Itil - Delivering Real Value In A Downturn: Three Fast Steps To Service Value

To receive this complimentary whitepaper in full please visit the link in the author section below.

Applying best practices for managing IT support can help by improving efficiency and releasing resources for more strategic IT initiatives. The majority of organizations spend up to 80% of their IT budget on 'keeping the lights on', and only 20% on strategic initiatives to better support the business. In an economic downturn, this is an opportunity to cut costs, release resources and enable IT to drive the business forward.

In this free white paper you will discover the key issues that IT needs to tackle in an economic downturn, as well as a 3-step guide to demonstrating the value of IT to the business - a vital weapon in defending the IT budget.

Gartner prepared a worst-case scenario for its 2008 and 2009 forecasts that showed worldwide IT market growth dropping from the previous forecast of 8.9 percent to 7.3 percent in 2008 and from 5.8 percent to 2.3 percent in 2009.

Understanding how your organization will be impacted by the slowdown will let you adapt without overreacting. Even in the midst of dire financial news, there are opportunities for IT to maintain service quality and deliver improved value to customers.

IT Service Management (ITSM) provides some great opportunities to save on costs and also demonstrate value. ITIL projects normally involve a lot of discussion and culture change, which can be a euphemism for managing political situationsthis also takes considerable time.

The downturnand the inevitable need for review and cost-cuttingprovides a good opportunity to bypass all of this and implement change rapidly. This can bring about significant results as people band together in a united front to survive the current market challenges.

Overview

We can all feel the reach of the current financial crisiseither through seeing the value of our investments fall, price increases, or more potently, the ever increasing unemployment figures. In November 2008, the US reported a 500,000 increase in unemployment and the UK unemployment figures recently in December 2008 rose to 6 percent. Some sectors such as financial services have witnessed devastating cuts in staff, hastily organized mergers, or ultimately companies failing. It is clearly a troubling time and a global problem that will take some time to resolve.

Generally, all the questions that are askedoften suddenly in a crisiscan be answered using one of the key principles in Service Management (i.e. the understanding and definition of what services, and associated benefits, are actually delivered by IT). ITSM is concerned mainly with managing cost, quality and risk. So, if an organization has gone through the process to define and prioritize its services (not just systems), then it will be well-prepared to identify which services and components are business-critical, and which ones are not.

This may seem obvious, but many organizations do not actually understand this concept. The nature of IT support and delivery is technology-focused, often inefficient and not properly understood in relation to its value to the business and the customers it supports. The issue also extends through the complexity of systems now in use, and it has become increasingly difficult to identify which parts of an IT estate are actually business-critical.

The net result of this is that, (1) the IT organizations risk is exposed in the business, and (2) the IT organization is in a very poor position to make the right decisions regarding cost-cutting that it will inevitably be asked to make.

Also, there is constant new hype and pressure around the opportunities for efficiency and cost savings through such concepts as virtualization and cloud computing. As always, these things require and involve a lifecycle of time, understanding, preparation and investment for success, and many IT people dont have that luxury

To receive this complimentary whitepaper in full please visit the link in the author section below.

by: Axios Systems

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