Business Service Management Hub

I’m back from a couple of weeks of travel and most notably, the annual  Gartner Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit (IOM) the first week of June.  There were more than just a handful of aha moments, much churn in what has been a mature market and many great conversations on the solution showcase floor and hallways.  Let’s start with the opening keynotes on the first day:

10 Emerging Trends that will Impact Infrastructure and Operations – David Cappuccio

The trends are in last week’s InfoWorld article, “10 for 2012: Gartner’s Top Emerging Infrastructure Trends” and are as follow:

• Consumerization of the Tablet
• The Infinite Data Center
• Resource Management
• Mobility
• Hybrid Clouds
• Fabric Data Centers
• IT Complexity
• Big Data – Big Problems
• The End of Service Desks
• Virtual and Software-Defined Networks

David opens with the statistic of >75% of IT budgets are spent just keeping the lights on, operating, not driving the company forward.  IT didn’t see the (or didn’t want to see) the tablet coming to the workplace.  Just 5 years ago 1G of storage cost $7995, today it is 25 cents – that was yesterday! and I was 2 years away from my first cell phone, still had a pager!  We have LOTS of data to secure, not hardware or devices to manage, the focus must shift from the device to the information and data.  The Cloud will replace storage from the PC / Workstation to be accessible from any device, anywhere.

Even this old timer, slow adopter (me) is synching 3 devices via the cloud to share data across devices without the help of my company and I share that data with outside parties as appropriate due to the size limitations imposed by IT.  We all find a work-around!  At a minimum we each have 4 devices, yes, I have 2 phones, an iPad and a laptop, 5 if you count the Kindle I stopped using – have to keep Microsoft and Apple, Google and Blackberry all in check.  😉  I still live with the “Blue Screen of Death”, but have been seen checking the weight of that boat anchor of a Mac Book Pro.  🙂

The expectation is that no matter what we are using, it “just works”.  IT lost control of the environment a long time ago, now is the time to embrace the next generation and the self service culture.  Companies are now considering a stipen to aid in funding a device of the users choice lowering support and break-fix costs.  My bet is it happens within the year.

Another interesting statistic was for every 25% of functionality added to the current infrastructure, there is an increase of 100% in complexity.  The cloud is here, the business is subscribing with or without IT as I’ve posted previously out of frustration to deliver innovation over just operating.  We in IT are in catch up mode and need to move quickly.  With that said, we all need to be wary of the hype and focus on the value delivered and concentrate on the right delivery model for the value.

Of all the trends, the one indicating the end of service desks surprised me most from this conservative crowd and having spent the early part of my career in this market.  The more I have pondered this trend over the past week the more I agree and see it.  I have often posted and consulted that IT needs to stop turning support into a custom adventure and at 10% of an IT Operational budget, it is well suited for SaaS and/or outsourced.  Customers expect service now (no pun intended 🙂 and IT is diminishing it’s own value in the loss of productivity, especially with the next generation of workers.  IT needs to become proactive, embrace new technology and begin focusing on the right deployment options and securing the data / information, rather than device support and lock down.  This shift has occurred very quickly and the war already lost by IT.

Applications 2020:  The Impact on Infrastructure and Operations of Current and Emerging Trends in Applications – Valentin Sribar

To my surprise, an old friend presented this session, Val, and was quite an interesting topic and approach from an Operations outsider in front of 800+ Infrastructure and Operations leaders.  The first half of the session focused on the next generation worker and their expectations of technology.  I had to think about my baby nephew during this session (now 17) who grew up with a whole different view of technology and it’s capabilities.  Who, by the way, is the only person I’ll “text” with as it is his only means of communication and a communication method I dislike.  I think of one of the first applications I provided for him, a Crayola painting application.  My father and I watched a 3 year old at the time drag and drop the primary colors into his paint tray and paint a picture.  I with, my back to him, asked, “create and use purple, my favorite color”.  Sure enough he does it without question to my father’s exclaim, “how did he know he could do that?”, (dragging and dropping red on blue) I said, “because he didn’t know he couldn’t”.

This generation expects devices to just work, expects them to work together and expects to easily share data and applications across platforms and devices and communicate instantly in 140 characters or less.  My nephew doesn’t understand that if he texts me while I’m driving, what’s the delay.  Connectivity is instantaneous and global.  I travel globally, my nephew hears the action of a car race on the phone, turns on the tv to see it live, we text and IM across the globe as if I’m in his house daily and part of his daily life.  When he was born and I lived 10 hours away, I wanted to be sure we had a tight relationship.  Little did I know that in 6 short years the world would change and in a couple more years, distance would no longer be a challenge.  This is the next generation worker, not hindered by device, time or distance.

Development for the mobile world should be the default and workstation minority as an afterthought.  The user experience from these devices will be like jewelry, a microphone, speakers, cameras, gamification of applications, scoring and choice of applications, etc. etc. etc.  These workers expect an AppStore, not IT, to choose, download and just use in an instant – it just needs to work.  Apps and options are not one size fits all.

STOP what you are doing today and turn it upside down.  Reduce costs at the bottom to add value at the top and get away from one size fits all and join the value add discussion.  This is where Val provided several insightful slides and a paper (G00147079 – Application Leaders:  Stop Eating Profits and Capital with the Unnecessary Operational Expenses).

Both of these sessions set the tone for the remainder of the sessions and 3 days of the Summit that I’ll save for additional posts.  What this all points to is Change is inevitable, with Change comes Complexity and with Complexity and the need for speed comes Risk.  We all need to embrace the Change, learn to manage Complexity and mitigate/control Risk to take advantage of new technology and deploy innovation into our organizations.  As someone in the Service Management or Business Service Management market for quite some time, this was music to my ears.  The Cloud is the disruption creating the urgency for change, as well as the next generation.  Ignore the hype, focus on the value and choose the right deployment and technology options that will drive your business into the future.

The one thing that did strike me odd in most of the sessions was the use of the term “User”.  The reason this struck me odd was that the focus should be on the customer, less on the internal users, and driving the business.  Working to drive the business is about the organization in support of the customer.

As I entered the workforce, a southerner was transplanted in Boston and a year and a half later relocated to Texas with a New York co-worker and friend .  At that time our confusion was a result of different words and concepts like Round-abouts, The Green Monster, The Garden and BBQ of which I had no idea what the first 2 were, the third I thought was a botanical garden and the fourth was of course stringy pork with a vinegar based sauce and coleslaw sandwich versus steak on a bun.  We had dumb terminals and PC’s were off in the distance.  Change has come lightening fast.

I walked away from the Summit knowing it is about the service, driving revenue, embracing technology, ignore the hype and concentrate on the value, securing an unknown perimeter and creating freedom of the imagination.  Technology with Imagination – Endless Possibilities.

Thoughts?  Were you at the Summit?  What struck you the most?

Michele

I traveled the globe from October to February meeting with customers and our sales teams discussing NetIQ’s IT Operations Management (ITOM) value and solutions, then I traded in wings for a bit.  Now it’s time for one of my favorite battery re-charging conferences of the year, the Gartner Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit (IOM).  I enjoy the Summit to see old friends in the vendor community as well as many old analyst friends, but this year there is a lot of buzz around the Summit and ITOM has become the talk of the town again.  Here are few quotes and phrases from the opening pages of the Summit Agenda:

• “Delivering Accelerated Business Value:  Cloud, Mobility and More”
• Hot Topics:
  • Enterprise mobility
  • Private/Public cloud computing
  • Moving beyond server virtualization
  • Cost optimzation
  • Data center space, power and cooling
  • ITIL and process improvement
  • Improving IT service quality
  • Business value
• “The reign of the PC is over.  A new era is emerging, one that will require enterprises to fundamentally rethink how they deliver services to users.”

There are many sessions on the power of these emerging technologies, how we will manage them, how we will deliver value to the business and how technology is no longer just operating the business – technology is powering the business.  At least that’s what our businesses are expecting in the coming couple of years and how the competition with the service providers is stacking up and pushing the IT Wake Up call.

I’m jazzed to start my day tomorrow with 3 back to back keynotes with a couple of old friends:

• 10 Emerging Trends that will Impact Infrastructure and Operations – David Cappuccio
• Applications 2020:  The Impact on Infrastructure and Operations of Current and Emerging Trends in Applications – Valentin Sribar
• The IT Operations Scenario – Ronni Colville & Deb Curtis

Then we move into lunch, come see us at the NetIQ solution showcase to chat about the sessions with my old friends and how we see their insights coming to life in our every day worlds.  I’ve been posting on the need for IT to better align in how it speaks of technology in the business as services and driving top line revenue rather than just bottom line with cost savings for a while now.  In the last bullet above from the opening pages of the agenda, the one thing that did strike me odd is “deliver services to users”.  I would restate that as it is how we will “deliver services to our customers”  to drive revenue.  Yes, driving efficiency into the organization is part of the IT balancing act, but the first focus has shifted to the customer and value.

Then I’ll finish the afternoon with:

• Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2012:  Will You Be Able to Manage Them? (Before They Manage You?) – Cameron Haight
• Compuware, VMware and Dell will provide simultaneous session with a App Performance, Cloud Mgmt and a CIO Panel, repsectively – How will I choose?
• 2 More Choices to Make:
  • VDI and other Virtualization Strategies to Securely Support and Manage a Dynamic Workforce – Neil MacDonald & Philip Redman
  • Leveraging Mobility, Content and Communication in you Business Processes – Bern Elliot
• 2 More Final Choices to Make:
  • Lessons Learned from Early Adopters of Social IT Management – Jeffrey M. Brooks & George Spafford
  • Networking and Mobility Trends for the Next Decade – Tim Zimmerman

Then we are back to wrap up at the NetIQ solution showcase with a head spinning with many new viewpoints and ideas.  I look forward to speaking with many of the attendees to gain their insights into the sessions, stop on by and join the conversation, follow us in real-time on Twitter and send your comments to these posts.

As you can see from my agenda for just the first day, many new trends to wrap our management arms around to provide flexibility with balance of controls.  Change is coming fast and furious and managing it with controlled risk will be the key to the successful in the coming year.   I have some choices to make tomorrow regarding the sessions I can attend, but look forward to hearing about the risks and value of new technologies applied to our business challenges.  You even see a little Social Media has creeped into IT Management.  Wonder what that’s all about?  🙂

I’ll send a few early comments on Twitter tomorrow during my adventures.  Follow:  @BSMHub this week and catch the real-time insights, at least my perspective, of the conference.  I’ll post my take aways each evening.  Drop me your comments, I’d love to hear what’s happening out there in the real-world.

Michele

The Hub Commentary_

BYOD makes the headlines, it takes just one to spoil the party.  Mobility whether internally issued or personal devices all carry management and security management concerns and challenges.

After 20+ years from the days of mainframe, to distributed networks, now to highly mobile device du jour IT organizations must break the cycle of new technology first, management later.  Headlines are always an eyeopener for a wake up call.

IT is being outsourced rapidly and must develop the discipline to manage new technology and manage it accordance to business priorities.  For instance, many engineering firms are arming their field engineers with mobile devices.  Managing that mobile infrastructure is driving the business and must be managed as such as all services are not created equal.

This is a light offense and an article worth a grin, but should be an eyeopener too.  The worst is yet to come in the headlines.

Are you managing or hoping no one spoils the technology party?

Michele

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Mimecast CEO Peter Bauer recently found himself at the intersection of consumerization and IT management, falling victim to personal data loss as the result of the internal management policy he himself helped establish.  (Read Full Article…)

Mobility and wireless network infrastructures are the big takers when it comes to IT budget planning for 2012, our latest study reveals. Even so, organizations are moving to the next stage of the IT infrastructure build-out across multiple budget areas, and our 2012 IT Investment Patterns Study shows how the strategy trends of innovation, integration and reversion are having a significant impact on 2012 spending patterns.  Read More Here . . .

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In this survey results for spending in IT Operations/Management/Governance are the only area with an increase is Data Center Management. Those that are following the lead of the service providers will see this as the management of the technology to deliver that consistent and stable IT performance for business value from my previous post. Mobile delivery options prevail as a leading technology as the consumerization / BYOD (bring your own device) of IT continues. However, these solutions must perform and be available to drive your organizations competitive advantage in the market.  This is the link to business for 2012 investments requiring the stitching together of data from the many systems and applications that are in place today and turning it into real-time actionable information.

Does your IT just run the business or does it drive the business?

Michele

Like many CIOs, you may find yourself struggling to innovate in advance of an anticipated economic recovery, while still striving to keep costs down in a decidedly uncertain business climate. And, even though you’re striving to be seen as a valued, senior member of your management teams, the enterprise perception of how much IT contributes to a competitive edge is decidedly mixed.  Read More Here . . .

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As part of its look to the future CIOInsight highlights the Top 3 initiatives keeping CIOs up at night: cutting costs, operational efficiencies and deliver consistent and stable IT performance to the business. These initiatives are neck and neck with the number of organizations that see IT as their competitive edge in the market. Most IT organizations still spend ~85% of their IT budget “just keeping the lights on”, with minimal focus on supporting and delivering upon stable and consistently performing innovative services aligned with business objectives. This percentage of spend is generally ~ 1 – 2 % of revenue spent annually operating rather than driving.

The cost of not evolving is far greater for IT organizations than the cost of transforming and adding value to their business.  Buying decisions are also migrating to the business because they have more options and they are creating change.  Outsourcing is never done for cost savings, it is to create change in the environment that the organization is unable to create on it’s own.

Time for change may have arrived in 2012.  Good set of insights.

Michele

The Hub Commentary_

Nice article and similar to a previous post of mine on Finding your Services. In that post I described mapping your services based upon cost and value to the organization.  Keeping those differentiating services in house and evaluating other deployment options, like Cloud, for those that do not differentiate your organization.

A component called out in this article is usually the obstacle that keeps these projects from being right sourced, fear of losing jobs.  It’s a job evolution as the author describes to a service provider, business analyst, value add analytics driving growth into the business.

The model is much like that of the manager of managers.  IT becomes the manager of managers and analyst of services and will require the tools to aid in turning data into information.  There becomes the requirement for the integration platform that pulls data from the various monitors and service providers, as well as the value/volume of transactions being processed driving growth.

IT becomes “glue and the view” into the services they provide and their performance to the organization.

How are you preparing to evolve your data center staff and services?

Michele

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When CIOs take calculated risks, choosing emerging technologies from less established companies, the payoff can be enticing. We take you inside the journey of two established organizations for a deeper look at this success.   (Read Full Article…)

In February, I had the pleasure of attending the Western Mass Pod Camp, a one-day “un-conference” held each year in western Massachusetts where among the speakers I saw was Dave Wieneke, Dave got me thinking of something I hadn’t considered before, and that’s the idea that apps on mobile devices not only provide users with valuable data (sometimes), they have the capacity to transmit data back to your company as well…if only you know what to do with it.

In fact, according to a report from analysts Heavy Reading, it’s no coincidence that large companies like IBM and Adobe have been buying in Analytics companies like they’re going out of style. Analytics, as we’ve written here are interesting to anyone following monitoring because they give you insight into your customer behavior. This in in stark contrast to a print ad, for instance, which could have some call to action, but usually you buy it and hope for the best with very little way to measure the ad’s effectiveness outside of a focus group.

The Web in general changes that dynamic by giving you the ability to gather a number of kinds of data about visitor behavior to web sites. When you have an app sitting on a mobile device, the potential is perhaps even greater. Weineke gave the example of a car maker that gave out iPads equipped with the car’s owner manual with every purchase.

This was more than a gimmick, it was a way of gathering data. The car company could see each time an owner looked up a problem. They could see which features were hard to use, what parts might be causing the biggest issues and in general follow the customer experience through their interaction with the manual. It’s a narrow view for sure, but one that certainly provides valuable insight.

Companies need to be thinking about apps more in terms of how they can use them to collect aggregate data. If you’re in a position to collect and analyze data, and you give thought to data gathering as part of your design process, you can give your company some valuable customer feedback without asking them directly for it.

Photo by illustir on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

The Hub Commentary_

IT spends >85% of its time just keeping the lights on.  Those who will lead their industries next year are realigning how IT works, taking advantage of automating tools and applying resources toward the development, deployment and operational support of new and innovative services for the customer.  Business service management practices have become the imperative this year rather than the “nice to have”.

Consumers are mobile, they expect connectivity, to interact with the their suppliers real-time, on-demand, from whatever device and where ever they may be.  The technologists that embrace the customer experience and drive automation into the routine, maintenance of IT will be the leaders of industry.

iPad2 was announced today.  Watch the video and how they think of the customer experience and something as simple as a cover to protect the device, but also functional in waking/sleeping the device, cleaning the screen and serving as a stand.  Customer experience is the name of the game and driving revenue.

How are you re-aligning your IT resources and growing revenue?

Check out this previous post and slide deck to see what it is costing you to not realign resources for good Business Service Management practices.

Michele

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You, too, should probably be thinking about tying your products to the mobile Internet, even if you think $100 million is a bit rich to throw at this opportunity. (Read Full Article…)