Adding value in IT

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, 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.”

ITSM provides a framework to structure IT-related activities and the interactions of IT technical personnel with business customers and users within an organisation. Internal support means you are supporting the employees of your company, while external support means you serve a population outside your organisation. Hand points to the example of Microsoft, which has separate support organisations to handle internal problems for employees and external problems for customers of Microsoft products.

A clear difference between these two support organisations is that external customers – if unhappy with the level of service provided – have the option to leave and use a competitor. “But the employee doesn’t have that option,” says Muns. “So they must deal with the internal support organisation, no matter what the level of support. Most external organisations are measuring their output against a service level agreement.” Many internal support organisations don’t have any service agreements, as it just is not in the culture. But they should have, because – as Muns points out – a customer is a customer, whatever their relationship to the enterprise.

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.

Under pressure

As with all aspects of business today, there are constant pressures to perform and deliver top quality service while facing budget restraints. “The days of the unlimited budget are long over, and this is a good thing,” says Muns optimistically. “IT is a business service and an investment, and the business and the CFO have a legitimate expectation that they will receive a ROI. The trouble comes from determining what a reasonable ROI should be, and how you measure it.” According to Muns, the best CIOs are the ones that think and act like good business people serving their customers.

The pressure of trying to do more with less is one of the top issues brought to the attention of HDI. “Support organisations are always being asked to do more with less,” says Hand. “Part of that is just business sense, but we find it is mostly in support organisations that have not clearly communicated their value. IT is a natural place for the business to go to reduce costs because they don’t understand it. Whether internal or external, no one likes to spend money on support. That is why it is so important for IT support organisations to continue to push for a seat at the boardroom table. Support is strategic and we need to keep that message in front of the business leaders.” It is a constant struggle for support organisations to successfully communicate their value; an aspect that needs to change.

Looking to the future

There have been dramatic changes to the function of internal IT support. When asked about trends HDI expects to see in the future, Muns predicts that technology will become more powerful for users while problems grow complex for support people. But despite this, “users will continue to want fast service, and will be increasingly dissatisfied unless they receive prompt and accurate responses from support. Security problems involving securing and using information and data will continue to grow in complexity and the frontline tech support person will be the first responder in dealing with security threats and problems of all kinds.” But Muns is optimistic that the future will yield an improvement in the reputation of technical support; that it will evolve as a career choice for people that like technology and also like working with other people. As he brightly puts it: “The era of the stereotypical geek is over. The era of the IT professional is emerging.”

When Hand is asked for his opinion on the future of ITSM, he points to increased demand for support and pressure to reduce costs; a continual battle in business. He does expect to see more virtual support organisations, and thinks self-service will improve and be adopted more as the generation of younger workers enters the workforce. “Large global organisations will move support around the world to wherever it makes the best business sense, but customer sensitive support will stay within the control of the organisation. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, your customers will need time to adjust to these new global models of support. There is still a strong desire by customers to deal with people that they feel understand their culture. Culture will be a key factor in how quickly, which parts of a support organisation are sourced, and to what region they are sourced. As for technology, self healing and monitoring of systems will play key roles in making systems more stable.” Exciting prospects for the future of IT support. Is your enterprise ready?