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Beyond the frontline, the pressure has also been mounting on IT departments to aligntheir services more closely with the wider business and to demonstrate how they arecontributing to the success of the enterprise. Budgets are being squeezed and insome cases companies are having to spend IT money originally intended for othertechnology investments in order to achieve regulatory compliance, Sarbanes Oxley,COBIT and ISO 20000 being prime examples.
The burning question for IT departments is how to do more with less whilstdelivering greater benefits at the same time.
1. Automated Service Management
Recent years have seen the rise and rise of ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) bestpractice as the accepted basis of improved service delivery and as a framework forthe closer alignment of IT with the business. ITIL is also fundamental to ISO 20000,and therefore an essential for many organisations.
Today ITIL training for staff is often the starting point for those seeking toimplement a new service desk solution. When it comes to choosing a softwaresolution, care is taken to select an ITIL-certified solution that spans the range ofIT Service Management disciplines - Incident and Problem Management, AssetManagement, Change and Configuration Management, Release Management, CapacityManagement, Availability, Financial and Service Level Management.
With the prevalence of ITIL, another consideration has moved into focus  the degreeto which it is now possible to automate key ITIL processes. Given that people tendto  adapt manual processes over time to suit their own needs, automation has acritical role to play in the elimination of service desk inconsistencies and thereduction of errors. It enables the establishment of consistent and repeatable rulesfor Incidents/Problems/Known Errors (IPK) and enforces their use.
Automatically ensuring that the defined business process is always followed createsa  win winÂ' situation: for managers the task of training and deploying new staffbecomes much easier. Service desk analysts need allocate less time to routineissues, while customers benefit from faster, slicker service.
This is just a foretaste of the power of automation. The technology can be used in amyriad of ways: setting up automatic alerts so that managers become aware ofcritical/hot issues at a very early stage (decreasing service downtime as a result,and even allowing such issues to be resolved before the customer realises there is aproblem); ensuring that calls from  VIPsÂ' within the organisation are always handledappropriately; generating customer surveys automatically after each call; creatingworkflows that assign work automatically, removing the need for detailed managementof service requests. And much, much more.
Automation is on the up not only as a means to faster implementation of ITIL, but asan easy way to drive service desk efficiency and reduce costs. Critically for manyorganisations, automation also holds the key to cost-effective regulatorycompliance, because it can easily enforce required best practices and generate theaudit trails that prove compliance.
2. The smaller, smarter CMDB
To manage services from a business perspective, IT staff need to have visibility ofthe components of the IT infrastructure and all related business services. AConfiguration Management Database (CMDB) should provide a model of thisinfrastructure, offering detailed information on all ITIL configuration items (CIs),including each itemÂ's location, configuration, and physical and logicalinterrelationships with other items.
However, to be effective the CMDB must ensure that all processes are working fromconsistent and accurate data. Herein lies the problem: because of the complexity andfluidity of the IT infrastructure, developing an efficient CMDB within a reasonablebudget can prove a sticking point for ITIL implementations.
In response to this challenge, a new model for the CMDB has emerged which relies onthe  federationÂ' of existing data sources rather than the creation of anotherseparate centralised database that is inherently difficult to maintain. The newfederated CMDB model allows IT to take advantage of best-of-breed asset discoverytools with their own dedicated resource, and requires only core configuration datato be stored within the CMDB, making it much simpler to maintain.
The infraEnterprise Federated CMDB can also plug into multiple LDAP Directoryservices on different platforms simultaneously. This enables the IT department torapidly populate the CMDB with officer and customer information and greatlysimplifies the entire process of providing detailed audit trails for financial anddata protection compliance.
Having this  helicopter view of the IT infrastructure is key to improvingtraditional IT services. Not surprisingly, finding the smartest way to achieve thisvisibility now forms a vital stage in any ITSM implementation. The prize is aneffective CMDB that enables IT staff to make decisions based on business impact andbusiness priorities - the end goal for many organisations today.
3. The significance of self-service
Implementing self-service has become a pertinent consideration for organisationswhen planning a new Service Management solution. Once the core Service Managementprocesses, such as Incident, Change, Configuration and Service Level Management arein place, the next step for many companies is to release functionality through aCustomer Portal. This use of self-service technology not only enables more efficientService Management in terms of cost reduction, but is also an important means ofimproving the customer experience.
The cost benefits of self-service are generally well understood. A well-constructedsystem can have a significant impact on cost per transaction and an initial 10-20per cent reduction in calls to the Service Desk is not unusual. Some of InfraÂ'sclients have managed the transition so effectively that around 80 per cent of callsto their service desk are now logged via a customer portal with many of those callsresolved using self-service options
The potential for self-service to improve service delivery is also coming to thefore. Often there exists a subset of customers who prefer not to call a service desk mainly due to the perception that they will be placed in a queue. Others simplyprefer to troubleshoot problems on their own. These customers represent a pool ofpreviously unmet demand, to which self-service delivers.
Moving IT operations online neatly dovetails into the current trend away from paperbased processes and manual audits. Implementing self-service allows requests to bekicked off by the customer (via the portal); once logged, an audit trail of the callis automatically produced. Applying online workflows also enables specific workflowtasks to be automatically completed, speeding up the end-to-end process and meetingcustomer expectations for more mature service and delivery models.
4. Open Knowledge Management
IT service management is a knowledge intensive activity where the skills andexperience of staff play a key role in determining success. As not all analysts canbe experts in everything, having a comprehensive, up-to-date Knowledge Base directlyintegrated with the service desk makes life a lot easier and minimises time spent onroutine requests such as password resetting.
Customer self-service also depends to a large extent on the quality of informationavailable via the portal. Integrating internal Knowledge Base content into acustomer self-service solution is an effective way of ensuring that users haveaccess to the content they need.
It is therefore not surprising that promoting the sharing of skills and experienceamongst IT staff through a Knowledge Management strategy is fast becoming a criticalfactor in Service Management outcomes. But inspiring analysts to pool and useknowledge can be far and away the biggest challenge.
A highly effective option that is currently gaining ground is Knowledge CenteredSupport (KCS). KCS is an open approach, where knowledge creation is closely bound tothe support resolution process. Articles are created directly from logged calls, andthe original problem description is preserved as part of the knowledge article.Subsequent calls that are resolved using particular articles are linked to thosearticles, and their problem descriptions added to the document.
A major advantage of this approach is its capacity to encourage knowledge sharing.The immediate nature of knowledge creation and the fact that authors of knowledgeare automatically recognised for their work encourages the creation of material. Inaddition, the link back to the initial call maintains the connection to originalcontext, which provides the best of both worlds  a refined knowledge article thatis bound to the raw problem description.
ITSM solutions from developers such as Infra are important enablers of KnowledgeManagement. For organisations seeking a more open approach, KCS Verified statusprovides independent assurance that their selected ITSM solution is based onindustry best practice.
(ends)
Andy Wade is Managing Director at Infra Corporation, an international developer ofsoftware that automates IT Service Management processes within the enterprise.
Infra is the international developer of infraEnterprise, a 100% Web solution thatautomates IT Service Management processes (including Incident, Problem, Knowledge,Change, Configuration, Release, Availability and Service Level Management).infraEnterprise supports industry best practice methodology such as ITIL and KCS anddelivers the best upfront and ongoing value for comparative depth of functionality.
Established in 1991, Infra has regional head offices in the UK, North America andAustralia and a worldwide network of partners and distributors. www.infra.com.au
