X
Business

Why you need to bite the service delivery bullet sooner than later

"Virtually every IT organization should be adopting process methods for service delivery" --GartnerSure the quote is from an analyst firm, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone with some iota of what service management is disagreeing. There is a quiet revolution going on across IT organizations toward maturity via process-based frameworks, such as those prescribed forservice management.
Written by Natalie Gagliordi, Contributor

"Virtually every IT organization should be adopting process methods for service delivery" --Gartner

Sure the quote is from an analyst firm, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone with some iota of what service management is disagreeing. There is a quiet revolution going on across IT organizations toward maturity via process-based frameworks, such as those prescribed forservice management. IT Service Management (ITSM)may be the holy grail for once and for all aligning technology with business, as Gartner's Colleen Young explains: "Through its emphasis on process effectiveness, fundamental business management capabilities, service positioning and financial accountability, it enables internal IT to address credibility gaps, improve performance, reduce costs and compete with external sourcing alternatives."

"Service management professionalizes the IT function," Young added.

In her two-part report (client reg. required), she lays out thekey forces causing adoption; IT faces a higher burden of proof demonstrating its value now than ever before; a shift from a cost-centric view of ITs potential to a realization that IT can transform business processes; outsourcing; and technological innovation. Then she moves on to discuss the top management challenges for service delivery stressing bluntly the hard fact of life for todays IT organization: "Increased business competency in technical domains, more outsourcing alternatives, and decreasing business tolerance for IT intractability and cost mean that IT has little luxury or time to decide what it wants to be 'when it grows up."

If you are not looking at process methods consider this: "Those that are late on the adoption curve face significantly greater transformational challenges around service delivery management than those that have already embarked on this path. Every viable service delivery model is process-based; therefore, organizations that have yet to embrace process disciplines will be faced with not one, but two significant change initiatives over the midterm that is, they must drive process disciplines into the organization and wrap those disciplines with significantly more-advanced business, financial, marketing and relationship management capabilities," Young said.

I encourage you to take a look at ITIL as a possible framework for delivering service management.

Editorial standards