joint venture from BMC and Salesforce.com, Service Desk Express On Force.com, a fully Software as a Service (SaaS) offering being delivered on the Force.com platform.

VitAL: What are the origins of the company; how did it start and develop; how has it grown and how is it structured?

Nigel Todd: InfraVision was started in the Netherlands, long recognised as the leading country in Service Management, in 1989, it has grown organically and through the acquisition of two companies, Muller Ohlinger and Partners in Germany to form InfraVision GmbH, and the inclusion of Hobbit, a Dutch Service Management company. The UK arm was started in 2008.

VitAL: What is the company’s specialist area or product group, if any?

NT: InfraVision inspires organisations to move from a break/fix culture to a service-led culture. This is achieved through the delivery of field-proven – in over 200 companies – processes, procedures and work instructions, the skills and mindset for your staff to embrace the transition and the technology to act as a delivery mechanism.

 InfraVision provides service, system and network management software and services that enable IT departments of large and mid-sized organisations, in the commercial and public sectors, to run their department as a business; a business with a clear service portfolio for its customers, thereby adding value to the core business of the organisation – in simple terms, less downtime and more productivity.

As the leading Elite partner in EMEA for BMC Software, we specialise in the ITSME product suite and specifically in BMC Service Desk Express with the Alignability Process Model, a combination architected and built by InfraVision.

VitAL: Is that specialisation to make the best use of skills in the company or because it fits the company’s world view or has it simply evolved?

NT: InfraVision has always been a Service Management-focussed organisation and have developed the right group of people to deliver world class Service Management solutions utilising what we believe to be the best tools in the market.

VitAL: How has any specialisation influenced the company’s general stance?

NT: InfraVision is recognised as leader in Service Management, and will always have Service Management as a central pillar to the company’s offerings, but over recent years , as Help Desks evolved into Service Desks and became the central point of any customer, InfraVision has expanded into Security Management and Network Management as well as the more obvious extensions into Facilities Management and HR.

VitAL: who are the company’s main customers today and in the future?

NT: We have over 130 customers ranging from smaller organisations with two people in the Service Desk to organisations such as Danone and NATO who count their agents in 100s. Many of our customers have been with us for years, a testament to our practicing what we preach. We see InfraVision helping our customers to deliver more value from their Service Management core, tying in automated Event Management, automated Building Management, Automated Systems Management. As access to the web becomes easier and more mobile, we will exploit the hand held opportunities for Service Management.

VitAL: What is the company’s business model, ie, does it select a market and then design solutions to meet the needs of that market or does it specialise in particular solutions and seek markets where those solutions are needed?

NT: InfraVision long recognised the gulf between ITIL and a pragmatic solution, between being a break/fix organisation and a service-led business partner organisation and set about developing and delivering a solution that addressed those shortcomings in the market. But, by the same token, organisations are no longer able to write blank cheques for the implementation of such a solution, and as our tag line is IT out of the box, we devised an out of the box solution that is hugely powerful, yet retains flexibility. It has proven a huge success and has led to the expansion of InfraVision in all of its markets.

VitAL: What is the company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility, ie, ‘green’ issues?

NT: In so far as an organisation engaged in our type of business can be, we recognise and support the need for looking after the planet and staff are encouraged to be socially responsible. InfraVision values its most important asset, our staff and encourages a healthy work life balance, regularly bringing the whole company together to address issues and celebrate success, in business and in personal lives. The culture of InfraVision is of a young, vibrant, innovative company that likes to walk a mile not only in our customers shoes, but in our staffs’ shoes too.

VitAL: How is the company encouraging social responsibility in its customers and the wider world?

NT: As will be seen at the Service Desk and IT Support Show in April in London (see preview starting on page 55 – Ed), we will be showcasing one of our larger customers Danone, and their presentation will feature a powerful message on our roles as citizens of the global village and their desire to provide healthy nutrition and water to as many of the world’s population as possible. A goal supported by InfraVision and a message passed to as many of our prospects and customers as possible. Change is possible, but change for the good is not inevitable, unless we make that change be for the better.

VitAL:  How does the company communicate with customers?

NT: We communicate electronically wherever possible, and encourage online forums and presentations, however there are times when human interaction is the only medium that will suffice and we call Customer Councils, on-site visits and attend trade shows where our desires and messages are appropriate.

VitAL: What does the product range cover?

NT: We offer, in the simplest terms, Service Management, Systems Management and Security Management solutions, either as stand alone entities or, more preferably, as entwined entities.

VitAL: What is your view of the current state of IT Service Management and IT in business and the economy in general, the challenges and the opportunities?

NT: Given the current economic climate, organisations are becoming more complex and placing ever more reliance upon technology to efficiently deliver their products to their customers. With that reliance comes responsibility for the Service Management teams. These teams are being asked to look after more, often with the same or less resources than before. IT is still seen as a cost centre in many organisations rather than the integral business partner it should be. In such organisations they must transform to a service-led culture or either be replaced or downsized further.

 Efficiency is crucial and while ITIL offers glimpses of the key to success, it is not the be all and end all that sadly many purveyors would have you believe. Rather it is a component in a complex solution that is attainable, and not at huge cost.

The CMDB is not the Holy Grail, it is achievable and in a short time frame, ITIL alignment is useful but only as long as it delivers tangible value. By all means align to ITIL, but only the parts that work for you, and then do not be theoretical, rather be pragmatic and efficient; does this save us time, increase the service to the customer, and is it affordable? If it’s three yeses, go for it. In this climate we must be efficient, service-led and deliver value, especially in organisations where IT has five or so staff, all wearing many hats – these organisations don’t have the luxury of over manning, expensive monitoring systems – they need to work smarter and harder, and we can help.

VitAL: Has the company grown organically or by acquisition and how much is growth expected in the future?

NT: To date the majority of our growth has been organic with around 15 percent growth due to acquisition. We expect to double the size of the business in the next three to five years, depending upon the climate, if the downturn progresses our doubling could be sooner as the realisation of what we offer spreads and more organisations see how to save resources with our solutions.

VitAL: What are the future plans for the business?

NT: We will increase the amount of services able to be supported through our solutions, encouraging a Shared Service Centre approach as adopted by the City of Rotterdam where everything from reporting pot holes, to getting password resets, from understanding Civic Services on offer and their availability, to enquiries with the Port Authority goes through one Service Desk.

VitAL: Nigel Todd, thank you very much.

www.infravision.com

David Aminzade: David Amizade. I am 60 years old, married with two grown up children; any girls of marriageable age can apply via the magazine as I am getting impatient at not already being a grandfather. The company is Tufin Technologies, a vendor producing software that reduces the cost of firewall operations and change management. I am job director of Sales for Northern Europe. The main goals of the role are to build and motivate a successful channel and generate demand for the product amongst the larger UK companies.

VitAL: What got you started in IT?

DA: I’ve never been an IT or security techie, that’s why I can explain what the heck our product does. I spent most of my career in the telecommunications industry. My early career was in industrial electronics from there I moved into production engineering, business planning and finally sales and marketing where I have stayed for the last thirty years in some guise or another.

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

DA: The Dalia Lama – especially his book, ‘How to remain happy when dealing with moronic purchasing managers’. I also learnt much from two senior sales people in STC John Tate and Keith Ganney. They taught me that that almost no negotiation was evenly balanced and the fist part of a negotiation was to understand where the balance of power lay and negotiate accordingly.

VitAL: What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

DA: I’ve never had an IT job but I did own a Triumph Stag! My main claim to fame is that when working for Standard Telephone and Cables (a subsidiary of ITT), I was heavily involved with launching the word’s first credit card verification terminals to American Express. The first machine was installed in the French office of American Express in 1977.

When working for Check Point Software, Guy Hoffman and I brought to market the first and still the best cellular firewall which sits in a cellular network and does for the radio protocol what a regular firewall does for the IP protocol. In this achievement I must acknowledge the role of John Morton of Vodafone for the patient way he educated us in the ways of the mobile world.

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

DA: I once asked a large lady CISO when the baby was due (there was no baby). Now I only discuss babies with those I have impregnated.

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

DA: The freedom to be myself; the freedom from any man management responsibilities; the ability to sink or swim basically by using my own judgement; the business and personnel ethics of the Tufin senior management and the good humour of most of my colleagues.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

DA: To retire early; to be a single figure handicap golfer; to write a book along the lines of ‘How to invent a religion’ exposing how organised religion has corrupted the credo that they espouse and has been the main way by which people were and continue to be divided, manipulated and oppressed. To travel the old silk route, to speak fluent Italian and to be a imaginative cordon bleu cook; and to be blessed with lots of grandchildren and to  have the time, energy and money to enjoy them.

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

DA: I am a keen if as yet untalented golfer and I enjoy playing a system of bridge that relies on spontaneous bidding. Also in my form of bridge you are not allowed to discuss any hand after it is finished. I have owned a house in Puglia (Italy) with a very good friend of mine for the last five years, where I enjoy spending time and finally I love to cook all types of food. There are only two kinds of people those that eat to live and those who live to eat. I am firmly in the latter group.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

DA: Early exposure to Kryptonite; the benefit of having made many mistakes but only once; the love of a good women and the support of a set of excellent partners.

VitAL: David Amizade, thank you very much.

Back in September 2008 we reported that global healthy foods brand Danone was taking unprecedented control of its IT processes through automation, integration and ITIL best practice with the roll out of BMC Service Desk Express Suite from InfraVision. The roll out gave the Danone IT organisations at 253 sites, across 13 time zones and in 11 different languages increased service desk performance, manageability and organisational alignment.

Aurelian Sin, IS manager Danone South East Europe, explains the relationship: “We have worked closely with Infravision on Project CLIO since 2007. We researched the market carefully and decided on BMC Service Desk Express and using InfraVision as implementation partner because they proposed a different approach that was quick and relatively painless to roll out. With the Alignability Process Model (APM) InfraVision offered a completely new approach which differed noticeably from the time-consuming standard of describing every process meticulously. What would normally take a year could now be done in one month. They proposed an original approach, promising that we could start the roll out within the short time frame that was set and they fulfilled that promise.”

Danone combined the InfraVision offer into one Service Management approach named CLIO (Common Language for IT Organizations), with four key components:

-              Process model: APM;

-              Application: BMC SDE;

-              Standard Service Catalogue;

-              A BI solution allowing advanced analytics.

Danone’s mission is to bring health through food to as many people as possible. It operates 200 plants, employs 88,000 people, and has a presence in more than 120 countries across all five continents. It has leading positions in its four business lines: fresh dairy products (number one worldwide), beverages (number two in the packaged water market), baby food (number two worldwide), and medical nutrition.

The company has traditionally operated a relatively de-centralised technology support strategy, with most of the countries where it has a footprint typically managing their own IT processes. The result of this siloed approach was that the support environment became increasingly difficult to manage. Spread across different countries, the support teams relied on a variety of tools — in some cases, even spreadsheets — to manage end users’ technology.

“The IT service departments at Danone range widely in size from organisation to organisation; from one or two people, to larger service management organisations. We had to offer the same tools and functionality to all regardless of their scale,” explains Sin. “For example, when we rolled out Clio, we were able to use it, after training for six ITIL processes, straight away in all departments, moving from unit to unit in a fast and pragmatic way.”

“The departments are all different from country to country,” agrees InfraVision project manager Martijn Adams, “so we have to deal with over 30 IT managers and every aspect of the CLIO has to benefit all of them. Clearly, under these circumstances change management and project management are extremely important. A pilot project in Romania led to the first roll-out, which was in the UK and Ireland. The processes had to allow for different levels of maturity of IT organisations to be combined in the system.”

InfraVision uses the Alignability Process Model for implementing service management tools. This model is based on the experience of over 300 organisations over the past 10 years and provides real life best practices for 11 ITIL processes. This approach ensures success and saves a tremendous amount of money, time and frustration for organisations wanting to implement a service management tool based on ITIL best practices. APM was central to Project CLIO. “The APM model has firm foundations,” claims Adams. “It is based on established standards like ITIL, but is not solely based on theory; it is developed from practical experience.”

If there is a downside for InfraVision from deploying APM it’s that the average size of projects has reduced, but as Adams explains, that’s not always a bad thing. “Though the average size of contract is smaller, the quality improves greatly which in turn drives more business. The benefit for the customer is that they no longer have to change systems every six years or so.”

The success with CLIO has driven further partnership. “After working with InfraVision on this project we have started looking into other areas where they can help us,” says Sin. “Run book automation is our next step, but we are considering more.”

InfraVision has over 10 years’ experience in implementing service management processes (ITIL) and tooling. “What we have learned during hundreds of projects is that a ‘tool only’ implementation will most likely fail,” says Adams. “Features of a tool are nice but the important question is; does the tool support my processes? And even more importantly; will the project approach make sure these processes and the supporting tool are embedded in my organisation and accepted by my staff? The answer to the last question depends 95 percent on the partner you select to implement the solution and much less on the tool. Having said that, there are of course good tools and not so good tools on the market.”

 “We’re all starting to speak the same language,” says Aurelian Sin. “We have the same problems; we make the same changes and our SLAs are comparable. This allows us to see the best performers and share best practice across all the organisations.”

Looking to the future, Sin sees the process and the change management maturing in the organisation, but he also identifies avenues for development. “One project we have in mind is run book automation,” he says. “We are finding tasks that can be automated, the repetitive tasks where no value is added by staff, and seeing how we can automate them.”

“This is part of the whole vision of service management,” adds Martijn Adams. “The help desk moving towards service desk and on to service management. Automation is a key part of this process. Even in Eastern Europe where salaries are lower, automation can play a role by reducing resources consumed. If you look at how fast we rolled out the initial project you can really begin to see the value. It took less than 12 weeks, where a typical ITIL implementation could take up to two years!”

www.infravision.com

Stephen Clarke: Stephen Clarke, managing director, Truancy Call Ltd. Two children aged 10 and 4.

VitAL: What got you started in IT?

SC: I have always had an interest in IT since owning my own Sinclair Spectrum in the 1980s. This progressed as I got older and I dabbled in computer programming for a while with a thought that I may want to move into that area but it was marketing that took my interest and after completing a marketing degree I worked for a period as a marketing manager for an insurance company. However, Marketing and IT were my passions so within a few years I moved sideways to take up a product manager role within Truancy Call Ltd and quickly progressed to director and then managing director. It helps to have logical mind when liaising with the technical people in the company and I certainly think my passion for IT helps

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

SC: In 2000 I read an article about two schoolgirls who went missing on their way to school. They were located after three days but their parents were angry that their school had not notified them about the absence. The Department for Children, Schools and Families recommends that schools phone parents after their children have had unexplained absences of more than a few hours. This is a major task for school offices, which highlighted a need for technology to safeguard children’s welfare through first-day contact with parents of absentees. The Truancy Call software we developed links school registers to a system that sends out emails, text messages and voice calls, informing parents of their child’s unexpected absence and requesting an explanation.

 VitAL: What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

SC: I did not have a first IT job as such, however, the first triumph for Truancy Call Ltd must have been when we collected two awards at the Orange small business awards: one for the company and one for me personally. More recently we won the Best use of Technology Category at the Fast Growth Business Awards.

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

SC: Not so much embarrassing mistakes but when I picked up a BT Essence of the Entrepreneur award I had to have my photograph taken. The photographer decided that he wanted to link the image to the company name. He decided that I should be dressed as a stereotypical truant, so I was dressed in shorts, a blazer and a hat, holding a skateboard and smoking a cigarette while stood in a park in Oxford in the middle of the day! Parents were wandering by taking their children to the park looking at this grown man dressed as a schoolboy. What I learnt from this is that sometimes you just have to throw yourself into things no matter how much it might take you outside your comfort zone.

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

SC: The variety; one day I will be out visiting schools with our area managers, next I will be doing radio and TV interviews and then the following day I will be pitching in and speaking to customers to answer any technical queries we have. This was the case when we sent out over two million text messages to parents via our Call Parents system to advise them of school closures during the recent snow.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

SC: We currently operate in the UK, Ireland and Australia and I would like to move the company further into overseas expansions, while expanding our product range in the UK within the education market, public sector and corporate markets using the similar technology to what we have already developed.

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

SC: I enjoy spending time with my family, skiing when the opportunity arises and I am currently learning to play the drums.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

SC: Since I started Truancy Call Ltd in 2000 I have led the business to continuous growth and success. This can be largely attributed to our innovative use of technology to help schools tackle issues such as truancy and bullying, while saving them money and halving the time administrative staff spend calling parents. I regularly visit customers to obtain feedback and as a result we can now send messages in 15 different languages, which has increased the volume of automated phone calls sent out and in turn increased turnover. Our products are now used in over 1,000 schools in the UK, Australia and Republic of Ireland.

Here he reveals that while perhaps he’s no ICT expert, he does enjoy Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd and the odd pint… and he has certainly got serious ambitions!

VitAL: Name, company and job title please? Married? Kids?

Trewin Restorick: Trewin Restorick, CEO, Global Action Plan.

VitAL: Married? Kids?

TR: Married to Saskia with two children Giselle (15) and Callum (12).

VitAL: What got you started in IT?

TR: I got interested in Green IT when we produced a report called ‘The Inefficient Truth’. I was shocked at the level of carbon emissions caused by ICT, surprised by the overall inefficiency of the sector and intrigued by the potential ICT offered in helping to cut carbon emissions in society.

VitAL: Was there any one person or organisation that was your inspiration?

TR: There were a few people who really got the agenda quickly and who gave me great ideas. They were Gary Hird at John Lewis, Chris Gabriel at Logicalis and Rakesh Kumar at Gartner.

VitAL: What was your first IT job, what was your first major IT triumph?

TR: I have never had an IT job, unless you count watching the IT Crowd. Instead I have tried to provide a connection between the fast changing environmental agenda and associated legislation and ICT managers. Successes have included ‘The Inefficient Truth’ report and undertaking some major research for Cisco looking at the barriers that exist in the public sector for the introduction of green IT initiatives.

VitAL: Did you ever make any embarrassing mistakes? What did you learn from them?

TR: I am constantly making mistakes due to my limited ICT knowledge.  Chris Gabriel at Logicalis once said that I thought a virtual server was something you get at Yo Sushi. I have learned to stick to what I know best and steer clear of overly technical conversations.

VitAL: What do you like best about your job?

TR: I have created and run an environment charity that employs 55 staff. I like the fact that the charity is very practical, innovative and making a tangible difference. I also like the fact that we working with all sections of society.

VitAL: What is your biggest ambition?

TR: To stop catastrophic climate change.

VitAL: What are your hobbies or interests?

TR: My body is slowly falling apart and taking longer to heal but despite that I play football, tennis and squash regularly and cycle as much as possible. To counter-balance any hint of healthiness I drink too much and eat loads.

VitAL: What is the secret of your success?

TR: Stubborn determination and a wry smile.

VitAL: Trewin Restorick, thank you very much.

www.globalactionplan.org.uk