Why IT Service Management (ITSM)?Because IT is Critical to the Business

The Challenge

In today’s market, businesses are increasingly reliant on IT and IT services to gain and retain a competitive edge. IT is under pressure to provide services that meet the current and future needs of the business, driven by changes in the needs of customers. In business, timely agility is the key to continuing profitability. For the business to become more agile, IT needs to become more agile.

Typically, 70% of an organization’s IT budget is spent on operations; supporting the current set of applications and services and keeping business users productive. Only 30% of IT budget and effort is dedicated to transforming the business through innovation.

To meet the current and future expectations of the business, IT needs to implement a strategy for continual improvement in 3 key areas:

• Alignment - Align delivery of IT with the needs of the business through improved communication
• Integration - Integrate IT services into business processes to increase business efficiency
• Agility - Increase the IT department’s ability to deliver new services to enable more rapid deployment of new products and business services.

In many cases, the IT department is responsible for the largest chunk of the organization’s capital investment and operational expenditure, which naturally draws a great deal of pressure to control costs and demonstrate value. The complex nature of IT makes it difficult to measure efficiency and demonstrate value in business terms – i.e. the usage levels, benefits and costs attributable to the support of revenue streams. The challenge lies in linking the infrastructure and supporting resources to lines of business.

Quality of service provision must be balanced against the cost and speed of provision. The business expects services to be available, reliable and fit for purpose. Mechanisms must be in place to manage all the quality attributes associated with IT services.

Risk must be managed. IT is so deeply embedded in the business that a serious IT failure can have a catastrophic and long-lasting effect on the profitability of the business. It is important for IT to prevent downtime wherever possible through visibility of impact, risk and cost, as well as providing a solid plan to support disaster recovery.

Next: How IT Service Management addresses these challenges

The ITSM Opportunity

IT Service Management is a discipline for the management of IT that drives a shift from reactive fire-fighting to proactive innovation, supported by ITSM best practices captured in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). It represents an opportunity to implement improvements to IT that have a knock-on effect on the profitability of the business:

• Reduce the cost of IT while increasing the value
• Improve customer satisfaction and retention
• Take new lines of business to market faster through increased IT agility

Through the application of sound IT Service Management principles based on ITIL best practices, IT can be transformed from a fire-fighting cost center to a driver of innovation.

Find out how Axios Systems' product-independent ITSM consulting can help you initiate and activate an effective service-based ITSM strategy.

Next: The benefits of ITSM

The Benefits of ITSM

Cut IT costs

• Streamline IT support through automation of processes
• Optimize resource usage through better visibility and planning
• Measure, monitor and reduce cost of service provision

Maximize productivity and customer retention through better services and support

• External IT support is more responsive and consistent, increasing customer satisfaction and retention
• Internal IT support is more effective, keeping business users productive and increasing capacity to generate revenue

Gain a competitive edge through increased agility

• Become more responsive to the needs of the business
• Streamline IT support and drive a transformation from reactive to proactive IT
• Take new lines of business to market quicker through faster delivery of supporting IT services

Mitigate risk and ensure business continuity

• Plan changes and assess impact
• Escalate decision-making to management

Implement an effective and well-planned IT Service Management strategy to deliver IT services better, faster and cheaper. The ITSM discipline is now mature enough to deliver simultaneous improvements in service quality, cost and speed of new service delivery. The higher the IT Service Management maturity, the greater these effects are amplified.