Organisations no longer see IT service management (ITSM) in terms of mere frameworks such as ITIL, but are starting to understand the value it provides as a means to enable growth, contain costs, and mitigate risk.
So says Christopher Jones, CEO of Digiterra, and member of the local ITSMFsa charter, who will speak at the Service Management Conference and Exhibition Africa (SMEXA), being held on 3 and 4 August at The Forum, in Johannesburg.
“IT budgets are down at least 2.5%, which means quality sacrifices by all stakeholders,” says Jones, adding that gross margins have been pinched by slow business demand, component costing, and price pressure.
“The risk lies with budgets that are cut too drastically,” notes Jones, explaining this makes it harder to create renewed opportunity in the business, which affects the ability to provide competitive advantage.
“2010 is about recovery and growth, cost, and risk,” he says, stating that recovery and growth are best addressed through a better understanding of ICT's functional, utility and warranty value of services provided.
“Utility is what the business gets and warranty addresses how it is delivered.” He says all of these elements need to be encapsulated into demand management.
He lists the activities that have received growing interest as: virtualisation, IT asset management, business intelligence, business process management tools, and service management optimisation.
“To a relative extent, ITSM demand has started picking up,” says Jones, adding that service management provides organisations with a means to improve their proficiency, thereby reducing costs and mitigating effects.
He says companies need to research and review the fundamental business metric models within the organisation, extending to industry, strategic, financial and operational demand management.
“ITSM acts as an enabling catalyst to all required ICT operational disciplines. It understands the requirements and associated roles and responsibilities to formulate an empowering role to ICT in achieving its objectives,” concludes Jones.
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