Glen MacDonald’s Blog

 The reality of the current business and economic climate is for all organizations to take a hard look at operational aspects of each part of the business and to demand increased accountability across each organizational unit. Generally seen to be non revenue producing and in some recent surveys seen as “the Business Prevention Department”, CIO’s and IT have been under the corporate microscope more than ever before to justify costs, demonstrate value and leadership to directly support core business functions.

It is a generally accepted principle in business today that IT is a foundational operating component and also the future strategic enabler of the business. However, recent studies demonstrate the significant gap that exists between what IT thinks it should be doing and what the Business Units think IT should be doing. Add to this the built-in expectation for IT to deliver more services with fewer resources; when reality for many shops is that there truly is more to deliver just to keep the lights on. Ask any CIO and they will easily provide a list of 10 keep the lights on priorities and another 10 they know they need to be working on.

Each IT pundit, vendor and service provider spins their value proposition story used to support their solution approach, with many providing true value to the organization and good technical solutions supporting the long term. However, given the stressed financial situation today in many large organizations, simply continuing to spend is not a viable answer. Significant improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness within key business functions and in support of the overall business operation are the prescriptive that are ultimately being demanded. So the question becomes, how does an organization get those quick hit results and benefits without a lengthy and costly study or even a complete re-organization of the business?

Here is an approach that meets the above criteria for results, cost and timing and also supports improved alignment of IT with the real needs of the business units. This approach is based on delivering improvements in business services that have clear and present impacts on customer service, revenue generation or support the reduction of costs and cycle times attributed to internal business processes. There are many names for this approach, but one that stands out is “Business Service Management”. This approach appoints representatives to work directly with the business units, to dig in and to identify and define the leverage points that can most affect business results directly.

With this knowledge in hand, the Business Service Managers then works with designates from IT to find, refine and package the services necessary to support the initiatives in a quick low cost way. Although traditional business case preparation, analysis and prioritization processes are utilized to determine what makes sense in what priority the process needs to be Gorilla like in both speed and complexity.

This role and function is becoming more commonplace in many leading organizations today as they move from a traditional command and control leadership structure towards a collaborative team oriented organizational structure. In addition to the direct benefits of helping the business with the key problems, this process opens the dialogue between IT and the Business Units and builds the trusted relationships necessary for ongoing direct communications. This can be a defining point in changing the relationship and provides a starting point for the development of a true Services Catalogue defining the services available to employees of the organization.

An additional benefit to the organization is insight into the high value capabilities of IT services to the business unit as a true business enabler and a problem solver. Insights gained by many ITIL engagements have shown that this approach is an excellent starting point for improving IT value and fixing the real business problems.