Improve IT Muscle Tone
Most IT
organizations
will defer ITSM
When will that
happen?
YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD EXERCISE REGULARLY to improve your physical health and emotional well-being. But you’re too busy. You need to find the right regimen. It will be easier when the kids are in school. Or when they’re out of school. The list goes on and on.
Bart Perkins is
managing partner
at Louisville, Ky.-based Leverage
Partners, which helps
organizations invest
well in IT. Contact
him at BartPerkins@
LeveragePartners.com.
Many I T organizations approach IT service
management (ITSM) in a similar manner. They
know ITSM provides a foundation for improving
existing services and reducing costs by standardizing processes such as incident management,
change control and asset management. But most
IT organizations are already overcommitted and
under-resourced. Absent an infrastructure crisis,
they will defer ITSM until the budget gets bigger
or “things get better.” (When will that happen?)
Even the busiest I T organization will benefit
from ITSM capabilities. Here are some of the
things they can do for you:
Expand metrics. Engineering-based companies
place a high value on metrics for everything they
do, while faster-paced industries such as financial
services and entertainment are less focused on
metrics. But every executive team wants IT to
demonstrate that it delivers high-quality, cost-effective services. Unfortunately, comprehensive
metrics programs require significant investment.
If your organization’s IT metrics are inadequate
(or nonexistent), ITSM systems provide an excellent foundation. Each I TSM process has service-level targets and associated metrics that facilitate
cost and service analysis, enabling comparisons
with peer organizations. Even if the analysis
shows that your I T cost-of-services is higher than
your competition’s, the information functions as
both rationale and justification for instituting an
ITSM program.
Improve transparency. Even in companies with
excellent IT organizations, IT is often viewed as
a mystery. Many executives complain that they
don’t understand what the IT staff does, that IT
fails to offer options when presenting budgets, and
that the benefits of IT investments are unclear.
These accusations are difficult to refute without
a clear understanding of IT costs. ITSM systems
analyze the cost of each service and help IT
management construct service-based (rather than
resource-based) budgets. Service-based budgets
are easier to justify and help improve the enter-
prise’s understanding of IT services.
