Best Bet

If paying
taxes can guarantee peace of mind at home, implementing IT Service Management (ITSM)
practices can do the same at office. When realization struck in 2005, many more
Indian organizations accelerated their limp into a run, making a dash towards
the ITSM finish line, establishing policies, providing resources, undergoing
training and inviting audits.

In a country that many
say is the natural home of best practices, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
definitions became the guiding light for users to improve operational
efficiencies, forcing a rethink of old methods while providing a fresh
perspective on quality use of people, processes, and tools.

Globally too, there
has been similar trends. And even though initially confined to companies
offering infrastructure and service management services, it has gradually found
favor with non-IT enterprises. The 'rocking' change, as some put it, has
been driven by three big technology shifts. First, all processes and content are
being transformed from the physical and static to digital, mobile, and the
virtual. Two, the demand for simplicity, manageability, and adaptability are
changing the way customers work and organize, as well as how they buy and use
technology. Finally, the move is towards a horizontal, heterogeneous and
networked world. “Enterprises and technologies are no longer about vertical
chains of command and standalone islands of automation. They are becoming
horizontal collections of processes, supported by applications and
technology,” says Bithin Talukdar, market development and alliances manager
with HP Software, India.

ITSM helps enterprises
manage their business horizontally, which is why it has become so critical to
anyone who has an IT infrastructure. Burdened with cost and performance
pressures, aligning to ITIL principles becomes the only way for many
organizations to make IT Services measurable. “Increasingly, IT services are
being measured on service levels, and in order to measure this, it becomes
essential for even non-IT organizations to put processes and mechanisms in place
to measure the effectiveness of service delivery and service support,” says
the country leader of Tivoli Software Group at IBM, Aldrin D'souza. 

The trend of non-IT
enterprisers investing in process frameworks recommended by ITIL also has a lot
to do with the efforts of the global members of itSMF, IT Service Management's
world lobby, who aggressively pushed tools, consulting and training modules into
the market, thus generating a whole new world of awareness, as well as business
opportunity.

This is a leaning
likely to continue. Predicts Prof S Sadagopan, chairman, itSMF India: “Non-IT
enterprises will take to ITSM, better, faster, and earlier than many IT
companies. Sometimes, IT companies have an illusion-that they know how to
manage IT best. Well, they don't. Managing IT is like managing any other
resource. Automotive companies and petroleum refineries for example, have a
tradition of managing resources much better. My feeling is they will take it up
much faster.”

Mahindra &
Mahindra, Maruti, Ashok Leyland, Hutch, Hindustan Lever, Larsen and Toubro,
Ramco Cement, and many organizations in the banking sector, among others, have
already begun roll-outs or are seriously considering adopting ITSM.

Attest Thee

CXOs considering adopting ITIL best practices need to know that a good
starting point is the ITIL publication and other best practice material,
available from a variety of sources, including the itSMF. The second step is to
train up people in the organization-there are various levels of training
available-and is provided by a number of players including HP and IBM today.
After a capability-maturity assessment, external auditors (Bsi, BVQi, DQS, KPMG,
LRDA, TUV) can be invited for a BS15000 certification audit.

BS15000, like all
other certifications, is being viewed by organizations as a yardstick to measure
their ability to deliver services based on ITSM principles.
So, it aids customers gauge their preparedness in delivering ITSM, but is
by no means absolutely necessary, opines D' souza of IBM. “There are
customers who have implemented ITSM without these certifications also, and have
reaped quantifiable benefits.  However,
the certifications become relevant when IT companies want to offer remote
infrastructure management services to customers, because achievement of these
certifications enables customers (who are evaluating vendors) to quickly qualify
their vendors' capabilities,” he says.

Though it is not
mandatory, it is, however, advisable to define processes aligned to a standard
framework,  Priti Rao,
VP-infrastructure management services and head, Pune Development Center, Infosys
explains out of her learning: “BS15000 is built around ITIL processes
framework that in turn is pre-dominantly aligned to infrastructure management
operations. Hence, it makes sense to align your processes to BS15000. Infosys
has definitely gained significantly through the BS15000 certification.” As an
organization, Infosys is a member of itSMF and now has a focused ITSM consulting
practice that concentrates on delivering consulting around ITIL, COBIT, BSM and
IT Process Management. It has worked closely with HP education to train up its
employees in various ITIL streams.

Now, ISO 20000 has
been fast-tracked from BS15000 and is very similar to BS15000 if not identical.
From a certification perspective, the itSMF is in the process of transitioning
the BS15000 scheme to an ISO 20000 scheme that will be jointly administered by
the itSMF and United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). “Existing certified
companies will be able to transition their certifications to ISO 20000 status
and new candidates will go forward under a revised itSMF ISO 20000 certification
scheme. We believe that it will give a certain spurt to the acceptability of
this standard in

mass scale,” says Bithin, who is also one of the convenors of the forum's
India chapter.

Toys for Techies

Organizations with in-house IT support teams are looking at putting in place
processes to support ITIL, while organizations who outsource a majority of their
IT services are making ITSM a qualifying parameter for identifying vendors to
outsource to. IBM says its has been striving to dispel the myth that buying a
software 'tool' alone is enough to adopt ITSM.
It is imperative that a strong process framework, aligned with ITIL best
practices, is in place, before a customer goes ahead and invests in tools for
ITSM. “The reason why customers have struggled to 'actionize' the
practices required by ITSM is two-fold: one, it requires customers to put in
place process models from scratch, which in turn translates to long-drawn
consulting engagements with consultants. Two, having put the process model in
place,

customers are unable to reap benefits of the processes defined, due to absence
of technology tools that are capable of automating these processes,” D'souza
says.

In order to bridge
this gap, vendors like IBM, HP, CA, and BMC among others, bring to market, what
some claim are 'holistic' solutions. IBM's Tivoli Software Group for
example, along with consulting services from IBM Global Services, has launched
what is called the Tivoli Unified Process (TUP) framework; the mantra being to
make ITIL actionable. HP too has a wide range of offerings that cover almost all
aspects of ITSM-from consulting to education.

Traction for tools has
been steadily increasing, and companies are now beginning to include these into
the annual IT budgets. India is also one of the fastest growing countries in
terms of ITIL training imparted. A proof of the popularity of these trainings
can be gauged from the fact that till about a year and a half ago, HP was the
only provider of ITIL trainings in India. Now, there are at least five more
vendors offering various kinds of courses.

Big, Bigger

Vendor pitches for consulting, integration services, tools, and training
suggest a huge market for ITSM but, till date, there is no independent analyst
group tracking this market in terms of revenues. “This is primarily owing to
the fact that ITSM solutions traverse across hardware, software and services.
This makes for a huge ecosystem in itself,” says Bithin of HP.

Let's consider
training for a moment. At an individual level, there are three levels of
training available-ITIL foundation certification, practitioner certification,
and service manager certification. Different organizations charge differently
for training and this is usually a function of the expertise of the tutors, as
well as the course material and handbooks provided. To get an exposure of the
basics of ITIL framework, a foundation certificate is a must, which is usually a
three-day one and costs around Rs 30,000 per person. The ITIL service manager
certification course is a 10-day one and can cost up to Rs 1,70,000.
So, how much are enterprises spending on training? Infosys, for example,
has more than 230 foundation certified employees, 40 plus service support, 25
plus service delivery practitioners, and three ITIL Masters certified staff.
Even while considering that organizations can negotiate a better price if they
go for bulk booking, this amounts to a good amount of money. Since the initial
investment is large, Bithin advises a modular approach, a stepwise
implementation that has the fastest RoI.

An audit cost at the
organization level is the function of the number of interventions/engagement
days required by the BS15000 consultant. This is again roughly proportional to
the complexity and scale of assignment, and is often a function of the actual
state of readiness of the company. Auditors can charge up to 30-40 pounds
sterling. 

The demand side of
this economy is also large since different organizations are dovetailing their
efforts in multiple areas using ITSM, some feel. They cite the example of
companies who are starting off on their journey of ITSM and are looking at
infrastructure automation. Yet, others are looking at service driven operations
management. Some organizations are dovetailing ITIL into their Six Sigma, and
with the ubiquitous nature of IT, this means that it is getting incorporated
into such areas as ERP implementation, software development, supply chain
integration, and CRM among others. “There are also a lot of companies, which
are implementing corporate governance and compliance initiatives and are using
ITSM to deliver these objectives,” Bithin adds.

All this is mostly to
improve efficiency, increase effectiveness, reduce risks, and also costs.
Enterprises want change, for the better.

Goutam
Das   

goutamd@cybermedia.co.in

Article compiled by


Siju Oommen George, network consultant, HIFX IT and Media Services