In my last post, Eat
or be Eaten - IT Transformation Underway, I discussed the
transformation IT as we know it is undergoing. Last week I had the opportunity to listen to my good friend Eveline Oehrlich of Forrester present Reboot
Service Management as hosted by ITSM
Academy, confirming many of the discussion points from my previous post and
had me thinking about my next series of posts.
The IT is being dropped by more and more folks in the
industry and ITIL is being discussed less
and less due to negative feelings surrounding it. Business has reached the
point of frustration hearing too much about IT, technology silos and processes at the
same time the market has opened up with new buying options removing the
perceived lack of competion IT has enjoyed for so long.
I initially was going to start this series with Why Business Service Management, however,
after last week’s discussion led by Eveline, I also agree, to shed the IT and
business delineations of the past. Now I
ask myself what is it we need to focus on? Why is this transformation underway? The answer had hit me quite easily earlier
this year, it’s simple. At the end of
the day we need to answer a couple of simple questions:
- Are we
open for business?
- How are we
performing?
- What is
our current level of risk?
- Are we
operating efficiently?
These are the questions at the crux of this transformation
into a center of innovation driving the business and a small operation
managing the commodity as efficiently as possible. In slide 7 of Eveline’s deck, she discussed
how technology demand is up even with declining revenues because organizations
see the power that technology can bring their organization. There are 3 facets to this: Demand for technology, Growth of revenue and
Decline of costs. The next few slides
and discussion supported a complex environment, self service and support of
technology and technology savvy workforce. The technology is moving to the business with the business buying their
way into a center of innovation, leaving old IT to commoditize and operate the
legacy. The credibility gap between the
technology savvy business and the current IT organization is growing and thus
the shift empowered by new, easy buying options.
Very few organizations perceive their current IT
organizations will drive growth for their organization because most feel their
IT organization does not understand the business. Businesses are seeking growth and customer loyalty
far above just driving out costs in the current environment. The businesses are seeking guidance in
applying technology to drive growth and are spending to see that happen. These will be the leaders of their industry
in the coming year.
The most interesting chart in the conversation last week was
slide 22 and where IT is placing their priorities. IT prioritizes efficiency and cost where they
have a great opportunity to drive revenue, customer loyalty and competitiveness
for the business in the market. I assume
the folks attacking driving growth are in the minority as it is the greatest
change for the current IT organization. The level of complexity to manage technology increases the more the
business subscribes to their own disparate services across business units. As this gap grows, this is the point of
inflection where I believe the new center of innovation will evolve from to
centralize management again, but in a business fashion versus an operation
fashion as we have today.
As the discussion began to come to a close, we look at slide
59 and 60 and see that 45% of organizations will have SaaS services by the end
of 2012 and 60% by 2013 with businesses shifting from managing cost and
focusing on business agility. This is
why I found slide 22 interesting as most IT organizations are still focusing on
cost. This is where I believe the center
of innovation and operations for the new IT will evolve from because the
current IT cannot answer the questions above and have no idea how technology
impacts business. Most IT organizations
manage all technology the same, box on / box off is equal to severity 1, when
they should have visibility to business impact setting priority and how
management focus of resources are applied.
So Why Service
Management? To know if you are open,
performing well, managing risk and operating efficiently. It’s about the service of your business, not
the technology and the business is seeking roles, employees and service
providers that drive growth, customer loyalty and market competitiveness. The question is will they hire the talent
from the outside or will the inside evolve to transform the organization and
become strategic to apply technology rather than just operate the technology.
It’s not just about contracting cloud services for the sake
of it, but a strategy of applying the right technology, deployment option and
manage it and bake that management into the service to manage and grow the
business. In the next posts I’ll discuss
each question in further detail focusing on:
- Are we
open for business? Availability and
service views and management
- How are we
performing? Performance of the service both from the
technology & business perspective
- What is
our current level of risk? Risk both
operationally and from a security perspective
- Are we
operating efficiently? Leveraging
automation and standards
I believe technology will fragment and decentralize before
coming back together with centralized management, but it will be management of
services and the application of technology to drive growth, thus the center of
innovation. The business is already creating
this capability, it’s just a question whether the inside folks are part of the
strategic movement or left with the operational management.
How is your IT
organization evolving?
Posted
May 22 2012, 02:35 PM
by
Michele Hudnall
Filed under: Systems Management, IT management, Availability, cloud, Forrester, Operations, IT Process Automation, BSM, Business Service Management, Forrester Research, End-to-End Management, Operations Center, IT Operations, IT, Business Services, ITSM Academy, Eveline Oehrlich, IT Transformation, Michele Hudnall, Data Center Solutions