Business value is derived from technology only when its use improves the bottom line of an organisation

The concept that business value is derived from technology only when its use improves the bottom line of an organisation, is becoming an increasingly familiar one, to IT and business managers alike.

As active IT solutions and service providers, not to mention as committed vendor channel partners, we need to play our part in ensuring that IT becomes a valued partner to the business - delivering performance and customer satisfaction with increasing speed and effectiveness.

This is according to Appie Pema, Managing Director of IT solutions provider to the public and private sector, Aptronics.

"According to a recent Gartner survey, in response to business pressures to increase quality of service while reducing costs, many organisations are searching for tools that help them do just this. That is, to document their IT services, understand service delivery costs, and measure and report service quality. In a nutshell, the provision of so-called `IT services management` or `ITSM`," Pema observes.

"The report does, however, caution that businesses must attain a proactive level of IT management process maturity, and be well on their way to service management, to successfully deploy these emerging ITSM technologies," Pema explains.

Furthermore, according to a recent study by IDC industry analysts: "The pace is picking up in the adoption of applications that enable `one version of the truth`."

"According to IDC`s findings, CIOs are focusing their investments on tools that support critical business decisions and enable staff, suppliers, customers and stakeholders to communicate and access timely information," he says.

"IDC expects that, with an increase in the level of vendor consolidation and their race to achieve their enterprise management vision, the delivery of application technologies via on-demand services will become more accessible to segments of the market that in the past were not able to afford major SCM, ERP or CRM implementations. This in turn will drive strong growth within these segments into 2007 and beyond.

"This prediction is certainly borne out by HP software in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which has seen a year-on-year growth rate of some 21%," Pema comments.

"HP`s OpenView solution portfolio saw an even greater year-on-year growth rate, of 25%," he adds.

According to Pema, HP OpenView customers span both enterprise and many targeted industries, such as manufacturing, network service providers, financial services and the public sector.

"Business process-oriented solutions are increasingly key to synchronising business and IT. As such, software and services are becoming increasingly critical to driving business value and differentiation -as platforms continue to standardise and basic management functions commoditise," Pema says.

According to recent industry research, there is a $9 billion addressable distributed management market globally, which is currently growing at 10%. HP OpenView leads overall revenue and market share at 12% - making it the fastest-growing distributed enterprise management provider in the market today.

Recently, HP announced 12 winners of the HP Software Channel Excellence Awards. The annual award, now in its ninth year, recognises partners in EMEA that demonstrate leadership in HP OpenView software sales and excellence in implementation, customer service, and joint solutions development.

"Our channel partners are a vital component of HP`s software strategy, and the Channel Excellence Awards provide an opportunity to recognise the outstanding efforts of our growing EMEA network," says Andy Isherwood, vice-president and general manager, HP OpenView, EMEA.

"Our partners are capitalising on the investments HP recently made in the OpenView management software portfolio, and are demonstrating significant success in promoting these product developments across all industries, " he adds.

As one of the EMEA HP Software Channel Excellence Award winners for HP OpenView, Pema notes that:

"In less than a year, Aptronics has earned the status as an HP Services Integrator (SVI) partner, which allows us to provide first-line support on behalf of HP OpenView and also manage the support contract process.

"We recognise the growing importance of IT services management and business services management in the marketplace today. That is, the need to ensure the right services remain operational, helping businesses to adapt better to change, and also the importance of demonstrating the value of IT to the business, on an ongoing basis," Pema maintains.

"We are therefore honoured to have achieved this high-level channel recognition regarding the part we are playing in both ITSM and BSM, via our role as channel partners in the HP OpenView space.