In this post I will address the subject of service intelligence and provide an overview of the Multi -National Company offerings that help clients achieve excellence in Service Management Practices.
As we approach the winter holiday period and you consider selections for your reading list, I suggest you include the following:
Service Intelligence: Improving Your Bottom Line with the Power of IT Service Management
This is a book written for the business professional which talks about IT Service Management concepts in business terms. Sharon Taylor, the @ITSMQueen, explains ITSM by cutting through the jargon.
“Good service management should be relatively invisible to the business. Services should operate as expected, and no service disruptions should be experienced. When support is needed, it should be provided efficiently and effectively, and it should resolve issues the first time. This is typically what we think of as a good service experience”.
This book is about finding those ITSM “a-ha” moments. Coverage includes
- Recognizing what excellent IT service looks like and assessing what you’re getting now
- Selecting the best IT service providers and services for your needs
- Spotting and rectifying trouble with internal or external supplier relationships
- Making sure you don’t pay for services you don’t need
- Negotiating services, requirements, levels, price, quality, and delivery
- Leveraging ITSM practices without losing focus on the business
- Creating business-focused service reports and scorecards that focus on what matters most
Introduction – (Illuminating Your Vulnerabilities, Capitalizing on your Strengths, ITSM – in Good Company)
Chapter 1 – ITSM 101: From Data to Wisdom (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom)
Chapter 2 – ITSM: The Business Asset
Chapter 3 – The Service (Anatomy, Ingredients, Catalog, Agreement)
Chapter 4 – IT Service Provider (Types, Competencies, Sourcing)
Chapter 5 – The Negotiation (Decision Styles, Steps, Objectives, The Service Contract)
Chapter 6 – The Service Agreement (Core, Service Package, Description, Hours, Support, Reporting, Complaints, Reviews)
Chapter 7 – The Partnership in Action (Partner Compass, Service Monitoring, Trigger Points, Roles)
Chapter 8 – Service Performance in Action (Indicators, Dashboards)
Chapter 9 – The Bottom Line (Common Cents, Transformations)
Appendix A – IT Strategy Template
Appendix B – Service Contract Template
Appendix C – Service Agreement Template
Appendix D – References for Further Reading
“The mainstay of every business and IT partnership is the knowledge that ITSM requires a holistic approach from governance to operation and is an ongoing journey where a balanced view of the health of the partnership, the services, and the practices enable them to flourish. Even the best ideas at the right time can be made better with solid service management behind them”.
This book definitely explains ITSM or Service Management Practices in business language, however, based on my personal experience, I would have to say that it plays more to the needs of the Procurement function rather than the intended target audience of Business Unit decision makers.
A word of caution to the business reader. Service Management process improvement programmes are sometimes initiated without fully understanding the business problems that need to be resolved.
Being intelligent about IT services & practices
Need to keep a pulse on how well IT Service Management Practices are doing.
Be prepared to invest in your people their attitudes and behaviours
Promote cultural perception and acceptance about Service Management Practices
It is important to reward those people that shift their focus from a technology bias to demonstrate an end-to-end service-focussed culture. Linking levels of acceptance of new ways of working to the company performance appraisal scheme is a powerful way of incentivising people to change their behaviour.
Having capable people is one thing, but without a framework in which they can operate, it is difficult to share “good” practice and deliver results quickly.
Achieving Excellence in Service Management Practices
The Multi-National Companies (MNC), listed below, have invested heavily in optimising processes and developing the competency of their people. They typically provide services from Multi-Client locations which have over the years fine tuned ways of working. It is in their interest to focus on industrialisation which represents a relentless drive to discover how an activity is optimally done, then doing it in exactly the same way every time. It eliminates redundancies, automates and standardises wherever possible, and then drives the work to the most cost-effective and competent workforce available.
New delivery models are emerging in IT Service management Space:
- Standardization instead of customization- service providers are standardizing services across heterogeneous environments rather than customizing solutions for each client.
- Opex instead of Capex- The cost basis of service delivery models are changing from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operational expenditure (OpEx) – a sign of both innovation and maturity.
- Alternate Cloud-based/SaaS based delivery – adoption of aspects of cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS) for flexible multi-tenant infrastructure management
We look for the best and brightest when hiring so our management is constantly focused on making our workplace one that’s stimulating, positive, and inclusive. A workplace that’s dedicated to service excellence and reflects the highest standards of conduct.
Today, we could not even begin to achieve basic business goals without IT to serve as the central nervous system of the organisation. This means that IT, in the 21st century, delivers a lot more than economic savings. It creates new possibilities, generates new business advantages, empowers new services and strategies, connects organisations with new customers and markets, and much more.
To drive innovation, company growth, alignment between business and IT, your technology organisation must establish a sustainable, service-centric approach. Through service management you can reduce costs, meet compliance requirements, manage risk, and focus on fulfilling strategic business goals.
Deloitte – In pursuit of IT excellence
The recent economic downturn has forced companies to examine many aspects of their operations. Firms have refocused on their value propositions and are increasingly challenging enabling functions like IT to deliver more.
In this new world, IT must improve efficiency and lower cost to serve yet continue to deliver new and improved capabilities and solutions to the business. It must offer flexible and rapid collaboration capabilities yet maintain robust and resilient security. It must scale and industrialise its delivery yet maintain tight alignment and responsiveness to the business units.
CIOs must build service organizations that can choreograph IT services to respond to business threats and opportunities and drive the enterprise forward. Accenture IT Service Excellence helps CIOs achieve this dual imperative.
Achieving service excellence starts with understanding the needs of customers before focusing on internal capabilities such as processes, organisations design, sourcing strategies, tools and technology or skills and training.
IT effectiveness — provides a roadmap of potential IT Effectiveness improvements designed to help the IT function fulfill the evolving IT mandate of managing risk, rationalizing costs and creating value for the entire company.
Sharon Taylor stated that it is about “Selecting the best IT service providers and services for your needs.” One of the selection criteria should cover the relative merits of Internal vs External Service Providers. To what extent can an Internal Service Provider compete with the “Best of the Best”?
Collaboration and co-ordination across large or distributed organisations and service providers is significantly easier when there is a common language and the “best practice” frameworks provide a good starting point for achieving excellence in service management.
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