Business Service Management Hub

The Hub Commentary_

The number of IT jobs is on the rise, however, the roles in hot demand are new roles illustrating the transformation of IT.  “The notion that IT is separate from the business has faded into antiquity.” This is a refreshing trend in terms of driving revenue and growth for the business and economy.

“Business architecture is about making sure the whole business holds together,” says Forrester Research analyst Alex Cullen, who researches IT strategy and organizational planning. “It’s a role built around business planning, pointing out opportunities to utilize IT more effectively” in sales, customer service, and other key areas.

The catalyst to mimic the service providers and drive revenue is taking hold and those that adopt the business service management practice and the emerging roles in IT versus continuing to “keep the lights on” will take their business forward to lead their industry.

The remaining roles include:  Data Scientist, Social Media Architect, Mobile Technology Expert, Enterprise Mobile Developer and Cloud Architect.

Technology is evolving, the way we interact with customers and drive business is changing and the roles to support it and drive the transformation of the new data center and IT are evolving as well.  The manner in which we will monitor and manage technology is evolving as well from bulb monitors to service performance managers and business analysts in using technology to drive revenue first and cut cost second.

Are you driving change and transforming your IT organization?

Michele

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IT job seekers have real reason to hope.  No fewer than 10,000 IT jobs were added to payrolls in May alone, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, reflecting a steady month-over-month increase since January. And in a June survey by the IT jobs site Dice.com, 65 percent of hiring managers and recruiters said they will hire more tech professionals in the second half of 2011 than in the previous six months.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

This is  a nice post from Marc of Forrester.  He outlines well the things that need to be considered as contracting with service providers and purchasing technology moves around an organization as part of a business transformation (BT) initiative.  Recently on a Cloud Chasers, Sean Larner bantered where this responsibility might lie.

As Marc describes the functions that need attention, I’m not a fan of continuing with IT as a gatekeeper or perceived obstacle to progress of business transformation, however, it points to Service Managers.  A formalized role between the business and IT.  These folks would manage the services, required levels of service and working with the technology specialists to insure proper security, standards and volume purchasing.

There is also a need for vendor management which is a combination of contract management and service management.  There is a happy medium between well managed services and agility to the business.  Self service portals for ordering every day equipment can empower the business and those longer term, less routine services should be managed by Service Managers insuring quality service, managed costs and proper standards, security and support practices are considered.

The Service Manager should be an enabler, not a roadblock or obstacle.

How is your business transforming? Where are your Service Managers?

Michele

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An empowered BT model includes the idea that end users will take on some functions that are typically performed within an IT organization. These may include selecting and deploying applications, buying mobile devices, and contracting with services firms.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

I would agree that IT is commoditizing and the role of IT leaders is evolving much like my good friend Siki indicates where commodity services can be done elsewhere and which then frees the evolved IT resources to sit at the table as Diane describes to apply technology to business choices.  This is the practices of business service management in action.

In the featured post, Finding your Services, I describe first classifying your services based upon their contribution and cost to the business.  How you deliver (source) that service then becomes the next choice.  Just because you have technical capability in-house to deliver the service does not mean you keep it in house.  Many services are becoming commodity and should be shipped out of the data center.  On the other extreme, where you are seeking to deliver new and innovative services to the market to drive growth, but you may not have the expertise in-house to deliver it timely enough, you may also choose to seek outside assistance.

Again, it becomes a balancing act between operating and growth and weighing the cost and value of in-house versus external options.  Then the new role of IT becomes that which is described by both Siki and Diane, one of the facilitator of services that both operate and drive the business.  We are in unique times of role evolution and this will become uncomfortable for the traditional IT staff.

Are you driving business with technology or just operating?

Michele

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This week I saw two articles that captured the two visions of IT that will dominate the future. Both were interviews with senior IT leaders, one a CIO of a major technology company, the other a senior executive with a leading system integrator. One article depicted a vision of IT as a future of standardized, commodity offerings, while the other portrayed IT as a critical part of every company’s business offerings.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

This is a really great read!  I especially applaud and agree with the yin and yang of transformation.  IT pushes back to change their job/role, but has the power.  The business doesn’t have the technology power, but welcomes new and changing roles.  The business jobs are usually those lost during automation and the IT jobs being those that stay and evolve.  Great summation, I’m paraphrasing.

Managing, measuring and communicating service performance is the transformation that must occur – totally agree.  Transform or die!  Thus the role becomes that of the analytical service provider versus the monitor of commodity technology.

Today in the press Amazon was dissed for being an innovator in supplying infrastructure services.  It is services like these, purchased on a credit card that will bring agility to those in-house staff members developing new products and services for your businesses creating an agile service development organization.  Now IT operations has to jump on board and inject the intelligence into those workloads to enable the management of those workloads regardless of where they run – service enabling the workloads.  This agile approach and transformational thinking is what business seeks.

Embrace agility, new technology and deployment options and transform……or die as they say.  Are you transforming?

Michele

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“Today, the IT infrastructure is the backbone and accelerator of a company’s business transformation,” explained Jean Cholka, CEO of the global IT services provider Freeborders. “Thereby, having the right leader in the IT organization in place is critical to a company’s success.”  (Read Full Article…)