Brad Fraser has joined ICCM as Director of Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, and brings extensive experience of initiating and expanding IT ventures into Africa: particularly in Mauritius, Mozambique, Kenya, Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania.

It was while Fraser was Financial Director at Bytes Systems Integration that he first came into contact with ICCM. There he spearheaded a project for Bytes to work with ICCM to deploy a progressive IT service management strategy.

Fraser comments, “Having already worked with ICCM through a customer perspective, I am only too aware of the value-add that ICCM’s e-Service Desk provides through streamlining process and technology, resulting in close alignment to business needs and significantly reducing deployment time.

“My move to ICCM reflects the opportunity I believe the solution brings to the African market, through the provision of revolutionary software and superior services to organisations aspiring to achieve Best Practice Service Management. ICCM’s scalable e-Service Desk with an enterprise Business Process Management (BPM) platform enables service management capabilities across all industries and business functions. The ITIL standards ensure that businesses don’t have to reinvent the wheel when implementing the solution.

“With 15 years of experience in the IT industry and a strong business process focus, I understand that this is a service management methodology purchase – it’s not about the technology.”

James Gay, CEO of ICCM Solutions says, “ICCM already has an established presence in South Africa though our work with organisations including Bytes and law firm Webber Wenztel. This market presents a key growth opportunity for ICCM and the strategic appointment of Brad will be pivotal in realising this growth. Brad not only has extensive experience and knowledge of the IT industry, but he is also very familiar with the nuances and understands the intricacies of doing business within different African markets. The appointment, along with the establishment of an ICCM African office, will help strengthen the business’ already proven track record in South Africa, Botswana and the UK.”

- ENDS -

About ICCM Solutions
One of the overriding directives of ICCM Solutions is the simplification of complexity in Service Management environments. Founded in 1998 ICCM provides a global client base with sophisticated ITIL aligned Service Management Solutions built on Business Process Management (BPM) Architecture, from Metastorm BPM®.

The BPM platform provides ICCM clients the opportunities to implement and deliver successful technology strategies to ensure the collaboration between the business and IT – ultimately reaping the rewards of business innovation and competitive advantage.

ICCM’s software allows organisations to support and drive best practice, via a turnkey technology, and is available as a ‘Commercial off the Shelf’ Solution.

ICCM Solutions was named a Gartner ‘Cool’ Vendor in 2010. For further information visit www.iccm.co.uk

For further information contact:
Brad Fraser – Director, Africa and Indian Ocean Islands
ICCM Solutions
Block E, Somerset Office Estate, Kudu Street, Roodepoort, Gauteng, South Africa
Cell +27 (0) 82 321 3690
Tel + 27 (11) 021 5079

For further information contact:
Ascent PR
T. +44 (0)1454 629 741
iccm@ascentpr.co.uk

IT Failure:
IT Professionals are failing to recognise the opportunity for the Service Desk to be profitable; according to an International Survey conducted across Europe and North America by ICCM Solutions.

IT Service Management Professionals are not capitalising on their entrepreneurial spirit and failing to exploit the potential of Service Management strategies to open new revenue streams and instigate progressive Service Management programmes.

Discover More – Agenda:

• Business Process Management (BPM) Strategies in Service Management Environments
• ITIL V3 alignment in a BPM Solution
• ICCM Solution Highlights
  - Self Service Portal
  - Service Catalogue
  - Configuration Management
  - Process Configuration
  - And more
• Peer-to-Peer Case Study Review; Miller-Valentine Group – Track Your IT Costs to the Penny

How to Regiser:

• Dates & Times:
  Tuesday 12th July 15:00 (British Summer Time) UK – EMEA
  Wednesday 15th July 12.00 (Eastern Standard Time) North America
• Length: 40 minutes including Q&A
• Location: Online
• Agenda: Click Here
• Register: Click Here

What the Survey Says – Highlights:
Only 25 per cent of respondents questioned at Europe’s largest Service Management exhibition, Service Desk and IT Support Show 2011, said they believed the service desk has the ability to generate revenue opportunities and become a profit centre.

Whist in direct comparison with North America, when asked the same question, 43 per cent of respondents at the HDI Conference and EXPO 2011 in Las Vegas answered that it does.

IT professionals are failing to recognise the opportunity for service desks to be profitable, according to an international survey conducted by ICCM Solutions across Europe and North America.

Only 25 per cent of respondents questioned at Europe’s largest Service Management exhibition, Service Desk and IT Support Show 2011 , said they believed the service desk has the ability to generate revenue opportunities and become a profit centre. Whist in direct comparison with North America, when asked the same question, 43 per cent of respondents at the HDI Conference and EXPO 2011 in Las Vegas answered that it does.

James Gay, CEO at ICCM Solutions, comments, “It is disappointing to see that the service desk is not being recognised as a potential revenue-generating unit within a European context. Especially as ITIL was born out of what was essentially a European framework. The IT industry is a highly skilled arena, but to demonstrate its value as more than just a cost-centre, IT professionals must find their entrepreneurial spirit and exploit the potential of service management strategies to open new revenue streams and instigate progress service management programmes that utilise current displacement technologies.

“This is particularly important in the UK and Europe if, as the survey and our own experience indicates, the IT industry in other regions such as North America is already realising the importance of moving Service Management into the revenue generating spectrum.”

US-based Miller-Valentine Group is a prime example of how organisations are demonstrating a return on investment through foresight in its application of its service desk.

James Gay explains, “ICCM Solutions has been working with Miller-Valentine to provide an advanced IT Service Management Solution based on Business Process Management Architecture. The company is a clear IT visionary and represents an emerging trend of moving beyond the status quo of traditional IT Service Management Solutions by linking business processes to Service Desk delivery for IT asset management.”

Michael Gutman, Vice President of Information Technology & Information Services, says, “As an IT leader it has been historically very difficult for me to give the business an accurate view of IT spend and relating this to the running of the IT infrastructure. In order for us to do this we’ve had to radically change our service offering to the business by moving from a traditional IT funding model, of head count budget allocation, to a paid for service delivery model from each of the business units we support.

“Our IT department is now funded by the services we offer rather than a budget we’re allocated annually. This forces hidden IT support costs within the business unit to become visible to the whole organisation. The subscription-based charge back system allows business unit leaders to identify cost-saving opportunities and to provide cost justification on any new IT outlay.”

————————————————————————————————

1) The Service Desk and IT Support Show was held on 19 – 20 April 2011 at Earls Court

2) The HDI Conference and Expo was held on 27 – 30 March 2011 at The Palazzo at The Venetian, Las Vegas

It has been over nine years since I have attended a Gartner Group symposium. I always used to go as an attendee (paying of course).  This time, I attended as a VIP in the Gartner VIP Program.  Not much has changed, such as the locale (Disney), the scope (entire Gartner pool of research), but the crowds were smaller than in the 90’s.  Probably due to the economic gloom and doom of 2008/2009.  There was only one, maybe two, sessions on IT Service Management.  What was exciting is that there were many more sessions on BPM.  And BPM had its own area of the ITExpo. Some of the highlights of the conference;

• 95% of the customers say that their BPM projects have escaped the axe. In fact, most have reported that there is even more management support for BPM than ever (thanks to this economy)
• Some of Gartner’s research also points to the fact that organizations are leveraging BPM more often and its trending towards the IT organization rather than just in the business.  Obviously, this bodes well for an organization like ICCM who has created IT best practice processes based on ITIL v3.
• Metastorm leads the pack for Microsoft-centric BPM. “Because of its round-tripping capabilities, ease of use, enterprise architecture support in its Provision product and strong support for business role collaboration, it is well-suited to business transformation and continuous process improvement usage scenarios.”
• BPM is most often leveraged successfully where Continual Process (service) improvement is sought
• Quite often Cost Savings are the primary goal of BPM projects, but after Customer Satisfaction and Quality improvements are realized, cost pressures improved.

Monday morning kicked off with a welcome address from Gartner CEO, Gene Hall followed by Peter Sondergaard, Gartner’s Global Head of Research. Peter provided insight into what’s ahead for the industry and discussed findings of recent Gartner research. He predicted a 2.3% increase in IT spending in 2010 and advised careful planning with three key areas in mind:

• IT operational spending
• Increasing age of hardware as organizations delay updates
• Demonstrating hard evidence of business performance improvement.

The CIO Program kicked off on Sunday with a special keynote delivered by Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO of the US Government. Kundra discussed his work to drive transparency, engage citizens and lower the cost of government operations.  There were also three Mastermind Interviews with:

• Mark Hurd, Chairman & CEO, HP – Hurd discussed his vision for HP, the role of the CEO and the company’s transformation during his tenure.
• Eric Schmidt, Chairman & CEO, Google – As CEO since 2001, Schmidt detailed his focus on building Google’s corporate infrastructure to support rapid growth, while ensuring quality stays high and minimizing product development cycles.
• Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division – discussed changing the culture at Microsoft and his support of the consumerization of IT

Basically, the good message I got from the conference (and was actually quoted in Jim Sinur’s blog http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/10/22/whats-hot-in-bpm/ was that BPM is “the next thing” and it is not a matter of if, but when…

In sharing our solution with some of the attendees, there was definite interest in learning more about an IT Service Management solution such as e-Service Desk, that leverages and industry leading BPM Engine from Metastorm, but comes with “ready to go” processes that can be immediately leveraged to demonstrate value.

Worth noting is the phenomon of social media (Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook) and the impact it is having on ITSMf, our booth, and the industry.  A fair amount of traffic stopped by the booth because they heard of ICCM on Twitter..  I was interviewed during the show by Christopher Dancy of ServiceSphere.  The event also gave me a chance to attend my first “Tweetup” at the resort bar.  I was able to meet a good number of people who I have only “tweeted” to 140 characters at a time.   What a social media revolution.  You can follow ICCM Solutions at twitter.com/ICCMSolutions or myself at twitter.com/CyberJMC66.

We also had the chance to have one on one sessions with David Coyle of Gartner Group and Glenn O’Donnell and Evelyn Hubbert of Forrester Research.  Great meetings with David, Glenn and Evelyn.

Most important observation… I believe the economic gloom and doom has presented ICCM with a very unique value proposition that resonated with every person we demonstrated the solution to.  It only took minutes for them to see what could be done with our solution, but also what comes out of the box without modification.  It’s great to hear “That’s amazing” and “Wow” so often throughout the day.  More importantly, I think our implementation approach which is as difference from our industry as the solution, really appealed to the people I spoke to.  Many had been through the long drawn out technology implementations where technology becomes the “critical path” of the implementation, and value a solution that finally takes technology off the critical path of Service Management implementation.

Thought I would post my first “On the road” update to our NEW ICCM Blog.  Happy and Safe Travels everyone heading home from the conference!

The conference runs from 20^th – 23^rd September, 2009.  It will be held in Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, Dallas, TX, USA.  ICCM will be exhibiting at booth 1921.

For more information, click here