The IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) South Africa kicked off a survey aimed at gaining a thorough understanding of the level of maturity in the local market, in June. Entitled: 'The face of IT Service Management in South Africa', the results are due out this month.
“The survey is delivering valuable insight so far,” says Jackie Cronk, principal consultant at Digiterra, which is conducting the survey on behalf of the itSMF. “The preliminary results of the survey, based on 22 interviews, show that there is a sense of interest around itSM and that all the organisations spoken to so far have embarked on some degree of service management activity. These organisations understand the need for improvement and have an appreciation for the level of proficiency needed to adopt and implement it successfully. They have a theoretical understanding of the benefits, but not a practical idea of the benefits if they do implement.
“From a cultural perspective,” she notes, “South Africa still views IT as a mere cost component for an organisation, nothing more than a necessary evil. IT is not seen as an empowering agent. The result is that instead of providing solutions, it is seen as making business complex, reducing it to the status of a grudge purchase.”
Further, she says: “There is a definite sense of disillusionment. Companies are making the investment but are not seeing the ROI. Organisations are realising that the discipline is more difficult to implement than they had originally anticipated. There's more to this than a window-dressed view of it.”
The 's' word
Challenges in the local market include a lack of service management education, she notes. “It's not something where you can grab a book, read it and go for it. Ninety percent of people who have been on training, eg, ITIL training, are at the foundation level, which does not really give the depth of understanding people need. Only 10% are at management level. Service management has also only been adopted at a lower level. Operational resources are sent on training rather than management taking an interest and prioritising and driving it. It is a bottom-up rather than top-down approach.”
There is a definite sense of disillusionment.
Jackie Cronk, principal consultant, Digiterra
From a process perspective, she adds: “Sometimes there is documentation for the sake of it or there isn't documentation at all. One thing that needs to happen is that guidelines and best practice processes need to be adopted and adapted to respective organisations' environments. You can't just copy and paste a process and say 'ok, that's it'.
“From a technology perspective, what we have seen in most cases is that the technology is smarter than the resources required to use it, so have a bells-and-whistles system that is under-utilised because people don't really understand its full potential because it is too complex, or because it is not set up to deliver its full potential.
“Another barrier to entry is the level of complexity. From an ITIL perspective, version two provided two sets of processes to pick from and implement. Version 3 contains a lot more information, but if it is broken down into a timeline and roadmap, companies might implement better, take it one bite at a time.
“An element of organisational change needs to take place,” she continues. “itSM needs to be a project with its own resources, budget and management. And what we find is that companies struggle because internal operational staff are expected to implement service management and you really do need specialists to do it,” she concludes.
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