What is fascinating about Bytes’ strategic service improvement programme is that it is being pioneered by the Financial Director, Brad Fraser.

Fraser identified a number of new business opportunities within the Bytes Group as well as undertaking a technology review of the service management processes, behaviours and working practices.

Bytes had become aware of its own requirements to rationalise its client support systems. Each business unit had its own way of operating, applications and software, which needed to be incorporated into the combined Bytes infrastructure and supported in a centralised model. This segmented approach had arisen as a direct result of the organisation’s growth strategy through company acquisitions, resulting in a complex IT infrastructure and client support matrix.

Through ICCM’s e-Service Desk, Bytes established a progressive service management strategy. In addition, Bytes also initiated a technology strategy that has helped the company differentiate itself from competitors by creating new services for its product portfolio. As a result, the solution has enabled Bytes to generate new revenue opportunities.

Fraser, an experienced executive, is responsible for the financial direction of the business as well as the operational support systems. This ensures there is a continued focus on value, efficiency and vision, something which Fraser believes he has seen in this project.

He says, “Obviously having an ITIL aligned service desk that operates smoothly is our immediate priority, but we see ICCM’s e-Service Desk being utilised across a number of different business units, effectively streamlining far more processes than we had originally anticipated. Our service management strategy has taken on a new direction which we are delighted to drive forward, particularly as it will help generate new revenue opportunities for the company.

“We have been able to distinguish between ‘incident management’ supported by SLA’s and ‘change requests’, which require additional effort and scoping. This has enabled Bytes to generate revenue from the change requests that were previously dealt with under ‘problem management’. Other revenue opportunities are developing by offering e-Service Desk as a ‘Managed Service’ to existing clients who do not wish to establish their own Service Desks.”

Bringing Together Offerings
The company needed a solution that encompassed and integrated the business intelligence that had gathered. The largest problem was ensuring the management of the clients’ IT infrastructure was correct. Many different business managers needed to be able to use the technology, all with different skills, service sets, needs and priorities.

Fraser explains, “We needed to revolutionise the way our business operated. A number of strategic acquisitions in South Africa led to a range of different systems that had been inherited and utilised without a common approach. In order to maintain a smooth running of the client support systems, it was necessary to overhaul the service strategy, design and continual service improvement processes – and not just to cope with the current requirements, but to future proof.”

During the technology selection, each manager was asked for input into the process and base their decision on the results that could be generated from each solution – not just the technology. Bytes needed a solution that would not only satisfy requirements on a tactical level, but actually solve problems they were thinking about. Nine out of the ten managers voted to implement the ICCM e-Service Desk solution.

Hidden Gems
At the outset Bytes’ key driver in this service improvement project was the standardisation of its many service desks. In reality ICCM’s offering gave much more than this. Bytes soon realised the e-Service Desk solution offered a return on investment far beyond its original remit.

The solution has enabled Bytes to implement value added services and differentiate itself from key competitors in seven key ways:
• total transparency of service;
• bespoke client support;
• proactive support and disaster avoidance;
• business continuity;
• bespoke SLA agreement levels;
• consolidated view of data and third party information; and
• the use of a portal to up-sell products and services.

By using the solution to its full advantage the company is offering improvements in its service and product portfolios and creating new business opportunities. As a result Bytes will be turning the client support function into a revenue-generating unit, rather than just cost-centre.

This has been achieved by allowing recognition of non-billable calls to billable calls. Anecdotally, the team has found that for larger customers, requests would be generated through the service desk. Previously, requests were undertaken without question because the particular customer was important. The priority for the service team was to keep the customer rather than ensuring the request was justified and could be completed within the service level agreement. Now, each request is logged and, by implementing this process, the revenue opportunities have been identified.

The entrepreneurial spirit of the organisation has also shown through during the process of moving from a cost centre to a profit centre – the business managers are now identifying new opportunities to generate additional revenue streams from the business intelligence obtained through ICCM.

A Return On Investment
Whilst Bytes has seen a return on investment beyond its initial expectations, the hidden gems of the e-Service Desk solution are central to Bytes’ key consideration during its purchasing decision: value.

Fraser says, “ICCM is a beautiful fit; we can literally change almost any parameter and it adapts accordingly, due to the operational platform based on Business Process Management. And it’s not just about delivering service management process deployment, it enables us to demonstrate clear operational business value, efficiency and return on investment. Without a doubt, this is the most effective solution I have ever worked with.”

“Many companies make claims in the market about their solutions but ICCM has propelled our service management, a core business process management function that delivers full business technology integration in line with our requirements and objectives. We’ve benefited enormously across every single business unit.”

James Gay, Director, Sales & Marketing for ICCM explained; “ICCM is delighted to receive the news that we have won this award. The prestige that comes with this announcement acknowledges the growth that ICCM has experienced over the past few years. ICCM has beaten World Leaders in the
IT Service Management field with huge investment into our product from many global brands, including, Tesco, BBC Worldwide, Qualcomm, DHL and The British Transport Police.

The Wiltshire Business of the Year Awards recognises companies that have demonstrated outstanding level of business excellence in their particular Award category. Previous winners range from very small companies with just a few employees to large multinational corporations with thousands of staff.

ICCM’s Innovation has resulted in our Growth:
Jason Gardiner, ICCM’s Technical Director Comments: “Companies are looking for a software solution that offers great Return on Investment and also solutions that do not require a huge amount of effort to tailor to their requirements and maintain.” Jason continues: Our revolutionary process based solution offers improvements in returns and efficiencies that are leaps ahead of technology offered by other stock vendors, which is exactly why companies such as Tesco have selected us.”

London, Baltimore, Cincinnati, April 13th, 2010 – ICCM Solutions, a globally recognized IT Service Management software company has been named in the 2010 Gartner ‘Cool Vendor in BPM’ report. Gartner, Inc., is among the world’s leading information technology research and advisory companies. The report, written by Michele Cantara, Vice President in Gartner Research, identifies Vendors who are innovative, impactful and intriguing.

James Gay, Director, Sales & Marketing for ICCM explained; “The Gartner Report is renowned for its independent opinions and recognition of cool vendors. The fact that ICCM is acknowledged as a ‘Cool Vendor’ in this report makes us particularly proud. We believe it reconfirms the benefits to our very unique approach to Service Management in what is an especially crowded market.”

James Gay continues: “We feel the report allows companies to stay ahead of the IT technology curve by examining pioneering technologies that enable great business and investment opportunities. With this information companies can make more informed strategic business decisions to provide a competitive advantage thereby ensuring market leadership. ICCM’s customers including: Tesco, BBC Worldwide, Qualcomm, DHL and The British Transport Police are already realizing these competitive
advantages by delivering more value from their IT Service Management initiative.”

ICCM’s e-Service Desk has been recognized under the BPM report thanks in part to its underpinning Metastorm® BPM platform, which is also recognized by Gartner in the Leaders Quadrant of the Business Process Analysis Tools2 and other industry analysts as a leading process improvement platform. e-Service Desk seamlessly enables continual improvements in process efficiencies that are leaps ahead of applications offered by the other stock vendors, as it allows IT Service Management
processes to be mapped in alignment with business goals and objectives. These processes can be quickly and effectively modified internally as needed, assuring they are an exact fit with other in-house business systems.

According to Gartner, “Organizations should consider a BPMS-based ITSM solution in the following situations:

• An end-to-end view of ITSM processes across multiple pre-existing ITSM solutions is needed
• Service-level objectives (SLOs) for IT processes need to be directly linked to business process key performance indicators (KPIs)
• processes change frequently or need to be continuously improved
• process models, rule sets, user interfaces and dashboards need to be easily customizable
• When “To be” processes need to be simulated prior to deployment”

About Gartner’s Cool Vendors Selection Process Gartner’s listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but
rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness of a particular purpose. Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in
approximately the past six months.

About Gartner’s Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2010 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant.
The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

 The report that was produced by Stephen Mann, Senior Analyst for OVUM states that: “ICCM, through the use of BPM, differentiates itself from the ITSM vendor pack with a solution that delivers the required functionality with the additional benefits of BPM.  Mann continues: and, in Ovum’s opinion, this will stand it well in what is now an overpopulated ITSM tool market.”

 Mann further explains: “ICCM’s ITSM software portfolio delivers against all of the core ITIL v3 processes (with flexibility based on customer need), and should be considered by any organisation, from mid-sized SMEs upwards, seeking to meet corporate requirements for an ITSM-enabling tool.

 James Gay, Director, Sales & Marketing for ICCM explained; “This independent audit confirms that ICCM adds a unique approach to the ITSM product landscape in that it leverages the capabilities and functionality of BPM technology to provide unrivalled flexibility and agility, with customers achieving rapid deployment times simply not capable with other established ITSM toolsets”.

 ICCM has already beaten World Leaders in the IT Service Management field with investment into our product from many global brands, including, Tesco, BBC Worldwide, Qualcomm, DHL and The British Transport Police to name a few.

 About OVUM Butler Group

OVUM is a resolutely independent advisory organisation, combining the ICT expertise of Datamonitor Technology, Butler Group and Ovum Tech, with Datamonitor Group’s 350 business analysts and relationships with 18 of the largest 20 global corporations; and, is uniquely positioned to provide practical advice to the technology, telecoms and other business sectors. OVUM’s clients have access to research and support from best-in-class analyst and consulting teams, turning analysis and insight into action. Research and advisory services make clients’ planning more effective, and help them to identify and assess relevant business opportunities. OVUM doesn’t just advise its clients, it collaborates with them to help them exploit these opportunities and to turn them into business results. At the heart of OVUM’s approach is its mission to help, to be approachable, responsive and focused on clients’ business issues, and to provide pragmatic and actionable advice and recommendations.

 About ICCM

Extraordinary Service Desk Software created within the Leading Process Improvement Architecture

ICCM’s core objective is to provide revolutionary software and superior services to organisations aspiring to Best Practice Service Management. Rather than the legacy “application development” driven approach that many vendors in the market have adopted, ICCM’s forward-thinking approach blends their first-class ITIL® aligned Service Desk tool with the functionality of business technology in the form of Metastorm BPM®. This collaboration delivers unparalleled Service Management capabilities across all industries and business functions in almost every geographical region.

You can download the full report from here; http://is.gd/5xdHx

Ever since the “Information technology” function has existed, it has been inundated with new trends and capabilities – some of significant value, many that have and will pass into obscurity.   Thanks to current economic conditions, the only new ideas lately that make it are those that demonstrably reduce cost, grow or transform the business, or a combination of all three.  This weaning process is actually a good thing as far too much technology acquisitions have occurred without understanding business basics – resulting in “black eyes” for IT, and the notion that IT is a black hole for company money.  No matter what the technology, IT needs to address many of the most traditional objectives of business (make money, save money, grow customer list, increase quality, decrease lead time, etc).

This article outlines some of our views on the SAAS market, explains our new solution offering in simple terms, and allows the reader to make an informed decision based on the options provided and available.

Current Market for Software as a Service

Service-Now is the arguably the first ITSM vendor to achieve success with a SAAS model.  And we say kudos to them.  Service-now has certainly become the name in the ITSM SaaS industry and we aren’t looking to duplicate the Service-Now model.  Other vendors have jumped into the SAAS market as well, either by re-engineering their applications to be web based and mimic applications originally designed for SAAS delivery.  The important thing to consider is that software is software whether it is licensed or provided as a service.    According to Gartner Group – software delivery is challenging regardless of delivery model.

The fundamental business principles of our licensed solution apply to our Software as a Service solution as well; At ICCM, we believe customers who wish to be self-sufficient should have the tools to do so. Furthermore, we believe scalability and a solutions’ ability to grow and adapt with your business is essential to any investment. 

One of the most compelling reasons that organizations choose to partner with ICCM is the agility and flexibility of the e-Service Desk solution. The architecture leveraged within e-Service Desk allows ICCM to take a radically different approach to the design, build and deployment of ITSM solutions to all others within our marketplace.  Traditional point solutions that people are most familiar with are developed in a rather awkward and dated fashion with a ‘feature function’ approach that often overlooks the complexity of the underlying process flows, interactions and business rules.

Most ITIL consultants and even ITSM vendors will agree that defining your ITSM processes and aligning them to business need is one of the most important steps in adopting the ITIL framework, however once these processes have been defined many find difficulty in how to realize this through an ITSM toolset!  What makes ICCM e-Service Desk truly different and the most innovative solution available today is that utilizing Metastorm BPM as a business technology and building ITIL aligned processes from the ground up allows instant process and business integration within the ITSM toolset.

This ensures that all components are working in an integrated and coherent fashion with a clear understanding of process touch points and the information that is being passed between the various aspects of the solution.

The enabling factor that has allowed ICCM to adopt this pioneering approach within ITSM is the architecture that the solution is built upon; Metastorm BPM.  The comprehensive Metastorm BPM suite of EA, BPA and BPM solutions allowing organizations to drive business and process efficiency throughout all aspects of the organization through from business strategy at the very highest level to executing complex and detailed processes at ground level.

According to Gartner Group (Symposium, 2009);

The main business value of SAAS isn’t necessarily in licensing, but in avoiding new IT hires, extensive training costs, and purchasing infrastructure hardware and software. 

SAAS, ASP, Private, Public, Tenancy…Oh my

It’s amazing how much arguing and debate takes place on LinkedIn and Twitter regarding SAAS vs. ASP, Private vs. Public, Single vs. Multi-tenant, etc.  When what really matters the most to the customer is what business options are available, what does it enable, and what business value is derived from these approaches both now and in the future.  Does it really matter what it is called? 

Gartner Group identifies the following characteristics for SAAS;

• An application owned, delivered and managed remotely by one or more providers;
• Where the provider delivers an application based on a single set of common code and data definitions, which are consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers at any time;
• and on a pay-for-use basis or as a subscription based on use metrics

BPM Technology introduces a very interesting twist to this equation though.  And the virtualization technology ICCM is leveraging for e-Service Desk introduces even more twists – All resulting in more options available to our customers.

Most SaaS based solutions are fixed in function, providing varying levels of “configuration”.  For ITSM, this is usually in the form of categories, statuses, fields, etc.  Process, data and security integration remains a challenge because of this fixed functionality.  The differences between BPM and traditional Service Management solutions is highlighted in a previous blog article The Difference between traditional IT Service Management Applications and a BPM Based IT Service Management Solution.   All of these differences hold true whether you are using our licensed solution, e-Service desk, or our SaaS solution, e-Service Desk live.

Our virtualization technology leverages a new capability recently introduced by our partner, Cincinnati Bell Technology Services.  This virtualization technology, called Virtual Data Center, or VDC, resides on Cincinnati Bell’s N + N redundant network, provides our customer with a private partition in a CBTS data center and appears as a private extension of your network.  You specify and use your own IP addressing and your connectivity options are layer 2 and layer 3 agnostic via private circuit, MPLS, VPN.  As a telecommunications carrier, obtaining direct, high performance connectivity with most of the globe is not a problem.  In fact, CBTS has British Telecom connectivity already direct to the United Kingdom and Europe.  Of course public options exist as well.

As a customer of ICCM e-Service Desk, you will automatically be a customer to the CBTS VDC service.  ICCM e-Service Desk live customers can take advantage of their VDC environment, expanding or contracting not only e-Service Desk, but any server or infrastructure component needed, at a small fraction of the cost. 

Capabilities of ICCM’s Software as a Service Offering

e-Service Desk addresses many of the downsides of traditional ITSM software.  When ICCM decided to create a SaaS offering, we wanted to avoid and address many of the same downsides that Gartner Group has identified with SaaS vendors.   The following outlines how ICCM e-Service Desk live addresses the many issues that Gartner Group has highlighted in regards to Software as a Service;

Avoiding “Shelf-ware as a Service”

Like our on-premise software, e-Service Desk, licensing is simple and reporting is available on usage.  As a matter of fact, many of the analytical tools used for web technology tracking can used to monitor your usage of eSD Live.  ICCM will monitor your usage suggesting changes when applicable.

Different functionality between On-Premise and On-Demand

Thanks to our virtualization technology partner, Cincinnati Bell Technology Services, your instance of e-Service Desk Live can be completely public (Internet based) or private (appear as though it is a part of your data center and infrastructure – within your domain and IP address space).  The BPM technology and process models are identical to on-premise.  Your capabilities to modify processes, integrate other systems, enhance and grow e-Service are no less limited than with an on-premise implementation.

With e-Service Desk Live, Release Management is not dictated by ICCM. 

The common “BPM Technology” that all customers are executing doesn’t change the business rules and logic of your processes.  Just like our licensed software, the paradigm shift BPM introduces with regard to customer ownership of data as well as the processes, is also preserved with e-Service Desk Live.  Your processes are your processes and you can change them when your business requires it, not on a scheduled defined by ICCM.

Security Concerns

With e-Service Desk Live, your virtualized environment is not public (unless you want it to be).  Your data and most importantly your processes are yours, distinct and separate from other customers.  Infrastructure is shared but partitioned and your performance is not impacted by other customers.  The BPM technology that e-Service Desk Live is based on has achieved a number of security certifications within intelligence and defense agencies within the United States Federal Government.

Data Ownership

Like your processes, your data is yours.  The method by which you backup data is entirely up to you.  Since the VDC environment can be part of your infrastructure, it can be setup to backup like other applications within your environment.  Or, you can leverage other backup options available thanks to our partnership with CBTS. The question you should ask yourself is “Is my data even useable if I discontinue my SaaS contract?”.  e-Service Desk Live can be implemented as a blended model (part SaaS, part on-premise), and you can decide to move all data to an owned and existing BPM infrastructure.

Reduced Long Term Cost of Ownership

Customers may see huge short term cash flow advantages with Software as a Service.  Often times, if they take the financial analysis out five years, the cost of ownership may not be as appealing as that of on-premise, locally managed software.  The perpetual annuity imposed by many SAAS providers doesn’t justify itself long term for smaller and medium sized companies and in some cases larger enterprises.  Exclusive SaaS providers are depending on a “Multiplier effect” over the years meaning they will generate more revenue with this model than if they had sold software directly.  In fact, ICCM can structure your contract so that your cost of ownership in fact declines over time, and you can even take ownership of the licenses at a certain date, or continue existing contract.  It’s completely your choice.

On-premise to On-demand integration

 Since the VDC environment can be public, or appear as a secure segment of your infrastructure, all of the BPM based integrations through web services, API’s, database, command line, etc. are available exactly as they are with the licensed software model. 

Conclusion

Considering licensed or on-premise software is not an easy task.  Customers look to SaaS as a means of lowering their cost of ownership, cost of acquisition, and reducing risk.  Perhaps SaaS as a phenomenon has resulted not entirely from innovation in the delivery mechanism of software but as a result of the limited existing software choices and problems in the software industry.  Companies can simply no longer afford the 6-12 month implementation times of traditional, big box service management software. 

Ironically, the value proposition messaging in the industry for SaaS vendors echoes that of BPM Technology; quick implementation times, quicker ROI, no Infrastructure costs.  BPM enables additional value drivers such as a consistent process and model based configuration, scalability and process agility, integration and an unprecedented level of security. 

BPM technology already delivers accelerated value and process enablement at a level unheard of in the industry.  SaaS pushes that capability even further providing our customers with an unprecedented number of options and choices allowing them to leverage the right model, for the right price – to achieve measurable business goals and objectives that can go well beyond IT Service Management.

For a demonstration of this capability, to setup a Proof of Concept, or if you simply want to learn more – contact us at info@iccmco.com, or (800) 651-7408.

Every BPMS (Business Process Management Suite) and BPM (Business Process Management) solution set on the market have in common key differentiators from the “embedded workflow” often found within applications.  Some of these differences include;

• Embedded, application based workflow is usually application-specific sequencing of pre-defined activities (ie. in an ITSM context, Change Management workflow is just Change Management)
• Embedded, application based workflow rarely interacts with external processes, systems or data sources
• Embedded, application based workflow often leverages proprietary graphics, execution language, etc
• Embedded, application based workflow effectively provides the ability to choose  the specific order of execution of pre-built activity steps

The purpose of this article isn’t to contrast application specific workflow to BPM in a negative context.  Application based workflow can and is often implemented as a subset of BPM.  The original premise of BPM was to manage and coordinate processes executed in other technologies and on different systems as well as within itself.  The initiatiation, monitoring and termination can be integrated at any point in the process to any application.  BPM allows us to design and execute business process systems without being subject to the constraints of a single application or single location.

One of the value propositions of BPM is how it is often leveraged at an enterprise level to deliver processes and services beyond the company firewall.  Quite often this ability is a driver for BPM within an organization.  This enables processes to extend to and include remote company locations, supply chain and business partners, and agents of your organization.  In this context, there are some other less obvious, but important distinctions of BPM over embedded workflow;

• BPM inherently provides diverse integration and technology support as business and supply chain partners always have different technologies.
• BPM provides the ability to vary process descriptions locally while keeping common touch points for systems to enable collaboration.
• Most BPM Suites typically can leverage industry standards such as BPEL, XPDL, and BPMN

As stated in my previous post; “Optimizing IT with BPM”.  The basic value proposition of BPM is the ability to enable business (or IT) processes with less effort and cost, with higher quality than traditional means. In fact, BPM is intended to respond to the following set of business values;  Agility – The ability to bring new products and services to market more quickly and adapt processes more effectively to changing market demands; Efficiencies – Most processes are inefficient due to manual effort, poor hand-offs between departments and a general inability to monitor overall progress. The deployment of BPM solutions helps to eliminate these problems. The efficiency benefits are typically expressed in the reduced number of Full Time Employee’s (FTE’s) required to perform particular tasks; and Visibility – Providing management insight into process-based performance indicators. This enables an organization to make better business decisions and handle exceptions better.

Gartner research indicates that even without process redesign, a basic investment in a BPM suite yields significant returns. By simply “making the current-state handoffs, timing and responsibilities explicit, productivity improvements of more than 12 percent are normally realized[2]”. In another report, Gartner indicates that 78% of projects see an internal rate of return (IRR) of greater than 15%.  The same report indicates that these projects were deployed in very quick order (67% in less than six months, 50% in less than four months).   How are these kind of results consistently possible? Once you understand how BPM works, it becomes clear;

• The ability to design process in a graphical (non-technical) way by the business process owner or analyst;
• The ability of the application to easily integrate with a wide range of data sources and supporting systems, with bi-directional data sharing;
• The ability to quickly execute a new process for evaluation, a facility to “roll back” an executed process if you get it wrong, without having to do clean-ups to data etc. 

In a survey conducted in 2007 by Forrester Research of ITIL adopters in 2007 67% believed they were benefiting from adoption but only 4% reported having means in place to measure that success!  Only 9% of respondents could even link the process changes to performance improvements,  75% could not link process maturity to performance improvements!

When you take the technical capability of BPM, and drive it with a process framework such as ITIL, you end up with a unique, extraordinary solution that is as mature as any company needs, has an inherent roadmap built-in for future process and service integrations, but most importantly, provides the process management and measurement that so many companies have been longing for with their ITSM program. 

In summary;

1. BPM is the definition, improvement and execution of an automated process
2. BPM is rarely limited by technical constraints, and can be used to rapidly deploy solutions within, across and between organizations
3. BPM is flexible enough to quickly adapt to changing business needs without requiring changes to the underlying technology
4. BPM is flexible enough to allow changes in the underlying technology without requiring changes to the business process being  executed

Special thanks to David Elliott of ICCM Solutions Ltd for providing much of the content above.  He shares a Business Process Modeling and IT Management background like myself.

This short video clip shows how ICCM e-Service Desk is leveraged through Microsoft Sharepoint, as well as the integration available to Microsoft Office through smart-text binding and the MS office ribbon bar capability.  Yes, you could completely operate e-Service Desk through Sharepoint, thanks to its use of webparts technology for it’s interface.  Other integrations;

• Tasks resulting from process orchestration can be revealed through Microsoft Outlook.
• Planned Service Outage calendars can be shared through Outlook.
• Microsoft Word and Excel documents can be linked to folders within e-Service Desk (folders are Incidents, Changes, Problems, etc).

Microsoft Integration Demonstration

Yet here in the United States, customers still take the traditional “application specific requirements approach” to RFP’s and solicitations, comparing e-Service Desk on a functionality basis to other “vertical” ITSM solutions on a requirement by requirement basis.  While this approach is fine, and we are more than happy to engage that way if that is what is required; if these customers considered for just a moment, what BPM technology provides to any business process, including those defined by the ITIL framework, they would quickly realize any process requirement can be met out of the box, or through process design, as that is exactly what BPM was created to do. 

I have outlined below some of the key differences between traditionally developed (from the ground up) IT Service Management applications, and BPM based IT Service Management solutions, whether purchased from a vendor such as ICCM, or developed in-house with current BPM technologies such as Metastorm and other BPM solutions;

1. A BPM based Service Management is not “hard walled” and limited to original process scope.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions are confined to the processes and “process modules” included or purchased, often times “digitized” in multiple technology platforms that are loosely integrated through complex integration mechanisms.  Conversely, a BPM Service Management solution provides the infrastructure for an organization to add customer (or bespoke) processes, beyond those defined by ITIL v3.  And these new, custom processes are as easily integrated into the ITIL processes, and measured in the same form and fashion.
2. A BPM Service Management solution is driven by a graphical process model from start to finish rather than manually “coded” to support a process requirements specification.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions may try to implement processes from models and may use UML models for requirements definition, but the solution is “developed” or “customized” to support the process requirements.  A human being (typically referred to as a developer) must convert the model or requirements specification into code or configuration settings to “imitate” the process.  BPM allows for models used for documentation, to be used for defining how the application executes.
3. A BPM Service Management solution inherently is self-documenting.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions may provide some documentation, but many, including the “leaders” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, require extensive manual documentation effort.  The resulting documentation almost always ‘atrophies’ over time as the application is modified.
4. A BPM Service Management solution inherently provides “workflow” as a means of controlling application.  BPM is essentially a superset of workflow, taking traditional workflow technology way beyond and incorporating integration, roles, forms, attachments, handshakes, timings, etc as part of the workflow.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions may provide embedded workflow within specific hard-walled processes, and are typically used for status or field control.
5. A BPM Service Management solution is an integrating platform by nature.  BPM technology was developed many years back to solve a specific business problem; managing and optimizing business processes that thread though a number of heterogeneous systems.  Why train users on six different interfaces for systems that do not measure the overall business process?  Isn’t it more optimal to leverage one technology to provide a single interface, controls and measure the handshakes and transitions among the systems, and provides the necessary process foundation for making any kind of improvements.  This heritage of BPM is not lost in today’s BPM technologies, which make integration to virtually any system “out of the box”, cost effective and easy.  The only hard and fast requirement is that you understand the process.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions typically require integration products and projects, which in some cases are as elaborate as the implementation of the solution themselves.  And because they lack the overall process awareness, they typically are not capturing the necessary process data to do any kind of process improvement.
6. A BPM Service Management solution provides a “process orchestration engine” sometimes referred to as an Enterprise Orchestration Engine (EOE) that can be leveraged for other processes, not just IT Service Management processes.  Customers have the option of implementing BPM tactically or strategically.  With a tactical implementation, the Service Management solution is essentially identical to traditional IT Service Management solutions in that the technology is only orchestrating ITSM processes.  However, with a strategic implementation, IT Service Management can be the first of many business processes to be implemented and can become the foundation on which to build an Enterprise Orchestration Engine.  A pre-designed solution, based on ITIL v3 best practices, such as ICCM e-Service Desk, can service as not only your Service Management platform and initiation point, but a launch pad for a BPM environment within your environment.
7. A BPM Service Management solution doesn’t require extensive administration, designer or user training.  As BPM technology typically “walks” a user through a process, preventing mistakes and errors, monitoring timings and conditions, the amount of training required for a user is minimal.  Furthermore, with a common interface for any process, as user only needs to understand process specific information, as they will understand navigation almost immediately.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions often times have entirely different interfaces by process, requiring process specific training for both administration and navigation.  A BPM trained administration/designer resource can be leveraged for any process.  Traditional ITSM solutions typically have multiple training curriculum for each process and/or module, and typically at extensive cost.
8. A BPM Service Management solution, depending on the BPM technology, typically incorporates document and forms management. Another by-product of leveraging BPM technology is that it typically supports document or form management, allowing for easy forms modification, document storage, indexing, etc.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions usually can add this capability through third party add-ins, or custom development.
9. A BPM Service Management solution costs significantly less to purchase, maintain, administer, change and support.  The benefits of developing and executing processes within a BPM environment are well known and documented.  See my first blog “Optimizing IT with Business Process Management” (http://tinyurl.com/l9l847) for an outline and reference to this research.  As an ITSM solution provider, we are able to incorporate our experience, customer feedback and improvements to our system in very little time.  This savings is obviously passed along to our customers in that we don’t have to charge for long development, QA, testing cycles, nor do we have to have a large organization to do the design.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions are encumbered by their own legacy application technology.  According to Gartner, this is one of the reasons they cite that there is no innovation in the industry, as it is too expensive and time consuming to “add” capabilities to existing solutions.  So they acquire other companies and solutions from other vendors but the “suite of solutions” still looks like 6 different boxes shrink wrapped together.
10. A BPM Service Management solution results in greater visibility into business metrics and response time to business needs.  BPM technology provides common process architectures, process metrics, performance indicators, audit trails, timings, etc.  Because this architecture can be leveraged into the business, either integrated to existing business systems or as a full business process orchestration solution, visibility and integration into the business is almost inherent in the solution.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions focus just on IT Service Management and often miss opportunities to integrate, at a process level, with business processes important to the business.
11. A BPM Service Management solution provides quick and reliable compliance with regulations and improved communication between business and IT silos.  BPM customers have been able to demonstrate PCI, Sarbanes-Oxley, FDA and other compliance in a very short amount of time.  Evidence required by the control objectives of any compliance framework typically are the result of process execution, which is easily mapped and measured within the BPM environment.  There are plenty of examples available of how customers within and outside of IT Service Management, has been able to demonstrate many forms of compliance, in a very short amount of time, and significantly reduced cost.
12. A BPM Service Management solution provides improved transaction reliability and seamless B2B integration with partners, suppliers.  Thanks to BPM technology integration, measurement, validation, and auditing, it is almost impossible to miss transitions or drop information.  Typical “objects” within BPM technology contains various mechanisms to ensure that the objects flow through the process with measurement and assurance.  Traditional IT Service Management solutions typically provide “records” which can be lost and modified to bypass process orchestration.
13. BPM Technology and Architecture lends itself to several flexible pricing models.  BPM based ITSM solutions are inherently “web 2.0″ and require little to no modification to a customers clients or systems.  This architecture lends itself tremendously to some very flexible pricing structures, making the solutions even more affordable to a customer.  This includes Software as a Service (SAAS), Application Service Provider (ASP) as well as Subscription and Traditional licensing models.
14. A BPM Service Management solution can be implemented “in whole” or modularly, depending on the existing systems and processes of a customer.  Traditional ITSM solutions tend to “fall down” if part of their process is contained in outside systems.  A BPM solution, thanks to the integration architecture, process focus and measurement, and flexibility, allows for a BPM based ITSM solution to be implemented modularly, or completely, depending on the customers needs.

Other smaller differences that customers make comments about;

• Less mouse clicks to get through a process
• Web Client and web interface, no client installation or configuration
• Integration to outside tools

It’s time for the ITSM industry to recognize a new and proven approach to process execution, one that provides;

• Process Focus: eService Desk is designed with process in mind first, not as an afterthought
• Process Creation: You have the ability to design and orchestrate specific processes to your organization, as extensions to e-Service Desk completely stand-alone.
• Ease of Administration: Process Owners have ability to configure the system without the need of specialized technical resources
• Low Cost of Acquisition, Rapid Implementation Time , and Minimal Support Requirements and a Considerably Low Cost of Ownership
• Microsoft Integration: SharePoint workflow/attachment, Office Plug-ins, Tasks and Calendars in Outlook.

All it takes is a demonstration to see what this is all about!  For a complete set of “Frequently asked questions (FAQ’s)” about e-Service Desk, download our FAQ document; http://tinyurl.com/dj9zmz

There are many examples of where ITSM projects fail to fulfill the objectives set forth.  There are plenty of reasons why this happens;

1. Goals and Objectives aren’t defined ahead of time.
2. ITIL for ITIL’s Sake
3. Process Only Focus – Processes are defined that cannot be executed within the given (or standard) software
4. Technology Only Focus – Misplaced trust/expectations in the software vendor that a single process design basis drives the way the tool functions
5. Missed Management of Change or Organizational Change Management
6. Failure to define what “success” is or knowing “we have arrived”

 Other than #2, these are reasons that many IT programs and projects fail.

I would argue that these are symptoms of a larger issue that plagues many in the Information Technology organization.  ITIL is about running IT “like a business”.  This presumes a profit/loss mentality, managing expenses, and being measured real time and managing to that.  Unfortunately for many in IT, they have never actually operated a business before.  They have not had to “make payroll” this month.  They have not had to deal with the up and down business cycles.

Historically, IT has been a safe place to be regardless of economic or business conditions, and waste can abound without being noticed.  Only until recently, has there been real pressure to focus and measure IT.  The number of IT Service Management consultants now looking for work is a testiment to the fact that ITIL is no longer a blank check or guarantee of success.  It still requires smart, intelligent, data based decision making on the part of those desiring the end results (and actually defining those end results in business terms ie. contribution to the bottom line).  In organizations where making a profit is not criteria for success, efficiencies that drive down the cost of operations and drive up operational revenue are foreign concepts (gov’t, IT, etc).  This is why there is often so much waste in government—“what gets measured gets done”, and the profitability or efficiency of operations (they are the same thing) doesn’t get measured.  In private enterprise (like business units) you literally don’t exist without profit; therefore, survival is predicated on constant attention to costs and revenue and efficiency.

As long as IT is a cost center – this divide will continue to exist, and finding efficiences to drive down costs of operations or increasing operational revenue will be as foreign to IT as the fundamentals of private enterprise.  As long as the same urgency for profit is absent in IT, I don’t expect IT business alignment to happen overnight.

When you start a business, you define what your product or service is, who are the customers, what is the marketplace, and THEN focus on support and returns.  This is standard Supply Chain best practices (Supply chain council), but IT typically implements this business model in reverse (starting with Incident and problem management). 

My suggestions on how to think about and approach things differently and with a business (profit) focus;

1. Define Business goals and drivers, linking principles to be realized to those goals and drivers – assessment!   Make sure these principles align closely with your business partners.
2. Start with defining your customers and the services you provide to them.  For anything else that doesn’t have a direct or indirect customer, ask “What value is this bringing to my business?”
3. Do NOT label it your “ITIL project”.  It’s your improvement, quality, or efficiency program, brand it accordingly…  ITIL is simply an input and set of books. Don’t make it about ITIL.
4. Make sure process and technology teams are aligned and incorporated.  Their success criteria should be highly coupled (they both succeed or fail together).
5. Remember “Organizational Change Management” (OCM).  Process and technology, especially when there is a considerable “People” component to it, often succeeds or fail because of OCM.
6. Select process and service supporting technology that not only supports Incident and Problem management (those are “return” processes of a business supply chain, and not what a normal business would start with), but also provides the service design, transition, and improvement processes as well.  Most important; with a focus on efficiency ie – not a lot of different products bundled, doesn’t require a PHD to implement, doesn’t require a ton of time to implement, etc.

It’s really not that hard – but the answers aren’t always in a chapter of the ITIL books.  The answers are all over the Internet, taught at most business schools, and most likely someone in your organization already has these fundamentals down, or you wouldn’t be in business to begin with.

“It is not the strongest species that survives nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

 The economic conditions of 2008 and undoubtedly 2009 will go down in history as the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.  And since Information Technology wasn’t around in 1929, this is arguably the worst economic downturn for IT in history. 

Like others my age, many in IT will recall the economic downturns over the past 20 years (or more, but I am not going to date myself), where the IT organization was considered a safe haven for employment, and viewed by the company as the life boat, providing innovation to help the business position itself properly for the next business upswing. 

Now that organizations have options and alternatives such as IT outsourcing, off-shoring, new business models and IT service delivery mechanisms, it is incumbent on any vestiges of remaining IT to optimize its own processes and itself in order to validate and confirm its contribution to the value chain of the business it serves.  As many in the industry painfully understand now, the IT organization is no longer immune from this or future recessions and/or business cycle downturns. 

A wise man once told me; “It takes ignorance to take something simple and make it complex, but it takes a genius to take something complex and make it simple”.  ITIL isn’t necessarily a complex subject, but it has been made overly complex leading to misapplication and misguidance resulting in a number of failures.  The current “back to basics” trend suggests people and organizations want real lasting strategies, approaches, methodologies and technologies that make sense.

This whitepaper is intended to provide insights and ideas into how Business Process Management, or BPM, an already established process enabling technology, can be applied to IT processes as a means of simplifying, driving costs from, and optimizing your IT organization. 

BPM Explained

Most people guess the “BP” correctly but opinions vary on the “M”.  Some say “Modeling”, “Monitoring”, and others “Measurement”.  Actually – Business Process Management encompasses all these things and typically at the root of it all is the concept of models.

Business Process Management (BPM) is a set of methodologies and technologies designed to support explicit business processes, right from analysis and definition to orchestration/execution, monitoring and optimization of business processes. The BPM market was formed from the opinion that business must be managed from a process point of view.  The rest of the business world actually drove the creation and demand for BPM.  BPM vendors provide technology that deliver “Model driven process execution” as opposed to code-based execution.  Gartner Group advises that this is the best way to enable business and IT professionals to manage and change processes collaboratively, especially in a volatile business environment^[1].

ITIL® is about formalizing and optimizing the way in which we (in IT) behave and work.  Process execution and improvement requirements are often unique to each organization, even when adopting ITIL® best practices. This obviously favors a “Build” vs. “Buy” approach to supporting technology.  Unfortunately, time frames and costs are not compatible with this level of process improvement.  BPM is the alternative approach to “Build” and “Buy” that delivers flexibility and uniqueness of “Build”, while at the same time providing the time value, standardization and reduced cost of “Buy”.

The basic value proposition of BPM is the ability to enable processes with less effort and cost, with higher quality than traditional means. In fact, BPM is intended to respond to the following set of business values:

• Agility: The ability to bring new products and services to market more quickly and adapt processes more effectively to changing market demands
• Efficiencies: Most processes are inefficient due to manual effort, poor hand-offs between departments and a general inability to monitor overall progress. The deployment of BPM solutions helps to eliminate these problems. The efficiency benefits are typically expressed in the reduced number of Full Time Employee’s (FTE’s) required to perform particular tasks
• Visibility: Providing management insight into process-based performance indicators. This enables an organization to make better business decisions and handle exceptions better.

Gartner research indicates that even without process redesign, a basic investment in a BPM suite yields significant returns. By simply “making the current-state handoffs, timing and responsibilities explicit, productivity improvements of more than 12 percent are normally realized[2]”. In another report, Gartner indicates that 78% of projects see an internal rate of return (IRR) of greater than 15%.  The same report indicates that these projects were deployed in very quick order (67% in less than six months, 50% in less than four months). 

BPM has proven in almost every case to increase efficiency, effectiveness and agility.

As a management discipline, BPM emphasizes modeling the business from a cross-functional process perspective and establishing performance goals from that perspective as well. Years ago Dr. Geary Rummler called this “managing the white space in the organization chart,” and it remains central to the process perspective today.

To some management consultants, BPM begins and ends with process modeling, but there’s much more. Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) solutions provide the technology platform that takes models and metrics, defined by the business, turning them into an orchestrated and executable implementation. This platform actually automates the human workflow, integrates data between disparate backend systems, and executes the business rules, defined and controlled by the process model. And while it’s executing the business process, the system continuously records snapshots of data that allow the process to be measured end-to-end, as well as in real time, and corrected easily when the need arises.

Modeling as a Science (and art)

Modeling is a formal means of documenting the artifacts, relationships, goals, steps and states of the end-to-end process.  Documenting processes in a way that can be understood across functional units, geographic units and divisions of the enterprise.  Processes can easily be analyzed for cost, quality and efficiency improvements which is a key feature of BPM as a new management discipline.

Process modeling is inherently a business function, and modeling technologies empower the business to define the steps, and the performance metrics.  While there is an art to model layout and construction, methods and standards are employed and followed for consistency and structure.  The most important thing to understand is that a model is not just an illustration or graphic.  The objects and links in a model represent objects and relationships that are re-usable, can be abstracted, related, measured, etc.  In other words, a model is a window of something larger that cannot be viewed in two dimensions in its entirety.

Most modern modeling tools support not only publishing complete and consistent process documentation in various formats, but also provide a means of process analysis through various tools such as simulation.  This allows “what if” analysis and process improvement initiatives that yield real business analysis metrics – resources, cost, units, etc.

Inefficiencies in IT (why IT needs “Optimized” in the first place)

Business Process Management technologies obviously cannot solve all issues that result in IT “sub-optimization”.  Some are rooted in poor management practice, organizational challenges, and barriers that completely derail optimization efforts.  Obviously management support and involvement is necessary for optimization to take place.  Other “usual suspects” of IT sub-optimization include:

Lack of adoption and understanding of a process culture

Obviously the “people” component of processes and IT optimization require that where there are human “actors” or customers of the process, they must understand their part in the processes and workflows, the metrics, control objectives, goals, owners and most importantly, their role within the process.  Process defects are usually a result of people incorrectly executing a process, or supporting technology that does not enforce or detect process controls.

Processes operating in isolation

As Dr. Geary Rummler stated in his book “Improving Performance – How to manage the white space on the organization chart”, it’s the organizational white space often missed as technology and process are implemented in vertical, stove pipe fashion.  Process integrations and opportunities to integrate are often missed, and there is little to no process improvement possibilities where processes have been organizationally “stove piped” or implemented within vertical technologies.

Atrophied process initiatives that have failed to demonstrate value

Many ITSM programs start with Incident, Problem, or Change and Configuration Management and then stop.  Why this happens is subject for debate.  One reason might be that technology solutions are selected based on the requirements of the upfront processes that are known at the beginning of the project.  Since processes to be implemented later aren’t included in the requirements, tool selection results in an optimized tool for the initial processes – but a technology that sub-optimizes or completely omits support for future processes.

Managing artifacts but not processes

The problem with implementing many different solutions to address process execution is that integrations typically transfer artifacts such as incidents, changes, and configuration items, but miss process metrics and information – metrics that are typically used to measure and manage the process itself.  As a result, process metrics and measurements are not typically incorporated into the integration design.

BPM for Service Strategy and Design

Modeling Strategy through Principles.

When ITIL® Version 3 was kicked off, the road show actually included a model that decomposed the Deming Circle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) into sub-domains.  One could argue this is a “meta-model” (model of a model) describing the “supporting” artifacts within the scope of each step of the Deming circle. 

From a Strategy perspective, these items can be captured in model and object form, reused in other models, and related in different ways to other models for other purposes.  For example: Policies and Principles can be captured, related, grouped, categorized and prioritized in strategy models.  This provides the basis of future states, what is to be accomplished, and in what priority.  Later, those principles and policies can be related to workflow activities that will explicitly identify where policies, goals and objectives are met by the processes being implemented. 

Various types of models can be leveraged for Service Design such as goal, capability, organizational, class, and use case models – to name a few.  Again, these can be related to objects of the strategy model’s policies and principles, and become the basis for yet more downstream models.

One advantage to using models is that they provide a bridge to Enterprise Architecture and other areas as well.  For example: Enterprise architects will often refer to “Capabilities” of an organization, depending on the EA framework they leverage.  If you look at the definition of capabilities, it aligns closely to what ITIL practitioners call a service.  They are similar and through modeling, it is very possible to align and integrate your Enterprise Architecture initiative with your IT Service Management initiative.

BPM for Service Transition and Operations

Process mapping and execution through BPM

Business process models and maps are valuable tools for understanding organizations and how they operate.  Dr. Geary Rummler summarized the inherent value of developing business maps with the simple phrase, “If you can’t draw it, you don’t understand it.”

By using several types of models such as organization, workflow, state and goal models, with relationships to one another, you can capture the verbs (what gets done) AND nouns (what artifacts that work is done on).   But most importantly, how all of these activities and objects will be measured and managed. And this happens at levels that are meaningful for the organization.  Within the modeling environment, these models can be related back to strategy models to reference and answer the question “What are we doing, and why are we doing it?”

From an orchestration perspective, many BPMS technologies have reached the point to where graphical models actually ‘orchestrate’ the service management application.  Process orchestration is a growing business technology that can be leveraged stand-alone or across disparate systems to make a process appear as one despite the many systems involved in supporting the process. 

The benefits of leveraging BPM for IT Service Management include;

• Consistent and standardized process measurement across all ITSM processes (lead time, queuing time, cycle time), resulting in decreased cost and effort to produce process dashboards and reporting.
• Cost effective implementation of preventative process controls vs. detective controls resulting in reduced training requirements, and less after the fact documentation and reporting.
• Reduced reporting demands as actionable process metrics and preventative controls result in immediate actions such as escalations, messaging, and artifact modification prior to process defect or service impact.  Process improvements can be identified before a poor service experience with your customer has happened and implemented in a remarkably short amount of time.

BPM and Continual Service Improvement

By this point, Continual Service and Process Improvement is implicit as the process has been designed, modeled and linked based on strategy defined by the business customers with appropriate goals and metrics.  If BPMS technology then is being leveraged for process orchestration, continual service and process improvements are easily spotted, adjusted, modified in orchestration, and monitored.

The whole point of BPM is to optimize and improve processes that quickly and easily can be change based on changes of the customer, the business, or the organization.  By leveraging simulation capabilities available with process/workflow modeling tools, “what if” analysis is easily performed against proposed changes to a process based on real metrics. Once a process improvement has been identified, it can be modeled fairly quickly for orchestration among users of the process.  Measurement then is immediate once the new orchestration is implemented.

Summary

Never before has business and IT been under such tremendous pressure to transform itself and make decisions based on actual value contribution to its customers.  This new reality requires a level of IT optimization that is no longer an optional decision.  Business Process Management Suites (BPMS) have been providing demonstrable value to the business process and application side of the house for years.  Why it hasn’t made inroads into IT Service Management until now is an interesting question.  The majority of BPMS vendors rarely target internal IT organizations for IT process design and orchestration, missing out on huge opportunities for them to reduce cost and increase agility.

IT process documentation is costly to create, often ineffective and inconsistent, difficult to maintain, and usually ends up on a shelf or in an electronic store never to be touched again.  Technologies implemented to support these IT processes often fail to achieve alignment with the business, resulting in sub-optimization of the IT organization as a whole.  By leveraging BPM within the IT organization itself, opportunities to truly reduce operational costs, improve quality and capabilities, and increase capacity, will surface.  This is something organizations that have already leveraged BPM external to IT operations have already experienced.  As a result, not only is operational IT process documentation maintained and kept current – but is aligned with the business and actually drives the process orchestration technology.  This then results in a measureable means of optimizing IT.

[2] Source: Justifying BPM Projects, Gartner Group 2004