By Simon Turner at Xantium Professional Services
For years IT organisations have being saying that they deliver solutions that align business and technology requirements for a company - but what does this mean, and is it a reality? Today with the increased understanding of technology, companies are certainly becoming more mature in their decision making process around the ability of IT to drive business. Therefore they are starting to dictate that technology solutions adapt to their business requirements - and not the other way around, as in the past.
This change has come as a result of the fact that a few years ago, IT was over-hyped and businesses believed that by merely investing in the latest technology solutions, it would define their competitive advantage. As a result, many organisations engaged in negative spending habits to retain this so-called edge. IT was never understood as a process that could service business and customer needs. Therefore, any IT upgrade was often reviewed in terms of technology capabilities - like increased network availability or the ability to deliver wireless solutions, however this was never translated into customer and business requirements.
With the impact of Y2K and the dot.com burst, companies have understood the need to undertake IT implementations only if it ensures more efficient and effective running of their current business processes. As a result we are witnessing the emergence of service management as a discipline that can drive and deliver the rational behind technology deployments.
Service management outlines how IT services and processes can align with business goals to fill the gap between IT and business needs. In essence a companies IT requirements are set up as a set of services, giving the ability to understand what needs they are trying to address from a business and customer perspective, i.e. is it driving quality assurances or increasing customer expectations - as these have very different approaches both internally and externally.
Service management examines current and desired maturity levels of a business from a customer, organisational and IT perspective to ensure an accurate roadmap of a companies business goals are developed. This makes certain that any IT implementation undertaken is driven by three key values; namely people, process and technology - which allows the organisation to asses and adapt its processes according to their actual requirements, ensuring the use of resources from a cost perspective is driven by business demand. The key is understanding expectations first and then driving the best implementations in a phased approach giving the business the opportunity to give input to ensure its IT delivery is set against its business processes.
Many IT service companies claim to utilise the ITIL methodology as an effective way to address the above requirements. While ITIL is certainly the standard for true service management, it is merely a guideline for assessing business and technology expectations and management thereof. Too often organisations take a vanilla flavoured approach to ITIL, which is short-sighted, especially if you consider that not every company is the same and comprises of unique challenges and opportunities. This lack of flexibility that IT services companies give organisations, through their own lack of experience and knowledge, can be detrimental to the success of IT implementation for businesses.
ITIL is more than a prescribed methodology, it is a standard for how service management should work in an organisation. Therefore, while it allows for growth, adaptability and change regarding the management of processes, it also highlights how to measure and report on growth, resources, capacity and internal efficiencies to align business with its IT processes. ITIL can be a powerful guideline for companies, but it must be undertaken by organisations that understand its opportunities and limitations and therefore are adaptable and flexible enough to drive the best ITIL has to offer throughout a business, without being prescriptive in their approach.
Too many companies view service management as an internal issue that IT can fix. Service management is about assessing business issues, adapting to requirements and managing business expectations to ensure IT alignment with business strategy. CIO's today understand that technology will not save money but drive efficiencies out of their current services, therefore this process needs to be correctly mapped and managed. Therefore organisations need to work with companies who understand this alignment into IT, while being flexible enough to adapt to the organisations they support.
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Xantium Technology Holdings is a dynamic black owned IT solutions company that focuses on approaching technology solutions from a business perspective, aligning our client's requirements to protect their long-term investments. We approach IT implementation through our tested service management methodology, extensive industry experience and strong market partnerships with Microsoft, HP, Computer Associates and Cisco. We pride ourselves on challenging conventional IT thinking and our work with Government, municipalities and Blue Chip organisations are evidence of this.
For more information please visit the Xantium Technology Website on www.xantiumit.co.za
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