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IT Service Provider
Challenges …
IT Service Provider organizations are constantly being challenged by the
business to demonstrate "value-added"
to the bottom-line or face being "outsourced" and/or "right
sized".
The challenge is adopting a competitive and business focused
attitude that enables the IT Service Providers to maximize benefit to the
enterprise at the lowest overall cost. Their success relies on their ability to
align their service and product portfolio to their customer business needs while
improving the quality and reducing the delivery costs of those services.
IT service providers must ask themselves:
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Who is the Customer? |
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What "Products and
Services" are being delivered? |
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What is the quality of those
products and services? |
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What is the
"value-added" to the business? |
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Who is responsible for the
delivery, and support of those services? |
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What is the cost of
delivering the services? |
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What is the current baseline? |
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When to de-commission or
re-use IT products? |
Not having the above information puts the IT Service
Provider at a great disadvantage and hinders their ability to demonstrate their
contribution to the business.
Running IT as a
Business…
IT Service organizations need to clearly understand the total costs of
ownership (TCO) pertaining the delivery and support of services they offer to
their customers. Adopting a Service
Management Framework will position an IT
service provider to: a) understand the business community needs, b) align their
Service and Product Portfolio, c) improve the quality of their services, and d)
reduce overall delivery and support costs.
In addition, emphasis must be put on demonstrating ‘value’
to the business through an effective Performance Management program (i.e. Result
Based Management).
What is
Service Management?
Service Management is a series of best practices that are geared specifically
for the delivery and support of IT services. Enterprise System Management (ESM)
and Network System Management (NSM) are terms that were commonly found in the
world of large scale computing environments.
ITIL® defines the three key objectives of Service Management as follows.
The IT Service Management Version 2, itSMF:
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"To align IT services with the current
and future needs of the business and its customers |
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To improve the quality of the IT services
delivered |
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To reduce the long-term cost of service
provision." |
The focus of Service Management is the adaptation of service delivery and
service support processes such as:
Service Delivery
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Service
Level Management |
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Availability Management |
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IT
Service Continuity Planning |
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Capacity
Management |
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Financial
Management |
Service Support
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Change Management |
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Incident Management |
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Configuration Management |
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Problem Management |
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Release Management |
Aligning
IT to the Business…
Understanding and prioritizing business requirements is the first step
towards aligning the IT Service and Product portfolio to the needs of the
enterprise. IT Service Providers must be positioned to assist the business
community in moving forward and capitalizing on technology advancements. This is
accomplished by working with the line-of-business customer organizations in
finding new solutions and fresh ideas to improve current operations or change
the way of doing business. Architecture
Planning is the link between the Business
and the Technology. It provides the necessary insight and visibility with
respect to the value-added each IT service delivers to the business.
Continuous Improvement
…
A continuous improvement program (Result Based Management Framework) should
be implemented that measures the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of the
IT Services. Activity Based Costing (ABC) and Activity Based Management (ABM)
can provide answers to the following key management questions:
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What does it cost?
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How much time does it take?
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How well is the activity performed?
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How flexible is the activity with respect to
change?
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What is the quality of the work?
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What is the value to the business?
Why is Service Management
Important?
Service Management puts in place key management disciplines that enable IT
service organizations to control costs and deliver quality products that are
in-line with established business priorities. Added benefits include:
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Establishing a performance
management framework for measuring and tracking costs, and quality. |
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Managing the bottom line by
understanding the underlying costs (Total Cost of Ownership) that are
required to support individual customers bases (Customer View),
individual products and services (Product View) and individual
business activities (Process View). |
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Improving quality to a level
that meets or exceeds customer expectations |
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Minimize service disruptions
to the business. |
We Can Help!
Ashton
Informatics, Inc. specializes in the ITIL
Service Management Framework. Our service offering includes subject matter
expertise:
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Defining the Services:
Establishing a service product catalogue that is understood by the business
community. |
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Formulating the Agreement:
Defining the elements and structure of a SLA by establishing the terms and
conditions of the agreement, the service level indicators and thresholds; |
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Negotiating: Establishing
a process for the planning, specification and negotiation of services levels
between customers, external service providers and the service delivery
organization; |
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Performance Measurement:
Monitoring and tracking key performance indicators of the current IT
infrastructure and IT services; |
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Workload Characterization:
Mapping business and user activity to IT
services in terms of: processor, storage, print, information access, and
communication traffic; |
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Technology Deployment
Planning: Ensuring the IT infrastructure is designed to meet demand
including identifying equipment upgrades, and procurement strategies; |
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Cost Identification:
Applying ABC techniques for determining the direct and indirect costs
associated to the delivery of services; |
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Cost Allocation:
Formulating the polices, guidelines and directives for the implementation of
a cost recovery system; |
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Cost Recovery: Establishing
and determining the rate structure and its related processes; |
In addition to:
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Project Management:
Establish a project plan, allocate resources and manage
the team for the definition, specification and implementation of IT Service
Management "Best Practices"; |
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Performance Management:
Identifying and mapping the management performance
indicators to the IT Mission and objectives; |
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Facilitation,
Coaching, and Training: Conducting
workshops for the definition and prioritization of requirements for the
implementation of the framework; and |
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Process
Implementation: Provide subject matter
expertise during all phases of the project. |
Representative Clients
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US Air Force - Headquarters |
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Department of National
Defense |
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Pharmacia and Upjohn |
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The Micronutrient Initiative |
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Canada Post Corporation |
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