Business Service Management Hub

Innovation is an overused term, I agree. True innovation are products and services that change the way an industry does business, however, business growth through new services and products are now more than ever dependent upon technology. As you can see from this recent survey business is relying on IT to support business growth.

Calculating ROI and managing costs in the data center for Business Service Management (BSM) projects is difficult. In fact, I was asked this question so many times that I put my META Group analyst hat on and said, “Michele, what would Herb tell you to do?”

Back to basics balanced with growth opportunities. Doing more with less and getting the most out of the bottom of the data center food chain and layering in the value add for future growth needs to be the theme for 2011. Accelerating reaching a goal of Business Service Management with cost management.

The theme of integration still rings true. The key to efficiency remains in the ability to get the most out of what you have and pull it all together for that end-to-end view to avoid impact, proactively manage change and take full advantage of agile technologies. A key to Business Service Management is fundamentally just this integration capability and the end-to-end live view and if you don’t have it, you are no doubt behind the 8 ball.

Great read of an inspirational CIO taking advantage of agile technology. What is missing is how does he manage and measure the workloads in the cloud? How does he instrument them or does he to make them intelligent to proactively monitor, manage and measure back to the business on the cost and value. Where are the Business Service Management details that will make this successful in the long haul?

IT by the numbers and with Business Service Management. In lean times, we need to get the most out of what we have, look at lower cost alternatives for the commodity and make the investment in the things that will drive value to the business.

The time has come to re-think IT, the assets, sourcing options and management with the focus on growth, sure cost cutting is still in the balance of things too. New day for Business Service Management. Opportunities to re-think the routine, automation, leverage lower cost tools for the commodity and apply the shift in that spending toward growth.

The article references the cost of a single cost of downtime as approximately $100,000 and the risk of downtime increases as systems and infrastructures become more and more distributed and complex. Business Service Management practices proactively manage end-to-end services, not just technology.

Management instrumentation required, service enable during development. New technology getting ready for production, but not ready for production creates the virtual stall. Service enabling, instrumenting and an integration strategy will keep management on track. Old management tools are no going to provide the data required for virtual infrastructures. It will be a combination of the virtualization and traditional management tools that will provide the end-to-end view through an integrated strategy that will break the stalemate of the virtual stall.

Interesting we swing from virtual stall over management tools and the year ahead holds data centers being designed with integration, systems management, hardware, end-to-end views in the planning and implementing. Good summation of trends in the market and keys to success.

The Hub Commentary_ It’s that time of year for Gartner’s updated CIO Agenda and survey.  2011 promises to be a year of change for the brave that reach out and embrace it.  On my personal blog I used the phrase, Technology without Imagination is Commodity – Technology with Imagination has Endless Possibilities! I find change […]

IT, what are you waiting for? Compete with the Service Providers today! This is the year to re-tool and invest in your data center of the future. The Service Providers are – Are you?

All great news! IT time to line yourself up as a service provider and compete for your data center business. IT can do it cheaper than the service provider who has to build in margin, however the question remains, can IT do it faster and better than the service providers?

Ok, I know you are asking, Michele what does this have to do with BSM? It’s one of those fun articles I just couldn’t pass on as an old COBOL programmer.

The theme of driving growth, innovation and value based upon the customer experience continues. 2011 will be a year of innovation and next year’s Fortune 500 list will see organizations swap places for the lead of their industry. Very refreshing to see focus on technology again for innovation over back office automation.

Tobin and I had the opportunity to speak with a new friend, Bojan Simic, yesterday of TRAC Research. We shared thoughts on what is required to deliver Business Service Management (BSM) and help organizations communicate Service Performance thus Value to their organizations.

Ahhh the yin and yang of new technology. The short sided cost saving and time saving view, we don’t have to buy and configure hardware and the longer term view of operationalizing the workloads by service enabling them to be supported.

What does the midsize market know that the enterprise ignores? Nimble, think like a start-up, how do we we better serve our customers and how does IT communicate service performance and use technology to create great customer relationships……..

Here we go IT – another chance to redeem ourselves and service enable our infrastructure and take advantage of new technology. The business has cracked the door to invest in technology that will transform the business and new systems management tools…….

A lot comes to mind with a title like this one. So, let’s start by wiping away areas like politics and finances (except as they relate to IT), births, deaths, marriages and celebrities. In fact, there’s still a very long list of possibilities by just focusing on IT and everything that goes into managing and optimizing services – let alone all of the trends around cloud.