For many years there has been much talk about ‘Business IT Alignment’, yet almost daily we see situations where IT is clearly not listening or IT is hearing something completely different. Projects are cancelled because they are taking too long, not going to deliver, or have become self perpetuating. I recall a few years ago sitting in a Senior IT Steering Board and hearing the CEO clearly say to the CIO and her leadership team, “Stop breaking things and when things do break I want you to be able to fix them fast!”

When we came away I then heard the CIO translate this into a ‘programme that had to deliver Operational Excellence’ which then got translated by the IT Leadership into six completely different projects that all had different objectives and seemed to be solving differently problems, three of which decided the answer was to outsource. Turmoil!

I have since become painfully aware that the same messages are said in many (if not all) organisations and are still not heard. So why do we keep delivering the wrong things and delivering them badly? I strongly believe that this is because some principles and practices in IT service provision are significantly flawed and ineffective. I can’t explore all of these flaws within this article but let’s explore one of the CEO requirements above and some of the reasons why they said this. Let’s look at implementing new services or major changes as the cause of the CEO outburst.

The CEO perception is:

1. Bad vibes before go-live;

2. Last minute training and testing;

3. Unplanned spend just before and after go-live;

4. Many complaints once live;

5. Support unable to cope with volume of work;

6. Panic buying to get it working.

Sound familiar?

Emergency changes

Research conducted by iCore involving several large, global organisations indicates at go-live the support capability is woefully inadequate and ongoing financial provisioning is understated. This has been measured by taking several characteristics of the new service or change to assess its success. These include the number of emergency changes, the profile and trend of the Incidents logged, and the profile and trend of Resolution activities.

What causes this, and what can be done about it? The main principles I believe need to be reviewed are summarised quite nicely in the ITIL  v3 publications ‘Service Design’ and ‘Service Transition’, and they sit right at the core of Project Management delivery. I challenge the principles of Project Management, covering the Business Case, Investment Appraisal, Cost Benefit Analysis, and Risk Management; they do not make realistic provision and consideration for the transition and ongoing support and maintenance of a new service or change.

Figure 1 shows research into the ‘pressure’ that builds within a project in both the Business and IT. This shows four phases or step changes which map closely to the common project phases of Design, Build, Deploy, and Stabilise. Surely, we do not plan for such sharp and continuing pressure? I am often reminded on the ‘7Ps of Project Management’: “Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Project Performance.”

Visibility

It is clear during Phase 1 the IT Operational Service has no visibility of the Project; Phase 2 involves an “engagement” by the Project with Ops; in Phase 3 the Project “expects” Ops to provide support; and Phase 4 sees the Project close. The hike in Phase 4 comes when lack of proper capacity planning, continuity planning, service reporting, and ongoing financial budgets come to light! All these issues would be covered by proper Transition Planning.

Figure 2 shows detailed review of the research and shows the need for the Project to have to supplement BAU resources while they get up to speed with supporting the new service. This is often unplanned work impacting service levels, budgets and customer satisfaction.

Eventually a steady state is achieved, but looking into the incidents before steady state there are other issues evident, namely the inefficiency of the BAU resources (and the impact on their other workloads) and a growing customer dissatisfaction as an incident backlog develops and takes time to clear.

Better Transition would help to address most of these flaws and the resulting issues. Transition must focus on:

• Improved visibility to the cost, risk, functional capability and service delivery aspects of the project / change;

• More reliable planning and sizing of the Transition activities, putting “Delivery of Operational Service” onto the Project Critical Path;

• Ensuring New Service / Major Changes are designed and built with Operations in mind;

• Defining realistic Operational Acceptance Criteria;

• Planning effective Transition resources to enable smooth go-live;

• Building a tried, tested and flexible Transition operation that is able to cope with the varied demands

We owe the Business better delivery, so we should stop breaking things!

To find out more about effective “Transition of Service” you can contact Steve Ingall at steve.ingall@icore-ltd.com or visit the website at www.icore-ltd.com

Value added resellers and member service providers are increasingly turning to remote monitoring and management (RMM) technologies in a bid to improve managed service delivery and achieve differentiation. Yet recent research reveals that traditional on-premise RMM solutions are proving too time consuming and expensive to implement, as well as incurring significant ongoing costs and thus fundamentally constraining both the quality of service delivery and return on investment.

However, just as cloud computing is transforming the cost of ownership of software applications, VARs and MSPs adopting cloud-based RMM achieve rapid implementation with fixed cost and minimal training requirements. Leveraging this model, resellers can immediately offer customers a range of highly flexible service offerings based on proactive maintenance and in depth reporting.

Cloud-based RMM enables more effective use of resources, facilitates profitable cross- and up-selling and builds strong customer relationships. Critically, it enables clear differentiation with vastly reduced investment in resources or staff training, hence delivering a rapid return.

Service desire

RMM technologies deliver proven benefits in greater system up-time, reducing the cost of support and enabling organisations to evolve beyond the traditional break/fix model to a far more proactive managed service. For VARs and MSPs the technology is compelling, offering the chance to deliver far more effective service to customers while also reducing overheads and improving productivity.

According to recent research conducted by GFI, MSPs and VARs cite server monitoring, LAN and Windows monitoring, patch management and remote support as the most valued features of RMM. The top reasons for adopting remote monitoring are to offer faster fix response times and deliver preventative maintenance.

With full, real time visibility of customer systems, VARs and MSPs can also undertake valuable cross and up selling, leveraging in-depth performance reports to demonstrate to customers the need for additional storage and server requirements.

Yet while the technology is theoretically compelling, the results have been, to date, somewhat underwhelming. This research revealed that almost half of IT support companies and MSPs believe the initial investment in RMM software is too high and 42 percent say the return on investment never meets their expectations.

Complex model

The primary problem faced by organisations attempting to implement RMM technology is the complex nature of traditional on-premise solutions. For a VAR looking to offer added value services to customers, the implementation of on-premise RMM requires significant investment in server hardware and communications infrastructure, as well as staff training.

The survey revealed that almost half of respondents complain that it took one month or longer from initial purchase to be fully up and running. Indeed, for 20 percent of MSPs, it actually took six months or longer. These organisations are also struggling to manage the financial burden of staff training, with 41 percent stating that it takes longer than one month to fully train technicians on the RMM system; with 15 percent citing in excess of six months.

Of even greater concern is the fact that 56 percent of respondents admit that staff do not have time to learn the whole RMM system. And, of those who do try to learn the full system, 40 percent of IT support managers think technical teams get too buried in the detail of RMM tool deployment and lose focus on customers.

Given these figures, it is perhaps no surprise that over half of MSPs state it is difficult to show customers value from managed services contracts.

Flexible solution

In the current economy, VARs and MSPs keenly require an opportunity to both drive down operational costs and boost the competitive profile through the delivery of innovative, effective services to customers, which is why many have turned to RMM solutions. But, as these figures reveal, the investment in time, money and resources is simply too great to justify the traditional on-premise RMM model.

The alternative is to turn to cloud-based RMM technology. Just as growing numbers of organisations have embraced the pay as you go model for software applications, VARs and MSPs can now consider the benefits of a Software as a Service (SaaS) approach to RMM.

With all the core functionality of the RMM solution located in the cloud, the process of implementation is fundamentally simplified. VARs need only to load agents onto the customer’s hardware and communications equipment, a process which takes seconds, and then follow a simple installation routine, which includes default monitoring suggestions. As a result, VARs can be up and running with RMM within minutes: there is no time consuming configuration to undertake, no training necessary and, since the cloud-based system automatically updates itself, there is no need to schedule housekeeping tasks such as software patches and upgrades.

Clear pricing

The new generation of simple user interfaces requires minimal training, ensuring even a junior administrator can undertake the first level of troubleshooting, further reducing both upfront and ongoing costs. Furthermore, the cloud computing model also overcomes the complexity of traditional pricing which, according to the survey, is perceived as complex by 42 percent of respondents.

It also completely removes a problem cited by 53 percent of the survey respondents, of paying for areas of the system that are not used. Indeed, under the traditional on-premise RMM licensing, it is apparent that many actually have a significant investment in unused licenses. Furthermore, they are paying an additional 10 to 20 percent in support costs for on-premise RMM solutions. Following the pay-as-you–go cloud approach enables them to acquire only the licenses required on a month by month basis, at a fixed cost which includes support, enabling a flexible scale-up/scale-down model in line with business and customer requirements.

This flexible model allows users to offer a raft of different service options to customers, options which can be expanded and enhanced as required, enabling managed services contracts to reflect customer needs. VARs can also offer tailored, in-depth reporting solutions based on the in depth monitoring information to support customer organisations looking at how best to develop the IT infrastructure both during the recession and, critically, as markets begin to emerge back into growth.

Service value

VARs and MSPs have been attempting to leverage RMM solutions to attain a key differential in a challenging, competitive and price sensitive marketplace. Yet far too many have been deterred by the high cost of entry and extended time-frame to get up and running. A cloud-based approach to RMM now enables resellers to rapidly achieve a new level of service that delivers better uptime to customers, as well as lower cost of service and greater employee productivity.

For the reseller, cloud-based RMM is not only enabling far more efficient and effective use of resources, but is also delivering the in-depth information required to build a stronger customer relationship and support effective and relevant cross and up selling. Critically, this differential is being achieved without extensive upfront or ongoing investment in resources, training or staff, enabling the rapid ROI that is essential in the current market.

www.gfi.com

Established over 30 years ago, as an independent, global professional services organisation for IT managment, this year Pink Elephant celebrates 21 years in the ITIL experience business. It is the world’s number one supplier of ITIL and ITSM conferences, education, consulting and support services. According to the company, to date, close to 200,000 IT professionals have benefited from its expertise. It has championed the growth of ITIL worldwide since its inception in 1989 – longer than any other supplier – and was selected as an international expert to contribute to the ITIL v3 project – as authors of v3’s Continual Service Improvement book and through representation on the International Exam Panel.

In January this year Pink Elephant UK appointed Marcus Harris as its chief executive. As a former director at the BCS (British Computer Society) and prior to that, i2k – both organisations with a close relationship with Pink Elephant -  the company was aware of the range of skills and experience that Harris had to offer.

Defining a clear vision and strategy for the next five years, Harris is responsible for leading the organisation through its next level of growth. His appointment shows that despite the appalling market conditions in 2009, Pink Elephant is going from strength to strength.

Harris is an enthusiastic and passionate advocate for quality IT Services through the development of individuals and organisation. His experience in combining Continuous Professional Development with SFIA plus tool sets and professional accreditation means he has a fantastic understanding of the market Pink Elephant operates within. “Pink Elephant is a strong and enduring international brand, synonymous with quality and service delivery for over 20 years, and I am looking forward to the challenge of developing the business further,” he commented on his appointment.

A history in IT

“I set up i2K up a few years ago with a colleague after working for Wave Technologies, an early adopter in educational video apps training,” remembers Harris. “We offered a coached front end, managing a programme of development for the highest professional levels, in Microsoft as well as ITIL applications. We worked very closely with our partners offering professional coaching and managing back-end delivery with Pink Elephant as one of our partners.”

Indeed Marcus Harris first came into contact with the guys at Pink Elephant working with them as a partner. “Pink Elephant supplied all i2k customers with ITIL training while we supplied Pink Elephant with their internal induction programme. It was a highly successful and genuine partnership.”

The relationship was so close that when Pink Elephant moved into new premises i2k took the top floor so Pink Elephant was effectively their landlord. “Apart from our rowdiness, the arrangement worked very well.”

Ultimately i2k grew and blossomed into a desirable outfit delivering professionalism to the IT community. Seeing its potential, BCS acquired i2k in 2007 and merged it with its membership business and its SFIA Plus business.

“When I moved on from BCS, I got a call from Alan McCarthy, Pink Elephant’s director of EMEA who had kept tabs on my progress,” explains Harris. “He informed me that he had decided to take 60 percent retirement, and asked me to step into the role of CEO. Knowledge of Pink Elephant’s reputation, customers and team ensured that I found myself parking in their car park and picking up the reins. That’s how I how I ended up here.”

Outside of work, Marcus is also an established speaker, presenter and part-time actor. Indeed his acting credits go back to 1978 and readers of a certain age may remember his starring role as Julian in ITV’s adaptation of Enid Blyton’s Famous 5. His side interest in the dramatic arts has continued to this day with roles in adverts, dramas and documentaries.

A changing business

“My arrival at Pink Elephant coincided with the company taking a significant step forward with their business,” says Harris. With major upheaval in the market coming out of 2009; and companies such as Parity Training going into administration, Pink Elephant UK is in the right place to surge forward. “My task is to see the business double over the next four years and then achieve steady growth after that and on into the future,” says Harris.

Planning for this growth, Harris has so far doubled the size of sales force with the introduction of a telesales / telemarketing team. He has increased the number of consultants and moved operations to new premises in the middle of Reading where he says there is plenty of space for expansion. At the same time Pink Elephant is launching new training centres in various regional locations, and will be Platinum sponsors at this year’s itSMF Annual Conference & Exhibition.

“We have our northern launch taking place around September this year. It will consist of a new training centre in the region,” Harris explains, “and thereafter we will open another four regional training venues, one a quarter over the next year.”

Three stages of engagement

While Pink Elephant is a well known and trusted training partner for ITIL, it also has a very sophisticated consultancy business which it is Harris’s ambition to develop and push forward. “We have brought on board a number of key people to help in this area too. We’re also going back to our roots  – offering resource on either short- or long-term contract, putting people into businesses to help them achieve their full potential. This isn’t just providing ‘bodies’, Pink resources have the support of a global ITSM organisation and have access to all the tools we use in our consulting assignments. In total this gives us three stages of engagement: education; consultancy; and resourcing. We are here to help our clients do it for themselves. Of course we run the ITIL training which we are renowned for, but we offer a pure consultancy service where we go in and help the client move to another level, creating the environment for them to achieve this goal; and with our resourcing programme we bring people on site to help them do what they want to do.”

It is a very busy time for Marcus Harris and Pink Elephant. “We are putting together a full mirror of Parity’s schedule to fill the gap left when they went into receivership. And we are continuing the core business of Pink Elephant in rolling out best practice to the IT services industry.

“An awful lot of people know ITIL,” Harris adds, “they know its value and a lot of organisations have been through the training courses. They now talk about service desks rather than help desks, for example, but how many people live and breathe the ITIL approach and really engage with it on a daily basis? It provides real tangible business benefits for organisations. In principle it’s about helping IT to change business and deliver business value.”

Approach to the market

Pink Elephant has to be one of the best known brands in the ITSM sector. “The level of awareness of the Pink Elephant brand and the affection in which it is held in the market are a massive bonus,” says Harris. “I was recently talking to a client about a COBIT/ITIL crossover programme and he immediately made the connection, he knew people in the organisation. Key members of our staff are well known out in the industry and our branding is well known too. It all helps to perpetuate the Pink Elephant name. A key part of Alan McCarthy’s role since the re-launch of Pink Elephant in 2004, has been to get the name back out there after the tumult of the late 90s – early 00s, and we have certainly benefitted from this approach.

“We’re raising the level of our communication with the client too,” expands Harris, “and have recruited a new team of telemarketers – to call through and touch base with our clients on a regular basis. We are building, cementing and developing our client base all the time, PinkLink (our e-Newsletter) is a key part of this process.”

A dynamic environment

Clearly in the last six months the UK and indeed, the wider world has changed dramatically. “All I can say is that since arriving here at Pink Elephant in January, things have developed and changed, not just inside the company,” says Harris. “We have been in the ascendancy – we had success and growth in 2008, but 2009 was a bad year for us as it was for most people, but business is now revving back up. We’re currently on a trajectory that looks like 2009 didn’t happen, we’re back on the growth line of 2008.”

Despite the rockier conditions in 2009, Harris says the company was to an extent insulated against downturn, so it could emerge aggressively in 2010. “I believe the UK economy is on the up now and lots of housekeeping is being done and bad debt is being cleared, there is an emphasis on excess cost being cut away at UK plc,” he comments. “We should see significant growth next year. Having said that, it is still a difficult market, all the symptoms of last year’s recession are still around, but the business indicators are on the up – fingers crossed that the UK doesn’t have a double dip.”

Pink Elephant benefitted from the recession to an extent. “Because there was significant damage done to our competitors, and we have performed better, we are picking up business and recruiting good people. We are in very good shape compared to many in the industry.”

The IT services world seems to be pulling through as well. “I haven’t heard of any project not happening because the budget has been removed. To my knowledge we haven’t lost any business because the budget isn’t there,” says Harris. “If as an organisation you want to deliver effective and lasting business change you have to improve your technology; your systems and processes have to take up the slack of any headcount reduction. And if you have to invest in technology, it makes good sense to invest in supporting processes.

“There is an exciting programme of reinvestment in IT processes, companies have to get more out of their existing systems and maximise their use of licenses. Change has to be handled properly, with consistency and competency. We offer support to people reaching these business objectives,” says Harris. “We are currently seeing expenditure to achieve gains. I haven’t seen much evidence of any cut backs as yet. People are spending to save – to extend their reach and create better products and better service. I’m enthused by what I’m seeing.”

www.pinkelephant.com

Serving more than 2,000 US hospitals and 53,000-plus other healthcare sites, the Premier healthcare alliance and its members are transforming healthcare together in the USA. Nearly 200 hospitals and health systems created and entirely own Premier Alliance.

Background

The key objective for Premier’s CITS (Corporate Information Technology Services) Group was to implement a Help Desk solution that would provide application and technical support for its internal customers (employees). However, the vision of the CITS Group transcended the traditional ‘Break / Fix’ Help Desk as they wished to provide a centralised Service Desk that could streamline and automate business processes to benefit all its business units.

Premier identified several collaborative business processes and goals they wished to incorporate and improve in the context of the Service Desk:

• Process: Incident Management; Goal: Increase uptime by providing a transparent view of problems from submission to resolution.

• Process: Problem Management and Root Cause Analysis; Goal: Increase uptime by identifying problems, learning from mistakes, and continuously improving.

• Process: Change Management; Goal: Lower risk, track all changes and reduce system downtime.

• Process: Applications Support; Goal: Manage requests for technical support that come from Premier’s externally-facing Solutions Centers.

• Process: IT Procurement; Goal: Streamline and track requests, approvals, ordering, receipt, and installation

• Process: Technology Asset Management; Goal: Maximise use of equipment and lower costs by assisting with the operational management of assets over the asset lifecycle – from purchase to disposal.

• Process: Work Intake; Goal: Automate and streamline the extremely manual and time-consuming workforce on-boarding and exit processes which manage account activations and terminations.

Additionally Premier wished to exceed the timeliness and quality of service established by the outsourcing partner. Perhaps the greatest challenge was the tight timeline to implement a new Help Desk Solution. In three months the support contract with the existing vendor would expire.

Required components

• CRM. An application that included: an interface with a user database; a problem / case tracking resolution database; a knowledge repository; the ability to solicit customer satisfaction surveys; real-time problem monitoring by customers; the ability to prioritise issues based on severity; and the ability to create an escalation process.

• Workflow Management. An application that included a defined workflow management system with customisable business rules to streamline and automate processes.

• Metrics and Reports. Robust reporting was a must. Premier needed both corporate and individual reporting capabilities and the ability to perform analysis to effect continuous improvement.

• Asset Management. A central repository to manage all company assets throughout their lifecycle.

• Self-Service. An application that included the ability to submit, monitor and track requests for service through a web-based portal. Premier also wanted to promote self-service by empowering their customers to find their own solutions through ‘knowledge’ searches and access to Frequently Asked Questions. Additionally, it needed a vehicle to communicate outage information.

• Integration with existing third-party applications and tools.

The initiative

A selection team was formed in February 2007. Members of the team had familiarity with several major tools including Siebel, Remedy and Magic. The team selected three tools to investigate further and began the RFI (request for information) process. The three vendors were:

Siebel: Premier already owned other modules of the Siebel application and therefore had support knowledge with their existing staff. This solution rose to the top due to this existing vendor relationship.

Magic: A mid-level application in the Remedy family; some team members had familiarity with this tool.

TechExcel-ServiceWise: Premier found this application through an internet search. After an initial product demonstration, it was clear ServiceWise could meet the requirements.

The three software vendors were sent a requirements list from Premier. Each vendor conducted presentations of their products. It was during these demonstrations that the selection team began to see clear differences in the products and began working towards a final selection.

TechExcel demonstrated how even the most difficult of workflows could be easily mapped and improved using ServiceWise. With ServiceWise, team members could see that their vision for a company-wide Service Desk was attainable. The team members recommended TechExcel’s ServiceWise to their executive committee and received approval. TechExcel was awarded the business in late May.

Implementation

Premier had a hard ‘Go Live’ date of September 1st. With only three months to complete a full implementation, the team had doubts as to whether they could install, configure and test the newly selected tool on time.

The TechExcel professional services team began working with the Premier implementation team immediately. Even before arriving onsite TechExcel assisted with setting up Premier’s environment and installing the necessary software pre-requisites and the ServiceWise application.

The TechExcel professional services team also provided guidance on legacy data migration, defining team roles, and detailing workflow considerations. This preparation work gave a ‘running start’ when the TechExcel professional services team arrived onsite. Initially there were a few environmental challenges and integration issues; however, the team helped work through the issues quickly and seamlessly demonstrating their commitment to Premier’s success.

The scope of this project required the commitment of Premier’s Team as well. They reviewed all of the existing processes and procedures to validate and document them within the knowledge base component of ServiceWise. The team developed process documentation to be used by the Service Desk agents for potentially faster and easier resolutions. Premier also transitioned the knowledge data from the outgoing vendor into ServiceWise.

With the assistance of the TechExcel professional services team, Premier conducted a relatively easy migration and all deadlines for documentation in the new system were handily met.

The TechExcel team trained the Premier team on how to configure the ServiceWise application. Soon the Premier team became self-sufficient in developing and customising workflows with this agile application. In early July, with less than two months to go, the Premier team realised that their goal was within reach.

One of the most cumbersome and challenging workflows at Premier was the on-boarding process for new employees. With the existing process, the helpdesk agent manually generated up to 12 help desk tickets after the original ‘IMAC’ (Install, move, add change) was submitted. The team was able to configure ServiceWise to create these tickets automatically dramatically increasing the team’s overall efficiency and minimising human error.

Premier’s implementation of ServiceWise required a change to the company’s support paradigm which was previously limited to email and phone support. Email support was labour-intensive and it required manual intervention to copy and paste information from the email into a manually created ticket. Premier wished to automatically generate tickets upon receipt of email. Even more importantly Premier desperately needed to move employees towards a web portal solution that would facilitate accurate and detailed ticket submission, again saving significant support time and resources over phone or email submission. The team anticipated employee resistance as email support had long been ingrained within the members of the organisation. Configuring a self-service portal that would be easy to use and have a high user acceptance level was imperative. To drive user adoption, the team utilised TechExcel ‘Best Practices’ and began extensive user communications. This effort included quick reference guides provided by TechExcel.

The results

As the ‘Go-Live’ date approached, the support Premier received was extraordinary. Both teams provided a heroic effort to meet the deadline. On September 1, 2007 Premier successfully went live with TechExcel’s ServiceWise. It enabled Premier to implement and automate five business processes – all fully customised, configured, and tested – within just three months.

During the first month after implementation, 1,319 tickets were submitted via the Web portal. One year later that number has jumped to 2,728 tickets representing an over 100 percent increase in portal submission of tickets.

The ultimate judge of the results is the user community. Premier has learned through the customer satisfaction surveys, generated through ServiceWise, there has been tremendous customer acceptance to the new support model. The success can be seen in the Customer Satisfaction KPI, which ended the fiscal year at a 99 percent rate. One customer’s response to the survey can best sum it up: “They (IT Service Desk Department) provided excellent response; solved my problem; and rendered 100 percent customer satisfaction. The department should be called the employee salvation desk.”

www.techexcel.com

David Cameron’s recent stark message to government departments outlining the extent to which they will need to cut costs will not have been lost on the wider business community. In fact, in all probability, private sector organisations have no doubt become past masters at tightening their belts, and until we start to see tangible evidence that the new coalition’s plans are going to deliver the required results, the belt is likely to remain firmly buckled!

For IT Support departments the need to be seen as a team player when it comes to doing their bit on the cost cutting front presents them with a major dilemma. What impact will reducing their cost base have on their ability to maintain, let alone improve, the quality of service demanded by their customers? For today’s forward looking IT managers buzzwords like ROI and TCO are almost part of everyday vocabulary but in these difficult times how easy is it to ‘blind’ the budget holder with science as you try to justify your request for the latest time and money saving device?

Desktop management

Back in 1989 when NetSupport first started producing Desktop Management software the business case was simple. The relatively new concept of being able to ‘remote control’ a PC located in one part of the building, or worse, a totally different building, while sat at the comfort of your own workstation brought instant appeal to the new breed of increasingly overworked helpdesk analysts. Modernisation through the use of computers was great but with this came the distinct possibility that things would break. In those halcyon days it was easy to present a compelling case as to why, with a little upfront investment, you would see a rapid return on your investment.

Remote control software enabled you to diagnose and resolve the majority of PC- and system-related issues without the need for a physical visit to the user. The combined benefits being that you cut out a lot of the wasted travel time and the associated costs, while at the same time the support desk instantly became more productive.

In the intervening 21 years technology has moved on apace but the underlying issues remain the same. Support teams are still expected to work leaner and smarter, maybe even more so at the moment, but when push comes to shove, if you are finding that the bean counters are using the current economic climate as an excuse to be a little more blinkered to the benefits that can be realised from that bit of initial investment perhaps it’s an ideal time to give them a nudge in the right direction.

Fire up the Quattro!

Let’s fast forward to today’s internet and gadget driven world, where fuel and utility bills are rocketing and decision makers have to consider the environmental impact of their choices. The modern corporate IT landscape and working practices have certainly changed dramatically and support software has had to evolve with it.

Remote control products still aim to provide the same cost and productivity benefits that they did in the 80s but it is no longer simply about being able to view a DOS-based machine located down the corridor or ‘firing up the Quattro’ so you can dash out to one of your branch offices because someone has asked you what ‘Format C:’ means!

Products such as our own NetSupport Manager have needed to adapt in order to satisfy different demands, key among these being the ability to support the increasingly diverse range of devices, platforms and operating systems now in use across the modern enterprise and the move among cost conscious employers to offer home or mobile working as an alternative to using office resources.

The business case surely stacks up more today than it ever did. Corporate IT departments need their Remote Access tools to connect them securely to users located anywhere in the world, irrespective of the type of system they are using. While Windows desktops may still dominate; Mac, Linux and the raft of mobile related devices should also not present any barriers to the successful operation of your service desk.

Luxury or necessity?

It’s clear that using remote access software pays big dividends and quantifying the savings to be gained and improvements in productivity for both the service desk and end user isn’t difficult, and a few years ago that’s where the story would end. However, today’s IT departments have access to a plethora of complementary tools to aid network management tasks. But when times are tight are these solutions considered luxury goods, nice to haves?

Flick through your copy of VitAL or one of the many lesser titles and it quickly becomes clear that Service Management and IT Asset Management are hot topics right now, just how did Service Desks function before ITIL!

I’m probably preaching to the converted here but organisations where, and I’m afraid it’s acronym time again, TCO is high on the agenda will appreciate the relevance of solutions that can effectively help you manage your IT assets or enable helpdesks to react to incidents and problems in a timely fashion.

Ensuring IT assets are properly managed and maintained should be a high priority for any organisation but without the appropriate reporting mechanisms in place how easy is it to identify when a piece of kit is past its sell by date, which machines needs migrating to Windows 7 or if you are about to breach your software licensing agreements.

IT assets can cost far more than necessary through waste and redundancy (direct costs) and overly complex management and maintenance (indirect costs). An effective IT asset management program allows you to control and manage assets, eliminate waste and redundancy and comply with ever-tightening government compliance regulations.

The annual cost of supporting your IT infrastructure can often result in costs spiralling out of control, where the initial purchase price of IT assets pales into insignificance. Understanding leasing arrangements and undertaking proactive asset management ensures compliance with software license agreements and makes budget forecasting more accurate. Knowing how many of your users are using a specific application at any given time will allow for both effective trimming of software budgets and a realistic prediction of future software investment.

In your genes

NetSupport DNA is typical of the new genre of ITAM solutions that are helping organisations make informed decisions about upgrades and the rollout of new technology. Based on its powerful Hardware and Software Inventory component, DNA helps you uncover savings through process improvement, gain control of all inventory across the enterprise, increase accountability to ensure compliance and enhance the performance of assets and their life cycle management. And to help you meet your environmental responsibilities while also saving you a few quid, we even provide an Energy Monitoring component that will identify areas of potential energy wastage across your enterprise. (Although NetSupport solutions can of course be used to remotely power off systems just in case you can’t rely on your staff to do it themselves!)

For many IT service desks the tools are already in place to ensure you can do ‘more with less’ but for those who may be using the current economic climate as a reason not to dip a toe in the water, I hope I’ve presented a compelling case as to how deploying the right combination of Desktop and Asset Management solutions can give you that immediate ROI!

NetSupport solutions are available to trial free for 30 days.

www.netsupportsoftware.com

Accurate, timely and available data is the key to a successful organisation, without easy access to critical information how can any organisation know its current status and be in a position to make decisions about what actions it needs to make on a day to day basis.

Information technology is experiencing a ‘revolution’ with the development of web technologies and the increasing capabilities of smartphones – they are changing the rules of the game in the way we receive and respond to critical information. Access to real time information can help organisations react immediately to situations and events that impact their business, delivering real time course correction data and creating a business GPS system.

An IT revolution

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘revolution’ as “a dramatic and far reaching change”. In today’s IT world, when talking about web technologies and smartphones the word revolution is appropriate. We are on the verge of a radical change in the delivery of mission-critical information, and more importantly, the ability for people to make timely business decisions ‘on-the-fly’.

Recently our CEO was sitting in his Colorado office wondering, with some concern, how his eighteen-year old son was doing. The night before his son had departed to Ghana in Africa, and he knew (from one of the many iPhone apps) that his son’s plane had landed. Suddenly his iPhone beeped and there was a text message from his son, sent only seconds before, from the other side of the world. His son had merely hit the ‘reply’ button to a message that had been sent to him while he was travelling. The exploding worldwide network of mobile phone coverage recognised where he was in the world and immediately routed the text message back to our CEO’s cell phone in Colorado. The most amazing part of this story is how much we take for granted the instant access to such information.

The relief of knowing nearly instantaneously that his son was safe was wonderful, but it also caused him to reflect on the dramatic changes we are experiencing with web based technologies and mobile phone devices, and how they are radically changing our daily lives.

‘After the fact’ Information.

Not very long ago, IT data went into the proverbial ‘black hole’ and most information extracted from this dark repository was reviewed and acted upon too late, ‘after the fact’. Although many organisations were proud of their book of monthly reports, most of the information was never used nor acted upon in a timely manner. Information in printed reports, utilising historical data, is often too late to make course corrections. Admittedly, reporting is still important for trending and analysis. However, with the advent of this latest technology revolution, management and technicians alike are in a position to instantaneously receive and use data, no matter where they are, to make real-time decisions and instant course corrections.

How important is this? If you were taking a plane trip from London Heathrow to New York, but the flight was two-degrees off course, how far would you be from your destination on arrival? While it is true that being only two-degrees off would equate to success in most organisations, in this example, you would end up some 90 miles from your desired destination—an unacceptable result in air travel.

Accordingly, today’s planes and cars can be equipped with ‘revolutionary’ GPS devices that can proactively warn you the moment your journey has taken the wrong direction. Such information saves a lot of time and money by allowing us to make the right decisions and course corrections before it is too late to meet our timely objectives.

Real-time Information

With the new generation of web technologies and smartphones, real-time information in our IT business environments can be used to make course corrections along the way, anytime, anywhere. Equally important, because of how user-friendly these technologies have become, they are being used by people who were previously uncomfortable with the technology, or too busy to learn it.

During a visit to a major university our CEO had a meeting with the University president. He had been told that this brilliant PhD was not technically savvy and did not like to spend a lot of time on his computer. However, he noticed that the president did carry an iPhone. Before long, they were engaged in a passionate discussion about their iPhone applications, trying to convince each other which applications were the best. The president then was quite intrigued when our CEO told him that there are iPhone applications that could notify him of any change requests that required his approval, providing him all the details needed to make a decision. Change approvals are often a bottleneck in organisations, especially when some of the approvers are frequent travellers, making it difficult to stay online.

The inefficiencies and costs caused by delayed approvals are significant in organisations, especially for approvals at the C-level. Such change approvals at the C-level typically are to approve the most expensive acquisitions—those that presumably have the most positive impact to the organisation, and perhaps the most risk. Accordingly, such delays in the approval process can be the most critical, having a negative impact on business activities.

Change approval functionality is only the tip of the iceberg of possibilities. Imagine how a senior executive in an organisation could utilise drill-down dashboards on their smartphone that would show ‘real time’, all the key performance indicators impacting their business. They could be immediately notified if any of their key business metrics enter the ‘red zone’. This type of management efficiency has often been referred to as ‘management by exception’. In other words, managers do not want to be notified about information that is ‘normal’ or in the ‘green’ zone. Instead, they want to be immediately prompted when issues are in the ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ zones – when the business is ‘off course’.

The CEO or their core management team are not the only benefactors of this mobile revolution. The efficiencies gained by an organisation’s IT staff can be enormous. For example, when a technician now goes to an offsite location to deal with an incident or related task, they can open a browser or smartphone application and access all the incidents and tasks assigned to them. The technician can then close the incident or task, reassign it, or make notes for later follow-up — no matter where they are.

Twenty-five years ago, the idea that we would always carry a device in our pocket that could communicate instantaneously with anyone from anywhere at any time would be Star Trek fiction, “beam me up Scotty”. But it is a reality of the technology revolution. Today, the idea that management and technicians can access, from their pocket devices the necessary information to make vital course corrections — at anytime from anywhere — is truly revolutionary.

The benefits gained from the ability to make real-time change approvals and course corrections by management, together with the efficiencies gained by frontline technicians, represent radical change for our industry. It was once said “Revolutions never go backwards.” Revolutionary technology is available today and through the creation of a real time ‘Business GPS’ system, it will inevitably change the way an organisation manages data and management decisions are made.

www.cherwellsoftware.com

Andy’s goal is initially to reduce his personal best (PB) time in the 400 meters hurdles, in order to qualify for the GB Olympic team. So keeping track of timings is essential. But it goes beyond that. How much time he puts into different training tasks in his regime, how many calories he eats, how much sleep he gets – these are all factors in achieving his goal.

In managing IT, particularly the area of IT production (the day-to-day, business as usual, or “BAU” tasks), we sometimes forget to have meaningful management metrics.

It is a basic truism that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. As with all simplifications, this is not entirely correct, of course; the key soft skills that distinguish a good manager from a mediocre team leader are difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, it is correct to say that a significant proportion of our work as IT managers needs to be clearly quantified.

Metrics, in the sense of management information, can be used for two purposes: to run the department, and to broadcast the achievements. As far as running the department is concerned, it is essential that IT production managers have metrics in place to capture what infrastructure the department is responsible for, what they are achieving and what resources are being consumed in order to reach their goals.

Basic raw metrics, such as the numbers of servers in the data centre, their applications, uses and roles, are essential in order to understand where resources are being used. This information, properly presented, is also very valuable in demonstrating the ‘value add’ of IT to the business and sponsors. This can be extremely useful during the annual budget negotiations!

Equally valuable for an IT Production department is a basic timesheet system. This helps managers identify ‘problem applications’ which are consuming excessive resources. Such knowledge helps facilitate discussions with development teams or business managers to identify efficiencies or alternative solutions.

Just as Andy and his coach pay minute detail to every aspect of his hurdling (stride patterns etc), so as IT production managers we need to have information at our fingertips to help improve our departmental performance.

No athlete these days would consider taking part without the necessary equipment (running shoes, clothing etc), and the understanding of how to use them. Similarly, the necessary software tools are essential to managing IT production, and training and experienced knowledge are essential in gaining the potential benefit.

Unfortunately, software can be relegated to the role of ‘shelf ware’ if its use within the organisation is not applied appropriately. Just as an athlete has to carefully watch his progress and be able to anticipate situations that may lead to injury, so as IT managers we need to have monitoring in place for systems to identify potential issues (shortage of disk space etc) ahead of time.

Although the use of specialised running shoes and starting blocks was once considered a luxury, no athlete today would run without them. In the IT world, we are unable to run Production efficiently without our bread-and-butter operational software tools (backup management, patch release management, monitoring and alerting, remote console management, performance monitoring etc). And yet, we frequently deploy these tools in a relatively unsophisticated, uncontrolled way, without considering an overall operational tools strategy. As a result, we sometimes have tools that are using inconsistent naming conventions, reporting on common systems in different ways.

How many times have we struggled with understanding what is the ‘correct’ answer to the questions about what servers are used for what application? We need to have a clear ‘referential’ or ‘master’ source of data for each relevant piece of information, be it definitive name for every server or application, to naming conventions for SAN storage.

Use of the right equipment, in a structured, strategic way, is important in trying to reach our goals, be they 400 metres of hurdles, or 400 Linux servers.

Athletes train hard and work hard. And we all aspire to a working life that is ‘smarter, not harder’. This concept is often misunderstood, however. Working smarter means eliminating ‘re-do’. Good athletes develop a rhythm, where every movement contributes in a smooth way to the overall result. There is no wasted effort, no need to continually correct or change course.

In the IT world, we also need to deliver our services more efficiently, in a predictable, repeatable way. Hence, IT production managers rightly stress the importance of relevant and appropriate processes and procedures. But, like our athlete, we need to keep our end-goal in mind. Beautifully crafted processes are only valuable if they enable the organisation to deliver the correct service in the most appropriate way.

Other people have struggled with similar challenges to us. Process improvement methodologies from industry generally (such as six-sigma) can aid us to achieve the speed and efficiency that we all want to deliver.

Although I work with consultants who are frequently qualified in the ITIL approach to processes and procedures, we always stress with clients and colleagues that such processes must be implemented in a pragmatic way. Properly implemented, good practices, policies, processes and procedures are means to help us achieve our goals, rather than barriers to prevent us doing so.

Although Andy is already a very fast sprinter, he has chosen to focus his attention on hurdling at just one distance – 400 meters. By concentrating on his ‘core skills’ he is not distracted by other challenges.

In the world of IT production, however, we are continually faced with alternative challenges to our ‘core skills’. Most data centres these days are full of servers of all sorts of make, manufacture, operating system and configuration. A typical organisation today may have systems from IBM, Sun, HP / Compaq, Dell, not to mention the multitude of other manufacturers. Not only at the hardware level, but also in the choice of operating system, database, middleware and messaging system, the technology mix proliferates. All of this diverse heterogeneous technology has to be supported and managed. And the more diverse the mixture, the greater the support costs.

Unfortunately, the choice of new technologies can often be made without taking into account the ability of the IT production team to support the solution, once it is deployed. The solution is to encourage IT production teams to focus on ‘production supportable’ technologies. What technologies are they able to manage and support with their existing skill sets?

All of this needs to be part of an overall IT production strategy or roadmap, identifying the technologies which are supportable in production and those which are not (or where support would become unduly expensive to the business). As with athletics, we can be more successful managing IT production systems if we focus on our core skills, instead of losing our competitive edge by spreading our commitments too widely.

Andy will be the first person to admit that his success is not solely due to his own efforts. The achievements he has already had in the AAA championships, running for Harrow, Middlesex and England, are also down to his coach and the support teams who work with him.

Coaches can see the mistakes that are being made, often when you are not aware of them yourself, and help you improve your performance. In IT production management as well, an independent consultant can help clients identify the shortcomings in metrics, in operational tools, in processes and in technology standards, and advise them where their own performance can be improved.

Maybe that’s where I came in.

www.dennisadams.co.uk

Now in its 20th year, NetSupport is a leading player in the field of network management software and the latest update to its IT asset management offering, NetSupport DNA, builds on the product’s core Inventory technology to incorporate a new ‘Energy Monitoring’ component, more of which later. While this may be the headline grabbing feature of version 3, there’s plenty more to whet the appetite and draw you to the 30-day free trial available on the NetSupport website (see below).

For many organisations IT asset management has become a critical function in recent years. The simple premise being that if you don’t know how many desktops you have, where they are located and what hardware and software is installed, it stands to reason that they can’t possibly be managed and supported efficiently. For those who still doubt the relevance of this sort of technology, seeing it as an expensive luxury rather than a necessity, you are overlooking one important factor: TCO (total cost of ownership). Companies who focus solely on the initial purchase price of IT assets are ignoring the fact that this can pale into insignificance when compared to the ongoing support costs.

 Asset management software can pay big dividends, automating the data gathering process and easily identifying areas of wastage and overspend, so how does NetSupport feel DNA3 will give it the edge in this competitive market?

First off the company should be commended for not resting on its laurels. NetSupport’s established expertise in the remote PC support arena, thanks to products like NetSupport Manager, meant that when NetSupport DNA was introduced in 2003 it had a head start by being able to provide one of the most comprehensive and detailed hardware and software Inventory components available. But, coming back to the issue of this type of software being seen as an expensive luxury, NetSupport recognised that organisations have differing requirements so it made the product modular, enabling companies to buy only those features that were relevant.

With version 3 NetSupport has identified some key areas where the role of network management has evolved in recent years. Established components such as hardware/software inventory, system & PC alerting, software distribution and Internet and application metering & control still provide the product’s backbone but these have now been supplemented with some new and highly relevant additions.

The installation is neatly streamlined, even more so than in past releases, and the resource overheads are more modest than many competing products. So a network manager can run the NetSupport DNA ‘Console’ on their local Windows machine (including Vista) and still perform other tasks rather than setting aside a dedicated server!

The first clue to version 3’s new functionality comes part way through the installation when you choose the program features. In addition to the usual options, Console, Client (the handy Deploy tool is best used to push out the Client program to end-user machines) and the location of the DNA Server, NetSupport have introduced their Internet Gateway technology, a connectivity feature users of NetSupport Manager will be familiar with.

An IT Asset Management tool that only provides half the picture isn’t much use to anyone but with today’s dispersed networks it’s not always easy to gather the required data beyond the local environment. Realising the complexities of the modern enterprise, NetSupport’s communication Gateway enables you to manage any number of separate networks over the internet. By installing a dedicated Gateway Server, data can be communicated back to this central area from multiple locations. It’s certainly reassuring to know that decisions on upgrades and the roll-out of new technology are being made from a completely informed position!

The installation complete and we’re ready to start collecting the asset information from the remote client machines. The fact that the NetSupport DNA Client program supports the major Linux distributions in addition to Windows platforms makes the product a lot more versatile than some.

As soon as the remote clients have been loaded they start communicating with the server which in turn makes the information available at the DNA Console (which has also undergone a complete transformation). Network managers are presented with a totally fresh and more appealing UI. Beyond just the physical appearance and the way on-screen reports are displayed, it now includes the introduction of separate PC and User tree views, making it easier to distinguish between the physical asset and items associated with the user (such as Internet and application usage), as well as a completely new navigation bar and dynamic component “action panels”.

The initial, often time consuming, user management tasks such as grouping clients by department, have been simplified by the inclusion of active directory support. You can now configure the PCs and users within the DNA console to mirror their relative position within the AD container structure, with changes to that structure being immediately updated in DNA.

NetSupport’s newly beautified interface is still as intuitive as ever. Access to features simply involves clicking the appropriate component tab and you are immediately presented with the relevant information. On-screen graphs make it easy to interpret the data and by clicking on the different levels in the User tree view, you can drill-down by specific groups, departments or users. DNA also includes a great query-based reporting tool enabling you to produce your own customised reports.

The Inventory component has traditionally been the mainstay of DNA and comes as standard in each of the different modular packs. Mainstay it may be but it hasn’t been ignored in the latest raft of enhancements. The Software Inventory tool now includes an ‘installed programs’ option which mirrors the ‘add/remove programs’ structure of your client machines, making it easier to identify and manage license levels.

To finish, we return to the new and innovative Energy Monitor component mentioned at the start of this piece. The efficient use of energy delivers two key operational requirements: cost reductions and improved environmental responsibility, the two elements combined being considered “Green IT”.

There is much talk about reducing CO₂ emissions and in the current economic climate, reducing energy bills is an equally appealing target. Industry analysts show that IT energy costs are often one of the highest on the company’s IT budget and one that is most overlooked for efficiency management.

DNA’s Energy Monitor component enables you to identify potential areas of energy wastage, primarily because most of us are too lazy to power down our machines when we go home!

By specifying the operational hours of systems across the enterprise, an average and customisable power consumption figure is calculated by DNA which, when combined with the company’s own energy rates, allows DNA to work out the overall cost of the identified systems. By providing managers with this high level summary of energy usage you can easily track where ‘out of hours’ usage is at its highest and decide if this is a result of diligent staff working late or simply systems that have been left switched on overnight.

A lot of work has obviously gone into making DNA3 relevant for the modern enterprise and if you’re new to IT asset management or looking to upgrade, this is well worth a look.

A free 30-day 50-PC trial can be downloaded at:

www.netsupportdna.com

Having a service desk tool that operates smoothly is of the utmost importance to Hutchinson as his IT support staff use this systems throughout the day as their main way of logging Incidents. A staff survey of their existing IT service desk provider highlighted major dissatisfaction. They were using a system that was restrictive and hadn’t grown with the requirements of the company. This resulted in Hutchinson seeking a new tool that would not only satisfy the needs of his staff, but would also deliver complete business process management functionality.

ICCM Professional Services Ltd (ICCM) was flagged to Hutchinson by a colleague, Emerson Freedman, service manager for BBC Worldwide, who had previously used ICCM’s e-Service Desk (e-SD). After reviewing several providers along with ICCM’s e-SD, Hutchinson decided that this was the right solution for the task. “e-SD copes with everything we aspire to do. With the foundation in place we’re able to build different processes around our needs allowing us to leverage it in every aspect of our business,” he explained.

By utilising e-SD’s processes, Hutchinson has made significant impact towards making the company’s whole operation run more efficiently. Less disruption to IT means employees in all departments operate with minimised distraction consequently increasing the whole organisations productivity and ROI. Hutchinson is also able to utilise the self-audit facility where end users can verify the assets they hold and update any discrepancies, resulting in dramatic cost saving as the need for physical audits are reduced. This mechanism supports cross charging and ensures that the compliance and governance obligations are met.

Timing of the implementation of e-SD couldn’t have been better as Hutchinson was facing an internal audit. With thousands of Incident calls per month, e-SD has enabled him to consolidate all data on the demands that the business made on IT. Additionally, he is responsible for IT service operations for all BBC’s worldwide offices. e-SD is currently being rolled-out to all their locations.

“Being web-based has made the introduction of e-SD to our other locations very streamlined,” says Hutchinson. “Having the same service desk in our main hubs, London, New York and Sydney has also facilitated 24 hours IT support. This has allowed me to align processes globally.”

Perhaps the most conclusive sign of improvement has been from Hutchinson’s own people. “I’ve never needed convincing about the quality and flexibility of e-SD. It’s 2,000 times better than our old system,” comments Tony Knight, application support for BBC Worldwide.

“IT problems in this business can be catastrophic,” Hutchinson adds. “With e-SD we can identify single points of failure and instigate corrective management. e-SD also helps us identify IT problems before they happen allowing us to act proactively not reactively,”

ICCM was originally established in the mid 1990s to provide consultancy services to organisations wishing to improve their service desk function. ICCM realised most solutions on the market did not offer the level of functionality being demanded by the industry, and for that reason researched other technologies to deliver benefits over existing application vendors. ICCM identified Metastorm BPM as an exciting process-enabling technology that seamlessly delivers a high performing orchestration engine and web interface that ensures compliance and adherence to any underpinning process. This enabling technology incorporating ICCM’s e-Service Desk truly transforms the way in which service management applications deliver value to a customer.

Today, ICCM’s core objective is to provide revolutionary software and superior services to organisations aspiring to Best Practice Service Management. Rather than the legacy application development- driven approach that many vendors in the market have adopted, ICCM’s forward-thinking approach blends their first-class service desk tool with the functionality of business technology in the form of Metastorm BPM. This collaboration delivers unparalleled service mManagement capabilities across all industries and business functions in almost every geographical region.

The Company’s value proposition to customers is four-fold:

Accelerated ROI: ICCM’s e-Service Desk can deploy more ‘out of the box’ products more efficiently and effectively than our competitors. Many vendors will sell solutions at a loss as they profit from reoccurring services and upgrade costs. At ICCM we believe customers who wish to be self-sufficient should have the tools to do so. Furthermore, we believe scalability and a solutions ability to grow and adapt with your business is essential to any investment. e-Service Desks BPM platform is developed around scalability and does not have the limitations of application-driven technology.

Process-led technology: ICCM’s e-Service Desk tool, coupled with the business process functionality of Metastorm’s BPM solution, delivers a radically different approach to service management. By developing its technology from the process up around the ITIL framework ICCM’s solutions allow customers to tailor processes around their company’s actual needs giving better value and ensuring a smooth implementation into any environment.

Flexibility: Working with ICCM our customers experience flexibility unprecedented by our competitors. Our system easily integrates into existing software but also evolves for future environments. Additionally, our flexible pricing modules allow companies of all dimensions to find a pricing structure that suits their needs, whether that be process, nNamed, concurrent or role-specific. Our flexibility goes further still; being 100 percent web-based technology allows full access for remote working service teams, including wireless PDAs and Blackberry devices. Our self-service portal gives customers a window into the status of their service request any time or place.

Service and support: At ICCM we thrive on a culture that provides outstanding service and support to our customers. We deliver on this commitment from initial deployment through to everyday operation. Our ITIL best practice consultants deploy your software and are readily available to offer their acute technical knowledge and broad experience to your service management programme. In addition, we encourage an active user group community by providing regular user group sessions, customer days and forums. We rely heavily on input from our customers, enabling us to align customer feedback to our product road map. We also believe our customers are entitled to service and support when they need it. Our global support network and our extended support hours allow us to offer assistance around our customer’s schedule.

The BBC was originally launched in 1922 and is now recognised as the world’s largest broadcasting corporation, employing over 28,000 people in the UK alone. The BBC offers radio, television and online broadcasting to more than 200 countries worldwide and is available to almost 300 million households. BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC, offering a range of media business across the world.

The BBC solution

The solution:

-              e-Service Desk 

License model:

-              250+ Licensed Service Desk Agents

Notable features:

-              Customer portal self audit for CI’s

-              MAC/PC supported environments

-              Major incident management

Locations:

-              Global deployment – follow the sun

-              Integration to SMS & Microsoft Active Directory

-              Supporting 100+ active services

Database:

-              MS SQL Server 2005

Phase 1 deployment:

-              Incident management

-              Major incident management

-              Problem management

-              Service requests

-              Service catalogue

-              Task & resource management

-              Customer portal

www.iccm.co.uk

The intention, was to bring ITIL and IT fully up to date and in line with changing business needs as the industry matures, and business demands are greater than ever for high quality service delivery.

With all that said, approximately 80 percent of IT budgets are still consumed by “keeping the lights on” – maintaining day-to-day operations, so it makes sense, particularly in these times of extreme cost challenges, to make this the slickest, leanest and most efficient area within IT.

Through implementation of the ITIL Service Support processes, you can realise some of the key benefits of a best practice approach; which include elimination of re-work, downtime caused by unplanned changes and the resultant reactive and stressful workloads. How? By working to minimise the adverse effect of incidents, reducing the number of repeat incidents, and reducing the number of total incidents through the Problem & Change Management process. If 70 percent of Incidents are caused by changes you need to look at ways to reduce this percentage – think of the cost savings and reduction in downtime that could be achieved.

Effective implementation of the ITIL processes really can reduce costs, reduce the risk of operational failure and increase customer satisfaction. So the content of the ITIL courses should be aimed at helping you to achieve this. IT management and service management teams need to identify the issues specific to your organisation, then understand what needs to be done to improve the current state, define and communicate the vision of the future and educate your teams to perform within a service-driven culture.

Pink Elephant strongly believes that the purpose of ITIL education is to enable an organisation to empower its employees with specialist knowledge in order that they can return to the workplace with an understanding of the best practice framework and talking a common language. The Lifecycle courses are for management know-how with regards to the different stages of the lifecycle approach. Applying the principles and making ongoing service improvements, is the role of the professional practitioners and is required to sustain IT as a successful part of any organisation. This is where the Capability courses provide value.

 “Add value” means making practical improvements to IT services. Those improvements then enable the business to either reduce or contain costs, reduce risk (of downtime – which by its nature will reduce costs), and increase customer satisfaction through making IT services more service-focused. Adopting the ITIL framework can deliver all of these benefits, and people who understand ITIL can make it happen (needed especially in today’s economy!) But the emphasis should not be about driving people towards an overwhelming ‘Expert’ programme that will take at least two to three years – and probably longer for most people – to complete.

Twenty two points for an individual does not equate to service Improvement for IT. So let’s get back on track with the ITIL Certification scheme – it’s not about the number of examinations the examination institutes can sell, it’s about delivering knowledge to individuals who can then make a difference in their organisations. And it’s not just about having an ITIL ‘Expert’ Certificate, it’s about gaining real, practical knowledge. What we need is more carefully targeted education and training aimed, primarily, at delivering value to the organisation.

Any large organisation these days will have responsibilities spread across multi-person teams – so why not train them all up to be part of a ‘Management Expert Team’ or a ‘Practitioner Expert Team’, rather than focusing on individuals obtaining Expert status.

These days, an organisation needs to see real and immediate benefits from their investment in education. Pink Elephant’s courses have all been designed to include practical and proven ‘how to’ and ‘recommended implementation plans’ that you can take away and start applying the day you return to work. We don’t just teach what needs to be done, we also show you how to do it. Our improved Capability courses aimed at the practitioners who perform the process roles, provide the detail, structure and exercises to enable improvements to be initiated upon return to work.

With Pink Elephant you can be sure to receive top class training from the world’s best team of ITIL Experts. Remember, all Pink Elephant consultants have already attained the ITIL v3 Expert designation. We don’t have ‘lecturers’ – chalk and talk specialists who are just able to deliver a syllabus, we have ‘Consultative Trainers’ – people who have a practical knowledge of the subject, and who are able to help individuals with individual issues they may have ‘back at the ranch’.

Your role and objectives both personal and professional will dictate which courses you need to attend and which will give you the most appropriate outcome. We see certification as being relevant for 3 distinct groups:

1.            Teams.

-              Depending on whether they have a strategic or tactical/operational focus.

2.            Individual practitioners.

-              Depending on their role or project.

3.            Consultants or service management champions.

-              Depending on whether they have a strategic or tactical/operational focus.

Pink Elephant has revised the titles of its ITIL v3 Intermediate courses to better reflect the roles individuals perform in organisations, and to help guide IT professionals along the most appropriate education path in the ITIL certification scheme.

To simplify things, our recommendation for those seeking the ITIL Expert certification is to focus on the ITIL Manager path – where you will gain the widest breadth of ITIL knowledge and gain all the credits you’ll need. For those who need education to support a specific project or tactical role – choose the individual ITIL Practitioner courses.

The five lifecycle stream courses cover each book and are renamed ‘ITIL Manager’ courses, as follows:

•             ITIL Manager: Service Strategy

•             ITIL Manager: Service Design

•             ITIL Manager: Service Transition

•             ITIL Manager: Service Operation

•             ITIL Manager: Continual Service Improvement

The four capability stream courses are renamed ‘ITIL Practitioner’ courses, as follows:

•             ITIL Practitioner: Operational Support & Analysis

(Service Desk, Incident, Request, Access, Event, Problem Management. Includes Technical, Applications & Operations Management)

•             ITIL Practitioner: Release, Control & Validation

(Change, Release & Deployment Management, Service Validation & Testing, Service Asset & Configuration Management, Service Evaluation & Knowledge Management)

•             ITIL Practitioner: Service Offerings & Agreements

(Service Portfolio Mgmt, Service Catalogue Mgmt, Service Level Mgmt, Demand, Supplier & Financial Mgmt)

•             ITIL Practitioner: Planning, Protection & Optimization

(Capacity, Availability & IT Service Continuity Management. Information Security, Demand & Risk Management)

Adding to all this confusion is a complex certification scheme that allows for the mixing and matching of v2 and v3 courses to earn credits – but with rules describing limitations because of content overlap. There is overlap which exists between v2 and v3 Practitioner courses, but also between v3 Manager (lifecycle) courses and the v3 Practitioner (capability) courses. This table has been designed to try and help you identify which courses should not be combined due to the overlap in content.

www.pinkelephant.com