The Difference between traditional IT Service Management Applications and a BPM Based IT Service Management Solution
As ICCM continues to grow in North America, and around the world, our focus is on raising the awareness of BPM and its impact on IT Service Management. Customers in the United Kingdom and Europe already understand the value proposition of e-Service Desk, and typically state there is no comparison between a traditional ITSM application and ICCM e-Service Desk.
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;
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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