Business Service Management Hub

The Hub Commentary_

The consumerization of IT is a trend that must be watched and leveraged to grow the business and not cost the business.  Good business service management practices would evaluate each service for business value and thus cost, in this case support costs.  Just because an employee makes the capital expenditure does not dictate the business should support it.

There are data protection concerns and security challenges that must also be factored in also adding to the cost.  What is the business value of the service is the basic question.  Just because a device is available and in the environment does not necessarily mean the business should support it within the IT organization.

The real question would be how to interact with your customers through new devices and channels rather than supporting your employees.

Do you support your customers or your employees Smart phone?

Michele

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Forrester Research said most IT managers and vendors are underestimating the need for corporate mobile solutions because they ignore mobile “wannabes” and mobile “mavericks.”  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

Classic read!  Great humor for a Monday morning.  Having spent most of my career on the Ops and Apps side of the house, I especially enjoy the “No” in innovation and security!  While it is a funny read, it defines the business service management practice.

Technology silos are not a service.  It takes applications to develop, operations to manage and support and security to secure the environment.  It also takes knowing the business objectives as the article uses an example with the marketing department going outside on their own.  It all goes back to basics, what is your business, what are you selling, how do you grow that business, how do you support the business.

Security and operational support have to be baked into services and solutions as they are developed and services/solutions must be driven by the business objectives to  provide the highest quality of service to your customers or offering new services, both driving revenue.  One component does not work without the other, but when all are interlocked – organizations are successful.  Then you have a business service management practice.

Check out today’s Featured Commentary and the Finding your Services post.

Is your IT business service enabling or multiple obstacles?

Michele

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IT pros do battle every day — with cyber attackers, stubborn hardware, buggy software, clueless users, and the endless demands of other departments within their organization. But few can compare to the conflicts raging within IT itself.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

This is the week of consumerization of IT and personal devices in the workplace.  I have a couple of posts on the topic from the news yesterday and a blog article yesterday as well.  Good business service management practices would suggest against supporting device of the day from the employees.

The article covers the first major concern, security.  However, the most expensive component is rarely covered as we just expect the support desk has endless time and people to support anything and everything.  The cost of support will be high in a time IT is commoditizing and the support desk represents 10% of any operational budget.

Additional personal device support brings additional security practices, tools, etc. as does the support of the device.  The question comes down to is the additional cost burden, risk and risk mitigation practices worth the value they bring to driving business growth?

Commodity IT or business driver – which are you?

Michele

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Lack of control and security worries holding back support

IT departments at businesses across the UK are still cautious about supporting personal devices at work, due to worries about control and security, new research has revealed.  (Read Full Article…)

I’ve seen a bit in the news about support, the consumerization of devices in the workplace and virtual desktop infrastructures that has brought this post together.  We seem to ebb and flow with new toys in the workplace and standardization of support.  The plain truth is that the standard environment is the most cost efficient.  If the role did not dictate that a given device be provided by the company to the individual, why would we assume we must support it?  I understand it did not come with a capital expenditure and made the employee accessible, if they choose to be, however, it does carry a significant cost burden that is often overlooked.

Service and support is commodity.  It is something that can and should be easily outsourced and the service provider will either standardize the support or will tax the customer for the varying types of devices that are supported.  I know that sounds harsh, but in these days where we should be seeking to spend less on operating and more on innovating this is one of the easiest and biggest cost saving area.  In most IT Operations budgets, the service and support function represents about 10% of the budget.  Tools no longer need to be in-house and custom if the business would rather not outsource, there are good SaaS offerings on the market to at least alleviate the burden of supporting the tools, paying the big boys maintenance taxes and paying for customized support of a commodity function.

I’ll make another bold statement, we care too much about the “end user” for the wrong reason.  No one outside of a data center even really knows what an “end user” is, but we all know who is our customer.  IT has to make this transformation to drive business growth and this is one of those starting places in knowing who is really the customer.  Whether or not our “end user” in the business is really happy or not with IT services is a debateable point.  The most important factor is whether or not we are able to transact business and support our buying customers that grow the business.  This is the mindset shift that needs to occur.

So supporting the latest version of iPhone from whichever provider and carrier and how happy our “end users” are when we re-image their machine because it is far cheaper to re-image to standard than figure out what they downloaded that broke something.  It’s about keeping the business productive, growing and making the customer of our goods and services happy and buying.  We should be automating the operations and shifting this attention, focus and resources on the growth side of the see saw.

I know this post is a bit controversial.  This is something that happens with each new toy that comes to market and budgets loosen, we forget the good efficiency practices we put in place in lean times.  I’ve answered hundreds of inquiry calls on this subject just before this function gets outsourced, the services are cheaper because the service provider will impose a standard and tax for the luxory.  We should be doing the same with good business service management practices shifting our focus and resources to the growth of business.

Are you taxing for the non-standard or spending more reacting and maintaining?

Michele

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Network World — Cost-saving technologies remain a priority for IT in 2011 and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), with its ability to streamline operations, is one of the technologies at the top of the list.  (Read Full Article…)

The Hub Commentary_

I challenge folks to put on their strategic business service management practice hats when they approach extremely strategic projects like VDI.  This is an area that has the large cost savings potential or biggest failure and money sucking projects.

Yesterday, I came across a couple of articles regarding the support of any device an employee has to avoid capital expenditure.  My mid career roots are deeply planted in the service and support arena and the human cost of supporting non-standard infrastructures is the biggest misuse of resources in a service and support organization.  VDI projects are about standardization and cost reduction, but that will only occur successfully with the proper management baked in from the beginning.

I agree with the article considering the network impact and security, etc. are all areas to explore and plan for, but the management of the infrastructure and a view for the service and support staff is a must have planning and design consideration upfront – not an after thought for implementation.

We had the opportunity to work with an extremely large retail organization this past year for the purpose of putting the face on top of the VDI infrastructure for the service and support organization.  Huge cost savings are realized with standard images, lighter desktops and a face to the infrastructure that indicates where the failure is when the business cannot access an application.

How do you visualize and manage your end-to-end VDI?

Michele

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Network World — Cost-saving technologies remain a priority for IT in 2011 and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), with its ability to streamline operations, is one of the technologies at the top of the list.  (Read Full Article…)

Business service management practices are about understanding your costs and the value of services to the business so that IT manages as services appropriately.  I can hardly read an article these days that isn’t cloud or as-a-Service related.  I enjoy these and the transformation it is driving as it is long over due for most IT organizations.  When I wore an analyst hat and I would field inquiry calls regarding outsourcing, I would always start by saying you don’t outsource for cost savings.  I find these days with the flexible payment and contract options that we are being short sided and seeing these offerings as the low cost option.

Unless you are hideously inefficient, it really isn’t cheaper.  You outsource for change or to right source the services in your organization and drive standards.  Let me explain a bit more.  When you move portions of your IT to the cloud, a service provider, as-a-Service option, to a managed service provider or a full service outsourcing organization, they are still in the business to make a profit and you need to factor some time and resources (costs) to manage the provider.  The estimate to manage the provider is 3-7% of the cost of the contract, generally.  So this is one piece to factor into the overall cost, but change that is too difficult to create in your environment is another factor.  Short story of it, implementing standards.

So in some cases it may drive down costs with lower cost resources and standards, but that isn’t an apples to apples comparison to your current service offering.  However, it is the right reason to move the commodity to a service provider because we come full circle – not all services are created equal.  In-house data centers find themselves staffing the services with expensive resources and managing the services very similarly across the board.

So this is the driving down cost of the equation in right sourcing and creating change and standards, on the other side of the coin I read a lot about supporting the devices of our employees.  By not taking on the capex of buying smart phones, tablets, etc., but taking on the expensive support cost to support the devices of our employees.  I can guarantee you the service providers will tax you for this non-standard practice.  I can see the debate on both sides, you deemed they didn’t require the device or accessibility for their role, but they allowed themselves to be accessible if you support the device.  I would caution against this practice without fully evaluating the security and support costs of doing so.

We are in the midst of great change and there will be an ebb and flow as budgets loosen.  I find it exciting times and also find that there will be real success stories and others that may not enjoy the same success.

Are you right sizing your services and sourcing options?

The Hub Commentary_

The title caught my attention as I can relay a very similar story and entered the job market the same year as well.  Yikes!  However, I didn’t aspire or become CIO as Diane has done.  The one aspect of the article that I would debate is supporting any device in the organization.  The article describes a business service management approach at Intel in understanding the business and knowing how technology supports and drives the business growth, however, then takes a left turn with the roll your own approach.

Let me explain.  The consumer market without a doubt drives IT and how we as technologists should evaluate technology for business application.  Where I scratch my head and even argue with myself is in supporting every one’s personal device.  If for business purposes Intel did not require specific roles to need a smart device or tablet, then why take on the cost and burden to support it.  Intel didn’t take on the capital expenditure, but the human support cost in the end can exceed the cost of the device and defining a standard device may in the end have been cheaper.

I know that this also goes to the work environment/culture and I do not have visibility to their support costs and it also made employees more accessible to work by their own decision, so that is where I debate with myself and it may come out to be a wash in this case.  I’m using it as an example of the things that should be weighed before signing up to support anything just because the employee makes the capital expenditure.  Like Intel evaluated security, there are very real other concerns to weigh.

Outsourcing and the service providers are more appealing with their subscription models because they define a standard for the commodity and do not deviate.  So while the Intel story sounds appealing, I would not suggest it is for everyone.  This is the exception – not the rule.

Michele

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Diane Bryant never intended to go to college, let alone become a top executive at Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker. She joined the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company back in 1985 and has held several positions over the years, including silicon design engineer and general manager of the server platforms group. About three years ago, she became Intel’s (INTC) chief information officer.  (Read Full Article…)