A higher calling

Customers across the region are starting to get to grips with IT and business alignment. Business Service Management (BSM) offers the most effective approach for bringing people, proces, and technology together.

“Traditionally IT has been siloed. So the biggest effort to initiate change is not on tools, but on aligning people and process,” says Tim Peck, Middle East Country Manager, BMC Software. At the same time, Peck also notes that customers in the Middle East are showcases of high maturity levels, having recognised the importance of committing to the vision of alignment. The reason for change lies in the challenge itself. As a general rule of thumb, CIOs are constantly under pressure to reduce costs and respond to the need of the business at the same time. This means that IT has to assume a more strategic role.

“At the same time, we have seen from our interaction with customers that close to 76 percent of IT spending is directed towards sustaining operations, while just 24 percent is available for innovation. Our customers tell us that they have to make a fundamental change to this equation in order to support growing business needs. By following a BSM approach, customers are able to reduce their operational spending by as much as a third. This means that an additional 25 percent of the IT budget can be made available for innovation projects,” he adds. This also helps organisations re-deploy staff on projects that are more innovation led. With a charter to solve this issue, BSM is being recognised by analysts and the market as a preferred approach for companies to define the relationships among technology systems, business, process and people. The challenge, however, is achieving an efficient BSM roadmap and implementing a clean architecture.

Bridging the gap
IT is today accepted as an effective tool in helping the way companies spend money to ensure long-term savings. “The signs are clear that IT is no longer going to be seen as a department separate from any of the core divisions in an organisation,” notes Peck.

Critical to the plan is to find a common reference model and an operational strategy to execute on the plan. “The configuration management database (CMDB) is the integration engine, and it provides the central reference model that can help CIOs and management execute on their BSM vision,” he says.

The biggest challenge, in Peck’s view, is service delivery. “Having an efficient IT environment is all about delivering a high quality of service,” he adds.

At the heart of BSM
According to a Forrester Research report, with BSM IT can provide and improve
service quality consistency and the related performance indicator, incident closure time. Additionally, it provides cost savings and indirectly increases the respect for IT from other executives inside the organisation. With BSM, the IT organisation has a system for prioritising the most critical business services and measuring the effectiveness of service delivery.

As a result, effective use of BSM can help improve any number of IT processes (such as business impact and cost analysis); allow for the proactive planning of IT infrastructure needs; and demonstrate the value of IT operations as a key element in business and technology alignment.

Peck agrees. “The CMDB is at the heart of BSM because it helps you look at what you have, who exactly is using it, and what relationship the infrastructure, people, and processes have on the business. However, senior management buy-in is critical to its success,” he says.

“As a company, BMC Software is well positioned to understand the needs of customers and work with them on a BSM strategy that can benefit their business,” he adds.

BMC Software delivers the Business Service Management solutions IT needs to increase business value through better management of technology and IT processes. Founded in 1980, BMC has offices worldwide and fiscal 2006 revenues of more than US$1.49 billion.

For more information go to www.bmc.com.