Tag Archive | "Trends"

Flying High or Stuck in the Muck: Where Is the Data Center Headed? – ITBusinessEdge

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, IT Management, ITBusinessEdge, Service Providers, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

This is a fun article.  Reminds me of “The Mainframe is Dying” and yet it is still here.  I tend to agree with Arthur on this one, the data center will live on, but is under great change and the speed of change is coming fast.

This is nothing new to outsource, we’ve been through this before.  The difference this time is that the business is calling the shots.  According to a Gartner and Forbes survey of Board of Directors, 65% of BoD count on technology to drive competitive advantage for the business. The role of IT is evolving and it is an imperative that IT move from reactive and managing technology to proactively managing services and a manager/broker of services and be able to answer 3 simple questions in real time, 24x7x365:

  • Are we open for business?
  • How are we performing?
  • What is our current risk?

Answering these questions requires turning a sea of technical data into actionable, intelligent information in real time. The time has come to make a difference in the business with technology.

The reason for the dramatic claims that the data center is dying, much like the mainframe, is the level of business frustration to drive change in behavior within IT organizations.

How is your IT organization evolving?

Michele

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At the turn of the 20th Century, city planners in New York and other great metropolitan areas were in a state of panic. If population growth continued unabated, their cities would be rendered uninhabitable due to the enormous amounts of manure left behind by all the horses needed to cart food in for the starving masses.  (Read Full Article…)

The Cloud Is Not Just a Technology Play – ITBusinessEdge

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, Gartner, IDC, IT Management, ITBusinessEdge, Service Providers, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Nice article summing up considerations that must be evaluated when assessing a cloud deployment option.  IDC predicts that by 2013, 52% of IT budgets will be dedicated to “OUTSOURCED IT” – ASP, Public Cloud, and Enterprise/Hosted Private Cloud.  There is also a shift in where the budget and where spending decisions are being made – in the business.

As a former analyst in the sourcing space going back to the first ASP/ISP/MSP, du jour of the late 90’s / early 2000, the speed of this shift and the shift in decision making serves as an indicator in businesses to create change to drive the business.  The requirement to move from technology operator to service manager or broker has been there for almost 20 years.  Now there is competition to force the change.

Rarely is outsourcing cheaper, but it does create change that cannot be achieved easily from within.  Cloud deployment for the sake of it still isn’t the right blanket direction.  Looking at deployment options, commodity services, speed to market to drive competitive advantage whether inside or out are all factors to evaluate and consider.

If one lesson can be learned from these historical ebbs and flows between insourced and outsourced services, it should be that of service enablement in order to make the transition to service manager/broker at the time of deployment rather than an afterthought.  An effective service manager/broker will rely heavily on the federation or integration of data in order to manage the services delivered as mentioned by Gartner in the slides attached to the article.

How will you service enable  your infrastructure to deliver service value that powers your business, regardless of technology platform?

Michele

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It’s human nature to want the newest and best of everything, even if the ramifications are still unknown. Enterprises fall into this trap as well, considering they are built and run by humans. It’s kind of the digital version of shoot first and ask questions later.  (Read Full Article…)

2011 BSM Benchmark Survey – BSMReview.com

Tags: Best Practices, BSM, Business Service Management, IT Management, Service Providers, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


The survey, which was conducted in the first half of this year, measures the maturity of BSM initiatives industry-wide. The report provides unique insight into the working relationship between IT and their business counterparts, across departments and roles. It measures the effectiveness of IT service support and identifies the current use and planned adoption of ITIL v2 and v3.  Read More Here . . .

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Nice set of statistics from large, small, global organizations both from IT professionals and business executives.  In 2011 15% of technology buying decisions were made by the business, in 2012 it is expected to rise to 25% and by 2015, 50% of buying decisions will be in the business.  The level of frustration that IT sees themselves separate from the business they enable is driving this trend.  

In a recent Gartner Forbes Survey of Board of Directors, it was found that “65% of Board Members hold ‘high to very high’ expectations for IT strategic contribution to the business in 2012”.  Your business is counting on you to deliver value, are you ready to take the lead?

Are you “keeping the lights on” or are you powering your business for competitive advantage?

Michele

Where IT Dollars are Headed in 2012 – CIOInsight

Tags: Availability, BSM, Business Service Management, CIO, CIOInsight, Cloud, IT Management, IT Management Tools, Mobile, Performance, Service Providers, Transformation, Trends


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

10 Ways to Sell Your CEO on Cloud Computing – CIOInsight

Tags: Business Alignment, Business Service Management, CIOInsight, Cloud, IT Management, Service Level, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


Is the enterprise ready for the cloud? Companies like Google, Salesforce, IBM and others think so and they’re creating solutions give enterprise customers what they want. Cloud-computing solutions are gaining traction across the market. As a CIO, the value of cloud computing is clear. And chances are, if your company hasn’t already deployed cloud solutions, you’re making plans to do so. However, with budget limitations, unless your CEO finds value in cloud computing, it may be challenging to get the solution you want. How can you educate your CEO and convince him or her that cloud computing will be a boon to your business?  Read More Here . . .

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I am still a little lost on the press convince your CEO of a new technology. Shouldn’t we be driving solutions leveraging the right deployment technology to drive competitive edge into the organization. Technology for the sake of a technology has no real value. While I agree with many of the points in this particular article on 10 Ways to Sell your CEO on Cloud Computing, it is still selling technology versus a business driving solution. We as IT have to change our thinking to that of the service providers that are popping up daily in selling our CEOs solutions leveraging technologies that drive agility and quality performance into the business, just so happens they use things like virtualization and cloud computing.

I’ve been working with many service providers as of late and it is reminiscent of the dot com era. Those that will survive and thrive are not just chasing the latest technology trend for the short term, but are baking in the practice that will sustain them for the long term and what business is asking of its own IT organizations, the ability to answer 3 questions:

(1)    “Am I open for business?”

(2)    ”How are we performing?” ”What is the customer experience?”

(3)    ”What is the risk of an outage?”

all in real time so as to take action, rather than reporting on it after the game is over.  The reason most organizations outsource services is not for cost, but for change that they cannot create from within the organization.  The time for IT to change and become the service provider of choice driving value and competitive advantage into their organizations has come.  Time to manage the business rather than convince someone of an IT technology or process.

What do you think?

Michele

 

IT Management Slideshow: Innovate or Save Money? The CIO Balancing Act – CIOInsight

Tags: BSM, Business Alignment, Business Service Management, CIOInsight, Cloud, IT Management, Mobile, Service Providers, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


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

ITs Perfect Storm: Time for Change or Be Changed

Tags: BSM, BSMReview.com, Business Service Management, CIOInsight, Cloud, Harvard Business Review, IT Investment, IT Management, Service Level, Service Providers, Service Value, Spending, Transformation, Trends


It’s that time of year when the press is filled with the latest IT predictions for the coming year. A couple of articles and surveys caught my attention as they relate to the unspoken imperative of connecting to the business to drive the business for competitive advantage versus just operate the business. This practice, while not called out, is Business Service Management and is the heart and soul of success for many of these initiatives.

In the Gartner Forbes 2011 Survey of Board of Directors, “65% hold ‘high to very high’ expectations for IT strategic contribution to the business in 2012” and “52% rate ‘maintaining competitive advantage’ of ‘extremely high importance’…”.  It is no longer IT and the business, IT enables and drives the business.  The key question is, “does your IT operate or power your organization?”

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.

There is also an equal amount of press on new technologies and how to convince your CEO of a new technology. Shouldn’t we be driving solutions leveraging the right deployment technology to drive competitive edge into the organization. Technology for the sake of a technology has no real value. While I agree with many of the points in this particular article on 10 Ways to Sell your CEO on Cloud Computing, it is still selling technology versus a business driving solution. We as IT have to change our thinking to that of the service providers that are popping up daily in selling our CEOs solutions leveraging technologies that drive agility and quality performance into the business, just so happens they use things like virtualization and cloud computing.

I’ve been working with many service providers as of late and it is reminiscent of the dot com era. Those that will survive and thrive are not just chasing the latest technology trend for the short term, but are baking in the practice that will sustain them for the long term and what business is asking of its own IT organizations, the ability to answer 3 questions:

(1)    “Am I open for business?”

(2)    ”How are we performing?” ”What is the customer experience?”

(3)    ”What is the risk of an outage?”

all in real time so as to take action, rather than reporting on it after the game is over.  The reason most organizations outsource services is not for cost, but for change that they cannot create from within the organization.  The time for IT to change and become the service provider of choice driving value and competitive advantage into their organizations has come.

In a recent CIOInsight survey results for spending in IT Operations/Management/Governance, I see 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. 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.  Another Survey illustrating many of these and further results is the BSMReview.com 2011 BSM Maturity Benchmark Study.

In 2003 Nicholas Carr wrote a 28 page article for the Harvard Business Review, “IT Doesn’t Matter”.  In the article he discussed the outsourcing of IT and the changing roles within IT.  Now fast forward 9 years and the advent of the cloud, the explosion of service providers and new buying options.  The business is purchasing on its own and creating “The New IT” for those that are not evolving fast enough.  Leading analyst firms predict that by 2015 50% of all IT buying decisions will be made by the business, not IT.

I have had many conversations with organizations that are replacing their commodity monitoring tools from the Big 4 Vendors with lower cost options and turning that savings back into the investment of turning their IT organization into service providers of choice creating business value.  The investment is in the real time Business Service Views that transform the IT organization into proactive Service Delivery Managers versus reactionary red light / green light monitors turning the sea of data into actionable, intelligent information.  The service providers arealso making the very same investments to illustrate operational capability and market differentiation to capture market share fast during this great period of change.

I’ll quote from a long time customer who has leveraged the Operations Center solution for many years now. Their implementation, while it started technically as a single-pane-of-glass, has evolved into the trusted Business Service view and situational awareness of the environment running the business. Because this customer made the transition to trusted adviser and communicator as to the health of the business, he is trusted with purchasing decisions because as he states, “I provide value”. This is the secret sauce – providing business value and relevance for IT.

2012 will be an interesting year without a doubt with new technologies like mobile and cloud computing entering into leading IT organizations, the risk takers seizing the opportunities to drive their organizations.  The leaders will emerge as those risk takers who also bake in their operational management and efficiencies with controlled risk to deliver consistent, stable performance and value to the business.

Michele

Rise of BSM 2.0 out of the Fiery Failure of BSM Marketecture

Tags: Business Service Management, IT Management Tools, Service Providers, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


“Data, Data Everywhere — Not a BIT of Intelligence Anywhere”

What is Business Service Management simply and why does it appear to have waned in discussion and answer the question has it failed, is the concept required, what’s new? Yes, the number one complaint in the market is still that IT does not understand the business, the level of frustration is rising and fuels the fire driving cloud computing and hosted services.

Business can buy easily, don’t hear about operational processes, technology and why things don’t work. They hear a service, price and value delivered.  So what is BSM and why did it fail and why is it still the fuel driving the outsourced market.

It is really quite simple, it became an marketecture umbrella for many over a large collection of tools focused on silos of management capabilities, ITIL tools and processes. I recently had the privilege to discuss the topic with my friend Jean-Pierre Garbani of Forrester Research and his recent article:  I&O Execs:  It’s Time to Rediscover BSM JP summed it up well in the opening, “BSM today has morphed into an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) support solution,;rather than the pure infrastructure and application management vision that appeared seven years ago.”

As I reviewed many RFPs and spoke to many organizations during this era, the executive overview is always about connecting to the business and the need to manage IT in lock step with the business, but the requirements reviewed and projects are always the same:  ITIL incident, problem, change, configuration, asset management and generally service desk technology.

The second most popular technology during this era were the discovery tools that held the promise of mapping logical services out of physical infrastructure. What was quickly discovered is that it was a lot like drinking water from a fire hose. Tons of data that needed to be reconciled and for what purpose: business service logical mapping or technology configurations for the tuning and management of the physical infrastructure. What was difficult and could not be addressed auto magically with a discovery tool is the logical connection to business services.

So once again the concept is spot on, the implementation goes straight back to an operational focus – what IT knows. However the answer stares us in the face, we have tons of “data”, what we need is intelligent information by which to take the appropriate action at the right time. “Data, Data Everywhere –> Not a BIT of Intelligence Anywhere”. Many tools provide a wealth of fantastic data – performance, availability, configuration, process records (changes, incidents, problems), etc. by which to tune the technology, but it is the aggregation of all this data that transforms the data into intelligent information. There is no one magical tool that will deliver Business Service Management, it is a mindset and the transformation of the data when it will begin to speak to you as service information.

In one article, there were some recent survey results the author found shocking. What I find shocking is that after 20 years IT is still making a grade of a D+. We are in the midst of the usual circle that hinders recognizing the “B” of BSM – the Business. A focus on new technology for what is perceived as cost savings by acquiring technology on demand and not managing the hardware and software to operate the service. However, in the long run without strategy and management focusing on business objectives, what appears cheaper will have higher long term costs. Why are cloud based services and service provider offerings so popular? Under the veneer of the agility it brings organizations is the frustration business has with their technology organization. It is the failure of IT being exposed and outsourced.

Survey results continue to illustrate the number one global concern as the lack of understanding business and the priority and impact of technology on the business. The number one reason cited for lack of ITIL adoption/success was lack of management commitment. Those 2 citings alone speak volumes to me. I ask why there should be a focus on ITIL and why the number one focus isn’t driving business growth? This upside down focus is the fiery failure of the marketecture of first generation BSM.

Why aren’t we talking more about new and unique services driving business growth? Business moving to the cloud removes the requirement for operationally focused projects (ITIL) that have not delivered business value. In a recent Harvard Business Review survey, an observation was noted that the role of IT is shifting from “constructing and operating” to that of “acquiring and deploying”. I’m not so sure I agree that it is so much about deploying as it is about “service managing” and management of the suppliers. This will require very different skills and the transformation of roles within IT and will force the focus on the Business value.

The time has come for the Business Service Management imperative and Transforming Data into Intelligent Information focusing on driving business value. This does not require more monitoring tools and IT processes as much as it requires the following:

  • Service Identification, Classification, Business Prioritization (see previous post)
  • Integration and Aggregation of Data Sources
  • Service Mapping based upon Data Sources
  • Service Rules Weighting Data and Thresholding Data
  • Service Visualization
  • Service Trending Over Time
  • Service Intelligence in Real Time

IT organizations already have a wealth of data from their multitude of management tools. While I often hear, “we don’t know what our services are or we cannot map our services”. Generally, the data from several data sources currently in place can get to a 70% + service view with an aggregating, reconciling and visualizing approach and technology transforming the wealth of data into intelligent information. What is the value of this Transforming Visualizer of Intelligent Information or rather what is the cost of not having the Transforming Visualizer:

  • A single service impacting event costs your organization 1-2% of revenue
  • 85% of the time IT is Bulb Monitoring and reacting costing your organization 1-2% of revenue annually, every year
  • >80% of service impacting events are caused by poor process, lack of impact visibility and business correlation

Millions of dollars are spent annually maintaining, bulb monitoring and reacting. What if just 25% of what is currently spent is applied to the Transforming Visualizer? A 75% cost savings and the ability to monitoring revenue growth instead. This is what I still find shocking as I continue to read and speak about the same D+ grade after 20+ years.

The environment is getting more complex, the roles are being forced to change with the outsourcing of operations to the cloud and the requirement to drive business growth is an imperative today more than ever. The Perfect Storm of technology, service providers and business requirements to drive service value is in full force.

As JP points out in his recent paper, availability of services and the proactive service impact knowledge in controlling change in the environment both require the connection to business priority and objectives and plainly, knowing your services. I had the opportunity to speak with Thomas Mendel, previously of Forrester research on just these two topics in these two podcasts: BSM in the Cloud: Managing and End-to-End View Made Simple and BSM in the Cloud: Configuration Complexity Made Simple.

BSM is an imperative and will transform in focus to the aggregation of data, making the connection to the business to manage with priority in mind both for availability of services and the compliance of change to services in controlling the infrastructure. Transform your data into Intelligent Information with a business focus and a BSM 2.0 approach.

Business Service Management – Imperative or Not?

Michele

IT Services Revenue Grew 3.1% in 2010: Gartner – CBR

Tags: Business Service Management, IT Management, Service Providers, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

What does this continue to tell IT organizations?  Two things, the cloud is here to stay and business is seeking outside alternatives.  If technology and management spending were up, I’d have an aha moment, IT is getting it and turning that corner of transformation and change to leverage technology to grow the business and is harnessing the power of agile computing.

Right sourcing the environment needs to occur, but as with any new technology trend many are racing with short term cost savings in mind as we have discussed many times here.  To those bleeding edge organizations will go the spoils of going first, if done with the right objectives and plan in place.  Many forget that managing and monitoring the performance of the provider goes hand in hand with the sourcing options.

What do you read into this increase?

Michele

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IBM tops again with 7.1% market share.  Global spending on IT services increased by 3.1% to $793bn in 2010, compared to 2009 revenue of $769bn, according to market research firm Gartner.  (Read Full Article…)

Cloud’s Next Benefit: Helping Companies Grow – Baseline

Tags: Baseline, Business Service Management, Cloud, Growth, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Accenture research indicates 40% of all cloud knowledgeable business will use the cloud to drive new revenue over the next 5 years.  This is a shift from just leveraging it operationally currently to cut costs on infrastructure for irregular surges in capacity requirements or moving from an old system to a new one that is Software-as-a-Service based.

This is a typical approach and cycle, go after the low hanging fruit first to cut costs before a strategic use is put in place.  This should serve as a wake-up call to IT operations that it is coming and will you be ready to monitor, manage and communicate effectively when the infrastructure requirements are ready for production operations.  Monitoring, managing and measuring complex mixed environments will require one of three choices to be made:  1) Seek to an integrated, single vendor that has the platform to manage the infrastructure, 2) Build the integration yourself across your heterogeneous environment or 3) Seek an integration platform that is your manager of managers.

I find what was old is new again.  I’ve read many papers and sat through many analyst presentations as of late that call for the integration platform that will enable IT operations to stitch together the fabric of the infrastructure in order to continue to communicate technology as services.  Now more than ever it is important to get to measuring and communicating technology as services as it only gets harder in these mixed environments.

I agree with the parting comment by the author, Jeanne Harris, smart IT executives will jump on their preparation to not only define new revenue generating avenues, but also operations to support and manage the new services without delay.

How ready are you to manage services in the cloud?

Michele

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If an IT leader works for a company that isn’t named Amazon, Google or Facebook, chances are it hasn’t gotten a big revenue boost from the cloud. It’s much more likely that the company has used the cloud to cut costs, replace a standalone software application or back up older documents.  (Read Full Article…)

CIOs Need to Make Mobile-Social-Cloud Fit

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, Enterprise IT, IT, Mobile, Social, Trends


Without a doubt the three trends having the biggest impact on the enterprise today are mobile, social and the cloud. These three elements have put the ability to access and share information easily into the hands of every employee with little or no intervention from IT, and from the perspective of some CIOs, that’s a very scary prospect indeed.

In a recent article on CIO Insight, A World of Risk: Are CIOs Up to the Challenge, author Irfan Salf looked at some of the risks associated with these technologies. Like it or not these, technologies are driving the movement toward what has been called the consumerization of IT.

In an article last week on Fortune, Brian Caufield talked about this trend saying that unlike the old days when IT dictated exactly what devices were allowed in the enterprise, and which ones were not, that power is fading fast as people (particularly executives) want to use their iPads and iPhones at work.

Beyond the devices, the cloud and social media tools bring another layer of simplicity for end users and complexity to IT pros in terms of monitoring and mitigating risk for the enterprise. The good news for users is that it means they can get their files anywhere from any machine, but conversely that could be bad news for you if it means dealing with compliance and governance headaches.

Like it or not , however,  the ship has sailed and you can’t really go back to the way you were before. The fact is that even as the cloud/mobile/social could life difficult for IT, locking down your enterprise is as counterproductive in its own way as shutting down the Internet was in Egypt in January. It hurts you as much as it helps you.

In the end these trends aren’t going away, and they can help build and enhance your business.  The fact is that you need to find a way to make this all work.

One way to do that is to use monitoring tools to help you get as big a picture as you can of your entire system. PC monitoring can help you track laptops. You can jump on the bandwagon and create custom apps to help you track mobile devices or you can give your employees access to your secure environment, so that when they are working on work-related materials they are better protected.

Just recently, I wrote about how companies like Box.net were changing the face of Enterprise software. One of the features of the most recent Box iOs release was aimed directly at this type of situation by giving your users SSO access to enterprise identity systems.

Instead of fighting against a change that can ultimately help your organization, look for ways to make it work for you and find ways to use the systems you already have in place. Monitoring tools can help you find that compromise you need to free your users, yet give you the control you need.

Photo by sfllaw on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License

4 Personas of the Next-Generation CIO – IT News

Tags: Best Practices, Business Alignment, Business Service Management, CIO, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary

The role of the C”I”O continues to evolve.  And the “I”s have it!  Infrastructure, integration, intelligence and innovation will need to be the focus of  next-generation CIOs.  As the article states, this is a year of innovation and the re-alignment of IT resources.  The shift is from keeping the lights on to growing the revenue with new products and services.

This impact IT operations in that they have to be ready to support and analyze the mission critical and need to automate the routine and mundane.  What I find most astounding in the article is as usual, Innovation comes in 4th.

5-10% of budget is allocated for innovation and growth where >70% of the budget goes first to infrastructure and just keeping the lights on.  This is the shift that needs to occur by optimizing and leveraging technology for integration and automation shifting the spend on infrastructure down shifting the spend on innovation and growth to 30% or better.

Innovation and growth has to come to the forefront this year and stop being the afterthought or the nice to have after everything else is done.

Randy

While next-gen CIOs will emerge from traditional technology backgrounds as well as business-leader backgrounds with technology expertise, the report says, current CIOs will need to master four emerging personas in order to compete in the new environment.  Read more

Eight Trends Driving IT’s Future – Baseline

Tags: Business Service Management, Cloud, Cloud Computing Journal, Predictions, Service Value, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary

Trend No. 4  “Server-centric to Service-centric”, predicts that architecture will shift from in-house servers to a distributed model in order to separate infrastructure, systems, applications and businesses processes from one another.   Take a look at the seven other trends Accenture says will continue to transform the technology landscape  in 2011 and beyond.

Randy

“The role of technol0gy is changing: it is no longer in a support role.  Instead, it is front and center driving business performance and enriching people’s lives like never before.” The real value of the report lies with insights on taking advantage of these technology shifts to gain business intelligence and business value.   Review  full report…

 

Cultural Barriers Stymie IT-Led Innovation – CIO

Tags: Business Service Management, Innovation, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Good question, does IT lead innovation?  It depends upon what you consider IT.  Application development and infrastructure architecture tend to be the outward face of using technology for a new or improved service that drives quality with the customer experience and/or new revenue with a new service.  However, while data center operations is often an afterthought, they should be part of the plan and build to insure success.

While data center operations does not develop new services and architecture, there is opportunity here to apply good business service management practices.  These practices  illustrate quality customer experience and speed to market with new services with control over risk with service enablement baked into the services.

IT led innovation is a team effort between applications development, infrastructure and architecture and data center operations as a single cohesive unit.

Michele

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The IT department won’t be able to lead business innovation projects if it has a bad reputation, says CA evangelist Steve Romero.  (Read Full Article…)

Global IT Market Grew to $1.5 Trillion in 2010: IDC – CBR

Tags: Business Service Management, CBR, IDC, IT Management, Spending, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Did you take advantage of the investment opportunity to grow your and reform your data center?  Loosening of budgets and increased spending should be leveraged not just for your new toys, but should keep in mind that the new toys need to be managed and the management factors that service enable your data center should be baked in from the start and not an after thought.

We are in a time of growth to drive the business and part of that growth enablement is automating the commodity of operations in order to re-focus and move your resources from operating to growth of the business.

Are you still using high dollar resources to operate or are you driving to growth?

Michele

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Global IT market grew by 8% year over year to cross $1.5 trillion at constant currency, including telecom services, the information and communications technology (ICT) market grew by 6% to $3 trillion in 2010, according to a new report by IDC.  (Read Full Article…)

Deutsche Telekom Introduces SaaS Offering for Energy Industry – CBR

Tags: Business Service Management, CBR, Deutsche Telekom, Energy, IT Management, SaaS, Service Providers, Transformation, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

This is the second offering like this I’ve seen in a week.  The first was the British Airways announcement with the software and service provider vendor.  This is a classic example of  a shift in the market and commoditization of some back office functions.  Great examples of business service management functions and knowing which services are commodity for cost versus those that are value and differentiate your services in the market place.

These are offerings and movements that enterprise IT shops should watch and take notice of in determining what is really value add and unique and most of all needs to be unique in your organization.  Leverage service offerings for the commodity services and accept standard processes so as to drive down costs and evolve your organization and roles to drive business growth with technology.

Are you merely powering the business or are you driving the business with technology?

Michele

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Supports energy and network providers in their daily back office business with its portfolio of modular IT offerings

Deutsche Telekom has introduced complete Software as a Service (SaaS) package via the Internet for the energy industry.  (Read Full Article…)

Global CIO: The Top 10 CIO Issues For 2011 – InformationWeek

Tags: Business Service Management, CIO, InformationWeek, IT Management, Service Value, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

This article has some extreme points, however, I too believe this is the year for radical change for data centers and IT.  Service value and Business Service Management practices are an imperative.  The catalyst for change is the explosion of service providers and cloud options, frustration with internal IT lethargic behavior and a promise for increased spending in technology that guarantees to grow the business.

In another recent news article and post I mentioned pick up this years upcoming Fortune 500 list of leaders and hold it for next year and compare the shifts in who leads their industry and who applied technology in lock step with their business driving growth through service value and new technologies.  I believe there will be a few industry upsets in next year’s list.

How are you driving service value in 2011?

Michele

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Like the cranks who frothily peddled the notion that vaccinations trigger autism, too many uninformed tech-strategy charlatans are still pushing the ancient and empty bromide that CIOs need to “request a seat at the table.”  (Read Full Article…)

Social Business Strategy – Forrester Blogs

Tags: Business Service Management, CMDB, Forrester, Social Media, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Applying a social interface to IT may sound crazy to the technologists, however, if you move past the initial reaction and think about many of the initiatives from IT and the response from the business, it may just be the interface that drives acceptance.  We have all been exposed and most (even I must admit to it) have used, adopted and/or totally embrace the social media explosion.  Business Service Management is  practice and part of that practice is the interactions with our customers and how they want to interact with IT.

I consider myself middle of the road in adoption as I still like the human interaction and speaking with colleagues and customers face-to-face, however, those interactions become planned and raise in relevance given the accepted methods of quick, short interactions that occur all day long with text messages, emails, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, RSS Feeds, you name it.

The earliest form was chat and we all know it has been a long standing request for most service and support software to deploy chat methods to ask for help.  This could be a long post, but let’s keep it simple.  Social Media interfaces for the sake of it will fail, Social Media interfaces applied in the right situations could be wildly successful.  A couple of examples that pop to mind are:

Service Dashboards – Most of us think of these as one-way and very limited information and thus they are useful and provide information during a service impacting event and I would debate how much they are used outside of IT during smooth running hours.  However, Service and Support is a great example of where a social interface may make sense.  The experience is 2 way – giving, taking and sharing information.  A smart interface to accept and present information rather than merely accepting a new ticket.  Tobin’s power outage post is a great example.  Instead of entering a ticket, he clicked his way to the right information.

Configuration/Inventory/Service Information: Wikipedia is a great example of keeping information accurate and relevant through the use of consuming audience.  Now apply that what is typically thought of as the most technical of IT projects, the CMDB or Configuration Management System.  We all use a variety of technical devices and we all have varying levels of comfort and/or time to deal with servicing them, however, up-to-date information is required for service and support.

At the very least, we want to know when we will be affected by maintenance or service outages.  What if we could subscribe to communities of users of the various applications we use day-to-day and could find the power users of Excel or Adobe Presenter in our organization to help us with that important presentation?  The classic support challenge has been the questions of how to use a piece of software, the users of the software are the best choice outside of the supplier and finding those who may have figured out a clever function might be helpful.

Just  a couple of applications that come to mind.  I agree with Nigel, the Social Media interfaces are coming, we use them in daily life and should seek to evaluate the best method of interacting with our customers.

How socially accepted is your IT?

Michele

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Social technology is certainly a hot topic, but for many CIOs the emergence of islands of social technology across the enterprise feels like a touch of déjà vu.

IT has been here before, having to clean up islands of automation that left organizations unable to coordinate information and react rapidly to changing market dynamics.  (Read Full Article…)

Top Priority for 2011: Data Center Refresh, Consolidation–CIOInsight

Tags: Business Service Management, CIOInsight, Consolidation, Cost Reduction, IT Management, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

Back to basics balanced with growth opportunities.  Doing more with less and getting the most out of the bottom of the data center food chain and layering in the value add for future growth needs to be the theme for 2011.

I’ve spoken to many recently that are looking at consolidation projects as replacement projects too.  Replacing the commodity monitoring with lower cost open source options, ITSM SaaS offerings, adding value in the instrumentation of their next generation infrastructure (cloud, virtualization) and then the topic turns to integration platforms to stitch together the fabric for real-time visibility.

I believe we have all learned waiting for an uber framework that can do it all is just a dream.  Taking the best, most cost effective feeds into an integrated view that can be twisted like a Rubik’s cube depending upon the viewer is the fastest route to injecting run-time monitoring, management and measuring into the infrastructure of the future.

Michele

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Fifty-one percent of data center managers and decision makers at large organizations see technology refreshes as the top data center priority for 2011, according to a survey from IT infrastructure specialist SANpulse. This finding highlights the fact that mean time to migrate (MTTM) is critical for rapid adoption of new technologies and fast execution of these operations.  (Read Full Article…)

What does it mean to Reimagine IT? – Gartner Blogs

Tags: Business Service Management, Gartner, Growth, IT Investment, IT Management, Trends


The Hub Commentary_

The time has come to re-think IT, the assets, sourcing options and management with the focus on growth, sure cost cutting is still in the balance of things too.  Opportunities to re-think the routine, automation, leverage lower cost tools for the commodity and apply the shift in that spending toward growth.

One side effect to increased spending is the spending only on new technology without reimagining the whole picture of managing and operating on the day-to-day as well.  In another article posted today from the Cloud Computing Journal, downtime costs $100,000/hour.  Reimagining IT is the whole operational picture – this is exciting for those who embrace it and make the most of it both from new services and operations.

Michele

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Last week Gartner announced the results of Gartner’s 2011 CIO Survey and Agenda under the theme of reimagining IT. The idea behind this theme is that CIOs and IT leaders have an opportunity to use new business priorities and technologies to create value in new ways.  (Read Full Article…)