Adding value in IT: the changing role of ITSM

Profound changes are occurring within the IT service and support industry. IT service management (ITSM) is a process-based practice, intended to align the delivery of IT services with needs of the enterprise. ITSM involves a paradigm shift from managing IT as stacks of individual components to focusing on the delivery of end-to-end services using best practice process models. Whether you deliver support to internal employees or to external customers, the pressures to perform and to deliver world-class service at the lowest cost possible are very real requirements. It is imperative that IT service and support be aligned with the IT organisation and the enterprise as a whole.

But how has this paradigm shift come about? There has been a significant evolution in technology in the way IT support handles incidents and service requests. According to Rich Hand, Executive Director, Membership, HDI (previously, Help Desk Institute), the largest impact has been in areas of management of the incidents and service requests received, particularly the way they are documented, monitored, and measured. “We have gone from sticky notes and phone requests to advanced data base repositories that enable organisations to understand the volumes, severity, and root cause of incidents. Significant advances have also taken place in customer self help and knowledge bases that both support staff and customer can assess and improve upon.”

Some organisations are even using technology that anticipates incidents based on sophisticated monitoring tools which allows them to resolve the incident before it even becomes an incident. “The use of technology has also enabled organisations to be more distributed as virtual support is location independent. This makes 24/7 support easy to accomplish with staff working anywhere in the country or the world,” says Hand. But as Ron Muns, HDI founder and CEO points out, technology is a double-edged sword. It has made technical support easier in many ways: remote control software, knowledge base applications and wireless connectivity all facilitate problem solving and troubleshooting now, more so than 10 years ago. “But having more technology doesn’t mean it will always work when you need it to,” he points out. “Customer expectations of service and support have also grown in the last 10 years. The tools are better and the techniques we use to support users are better, the only real negative we’ve encountered is how fast users want their problems fixed. More then 60 seconds and they start getting frustrated!”

Alignment

There is considerable value to be derived when placing IT service and support within the organisation, as it is a strategic component. If you serve external customers who are using your products, information gathered through the support organisation is the chief mechanism for understanding how those products are performing, where you can make improvements, where you can increase revenue opportunities, and so on. When internal employees are seeking assistance, the IT support organisation should be working with the business units to help them refine processes, and applications to improve the efficiency of the work force, says Hand. “Support sees the impact of bad applications and processes, so if they are working closely with the business they can make recommendations on how to reduce the time employees spend on things that don’t drive value. When you outsource your support organisation, you lose a strategic competitive edge. To outsource the entire support organisation means you don’t understand how support can truly be a strategic partner and add value to the business.” And this is where the shift needs to occur: disturbing preconceived notions of ITSM.

Despite the advantages, many enterprises still do not understand the business imperative of aligning IT service and support with the enterprise as a whole. “The dialogue between the CIO and the rest of the C-level suite is still, largely, a dialogue of the deaf,” elaborates Muns. It is slowly improving – thanks to people like Nicholas Carr, the editors of Harvard Business Review and Muns himself – but as he points out, both sides have a great deal of work to do. “For example, the recent JetBlue crisis illustrates the need for the CEO and the CIO to communicate clearly and for management to understand how crucial IT is to the overall success of the business.”

According to the 2006 HDI Practices and Salary Survey, participants were asked if support organisations aligned their goals with the business and the responses were as follows:

• 67 percent aligned to the strategic goals of the organisation
• 17.7 percent aligned to the operational goals of the organisation
• 14.4 percent said they aligned with both strategic and operational goals

“I know IT support understands this but getting there has been a difficult process and one that organisations continue to improve upon,” says Hand. He elaborates, saying that IT support is not a break-and-fix organisation any more; it is a strategic partner in the business and continues to gain more value as they continue to increase their visibility within the business units.

Rich Hand, Executive Director of Membership, HDI
Ron Muns, Founder & CEO, HDI