ITSM Pills for Business Ills

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DQI Bureau
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IT Service Management, as a concept, is at least two decades old; books and
materials on this concept came in 1990. But it is becoming a talking point right
now, partly because of IT Service Management Forum's (itSMF) activities and,
equally important, due to the realisation that adoption of 'Best Practices'
can increase productivity, customer satisfaction, reduce costs and minimize
risks. Simply put, Best Practice is a lot of commonsense-it is a set of things
an organization should be doing to manage technology effectively. The guidance
can be found in IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) publications that define the
right processes like problem, change, service level and configuration management
among others.

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When the world moved away from the mainframe to the distributed environment,
it brought about distribution of the technology, as well as budgets and
purchasing power. Different parts of an organization began buying their own
solutions and there were little thought to make them work together. ITSM became
the binding adhesive. "Service Management is about having a coherent
approach-a holistic view of what we are trying to do in the world of IT.
"It's not buying toys for the techies to play with. It's about how you
are going to manage your investments in technology," explains Aidan Lawes,
CEO of itSMF.

CIO
Check-list

  • IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
    definitions serve as an example of Best Practices that can guide
    users to improve operational efficiencies.
  • More than a set of standards for
    implementing products, ITIL is a methodology that requires a
    rethinking of methods and practices.
  • Using ITIL, an IT organization
    can facilitate the quality management of IT services, improve
    efficiency, increase effectiveness and reduce risks.
  • ITIL processes should not
    dictate, but rather underpin the business processes of an
    organization.

ITIL principles were easy to understand but implementing them was the
problem, itSMF later discovered. Adoption rate varies across the globe, with a
very high take up in Britain and the Netherlands. It is catching up in other
European and North American countries with major vendors like Microsoft, IBM,
HP, CA and Sun having invested huge sums to make their tools ITIL-supportive.

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R Srinivasan, head, Europe Service Delivery and Global Command Centre, Wipro
To get an exposure of the basics of ITIL framework, the foundation certificate is a must”

India is also a natural home for Best Practices, itSMF feels. But a lot
remains to be done. R Srinivasan, head of Europe Service Delivery and Global
Command Centre with Wipro, was the seventh Indian to clear ITIL Masters-an
individual-level certification-last year. "In the UK, the seventh person
cleared the same level seven years back. That shows the gap. We have a lot of
catching up to do," Lawes says. There are 100,000-plus ITIL certified
professionals across the globe now.

Creatures of habit

Adoption is difficult due to a variety of reasons, including cultural ones.
People are being asked to change their behaviour, so there is resistance. IT is
still considered a cost centre by its business counterparts in more than 80% of
the Indian companies. IT executives need to change this perception, feels
Rajendra P Dhavale, consulting director with CA: "CIOs must address
infrastructure issues and market the IT organization to raise the enterprise's
recognition of IT as a business partner. Hence, the key to the adoption of ITIL
principles in India will be the necessity to improve the mindset of both IT and
business towards each other, that will help in addressing and resolving
questions like: How can IT stop mistrust and develop credibility? How can IT
change the mindset from 'IT is for IT's sake' into a 'customer-centric
culture'? How can IT get its business partners to communicate IT's value to
the enterprise? How can IT become more cost-efficient? What are the minimum
processes required to build the ideal IT organization? How can IT maintain
centralized control for standards, processes and architectures?"

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Though the interest in ITSM in India started with software houses and BPOs,
it is quickly spreading even to BFSI, Telecom and Manufacturing-basically, to
that segment where businesses heavily depend on IT. However, since ITIL
principles are applicable to everybody, the IT divisions in companies providing
services to internal customers should also be interested. It is increasingly
being recognized that IT is a strategic and critical enabler of business
success. Hence, any company that is able to extract the maximum value out of its
IT resources will have an automatic edge over its competitors. "In that
sense, ITSM spans all sectors (even the Government!). So every industry that
requires high-quality and cost-effective IT Services delivery, can benefit from
the ITSM Best Practice framework," says Dhiraj Lal, vice-president, QAI
India.

Know
the processes
  • Incident management-which is
    about rapid recovery of service
  • Problem management-which is
    about the proactive prevention of incidents
  • Configuration management-which
    is understanding, managing and controlling all the items that
    are important to the delivery of service management-hardware,
    software, the network, people and documentation
  • Change management-which is the
    ability to control change proactively so that a change somewhere
    doesn't cause a problem elsewhere
  • Relationship Management-which
    is about the IT service provider having a good relationship with
    the customer in terms of meeting the customer's requirements
    and understanding those requirements
  • Release Management-which is
    about releasing an executed change; could be hardware or
    software or an upgrade to a live environment
  • Service-level Management-which
    is about SLAs
  • Capacity Management-which is
    about understanding what the current and future capacity
    requirements of the organization will be, anticipating needs
  • Availability and Service
    Continuity Management-which is about making sure that the
    right services are available and also about making sure that the
    right people have access to the right services. Service
    continuity is about service recovery in the event of disaster
  • Service Reporting-which is
    about what has actually happened-reporting the number of
    incidents in a day, reporting about how good or bad the Service
    Level Targets are being met, reporting about the condition of
    configuration items
  • Information security-which is
    about safeguarding the data and making sure that the data is
    accessed by the right people at the right time

Finding tutors

So, how do you adopt ITSM? A good starting point is the ITIL publication. An
organization can buy the Best Practice material and understand what it is about.
It is available from a variety of sources; itSMF sells them too and if you are
its member, they offer a discount. The second step would be to educate and train
people in the organization. There are various levels of training available,
which was traditionally provided by HP, in India. QAI has now entered the space.

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A self-assessment questionnaire at itSMF website can help judge the
capability-maturity for all processes. Most of the consultancies also facilitate
the assessment process. As part of the BS15000 set of publications, there is a
self-assessment workbook that could help internal auditors value the solution.
Finally, once confident enough, the organization can get an external auditor (Bsi,
BVQi, DNV, DQS, KPMC, LRDA, TUV) to do the BS15000 certification audit.

Though it is possible to drive a service improvement programme internally,
sometimes you need that external catalyst, partly to help with the evolution of
the programme and partly, "due to that hate figure from outside who is
causing all the pain," says Lawes. "And a lot of service management is
about understanding the real principles beyond the processes defined in the
books," he adds.

The ITIL certifications are available not at an organization level, but at an
individual level. There are three levels of training:

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  • ITIL Foundation Certification
  • ITIL Practitioner Certification
  • ITIL Service Manager Certification

"To get an exposure of the basics of ITIL framework, the
foundation certificate is a must," says R Srinivasan of Wipro. The course
is usually a three-day one and costs around Rs 30,000 per person. If you go for
bulk booking, probably a better rate can be negotiated. The ITIL Service Manager
certification course is a 10-day one and can cost up to Rs 1, 70,000.

To effectively support the implementation of ITIL Best
Practices throughout the organization, it would be critical for the senior
management to be at least ITIL-aware, if not ITIL-certified themselves. The
level of training required for individuals to effectively implement ITIL is
dependent on their job responsibilities. "Operational and hands-on managers
would need more training than supervisors or company seniors. Also, persons who
are into the delivery of IT services would require ITIL training more than those
in other areas," says Dhiraj. "Those in Finance and Operations must
also be either ITIL-aware or go through the three-day Foundation course because
only then will they be able to speak the same language and work in partnership
with their colleagues in the IT department, to ensure that IT supports the
requirements of the business in the best possible manner."

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A
CIO Should:

  • Persuade management that ITSM is
    a requirement of the organization
  • Establish a policy for ITIL
    implementation
  • Provide resources to make it
    happen
  • Undergo an ITIL foundation
    course to get an overview
  • Contact itSMF and talk to other
    users already employing ITIL

However, Lawes warns that at times training companies
oversell their training: "People go on taking up courses-they don't get
involved in doing anything with that knowledge back on the site and so the
knowledge decays very rapidly. It is really a question of what you are trying to
achieve."

The BS15000 hunt

Just as the ITIL certifications are available only at an individual level,
organizations that desire independent assurance about their ITIL Practices can
obtain the BS15000 certification, the first formal standard for IT Service
Management. A typical BS15000 roadmap involves a gap analysis vs the BS15000
requirements, and then a focused exercise to close the gaps and a
"pre-certification" for the company to feel confident that they are in
a good position to pass the BS15000 audit, informs Dhiraj. In case of need, the
company can engage the services of a consultant to help them effectively
implement the ITIL Best Practices Framework, as well as provide them with an
independent opinion regarding their state of readiness to obtain the BS15000
Certification.

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Dhiraj Lal, VP, QAI India
Every industry that requires high-quality and cost-effective IT Services delivery, can benefit from the ITSM Best Practice framework”

John Groom, who is a certified BS15000 consultant and key
contributor to the development of the standard as well, says the standard is a
set of minimum requirements against which an organization can be independently
audited for effective ITSM processes. Having the certificate would mean that in
a competitive market, "one can wave a flag and de clare that one is
certified," he says. The certification scheme is owned and managed by itSMF
and it accredits companies as Registered Certification Bodies (RCBs) to do the
audits. "The standard is concerned with the existence, use and continuous
improvement of an integrated process approach to the effective delivery of
Information Systems services that support the organization's business
requirements," adds Groom. "As such, it has been developed to
complement ISO9000: 2000, providing a specific ITSM focus and is fully aligned
with ITIL." It could take anywhere between six to 18 months to get the
audit done and the certification is valid for three years.

The cost? "It would be a function of the number of
interventions/engagement days required by the BS15000 consultant, roughly
proportional to the complexity and scale of the assignment," says Dhiraj.
"And it is often directly a function of the actual state of readiness of
the company." RCBs charge on per-day basis and this is unlikely to vary
much across the RCBs.

Best benefits

Apart from ensuring better service delivery, adoption of ITIL practices
offers other tangible and intangible benefits. Cost savings in one of them. Most
organisations, without good service management policies, waste a lot of money.
Take software asset management, for instance. Most organisations actually pay
far more in licence fees than they require because someone buys a piece of
software and then everyone forgets it. The bill for the licence goes to the
finance department and they keep on paying it year after year. "If you have
good software asset management in place, you protect yourself legally. And, you
don't end up paying licence fees for all kinds of software you don't
need," says Lawes. "We know from different surveys that ITSM effects
40-50% reduction in

development cycles because everything is being assessed. Organisations have also
reported huge return on investments."

Becoming
ITSM-compliant

  • Understand the set of IT
    processes that exist in the organization
  • Identify the team to be involved
    in ITIL implementation. If required, gain senior management
    support for the implementation
  • Train the relevant team members
    on ITIL, at various levels of expertise and understanding. Get
    trained by specialised training companies, if required
  • Establish a project or programme-that
    has to be managed
  • Configuration management and
    change management is a good place to start. If you get those
    under control, it is easier to get the rest
  • Get independent people to do a
    gap analysis to see where you are compared to where you need to
    be, to achieve certification
  • Have some more projects to close
    the gap
  • Invite an RCB for audit

But R Srinivasan of Wipro advises against approaching ITIL
only for cost savings: "ITIL should be adopted for getting the processes
right, and ensuring a robust service delivery model-no longer can IT services
be delivered by chance, it will be by choice." The other advantage is that
ITIL doesn't dictate: "You are allowed to customise according to your
requirements and use tools that suit you best," he adds. Now, why should
you hold back?

Goutam Das
in Bangalore