Synergy finds competitive advantage in ITSM
Better IT service management (ITSM) may dramatically improve internal support efficiencies, but it's not just about helping people fix their broken desktop computers faster. For service providers and other companies keen to demonstrate their competence, ITIL and its ilk are also becoming major selling points in discussions with potential customers.
For New Zealand payment systems developer Synergy, the push to formalise its service commitment came after new CEO Jim Donovan last year drove the company to revisit its operations and strategic plan. Known as a developer of software but not so much as a full service provider, the 250-strong company was working to expand its portfolio and reputation in New Zealand as well as subsidiaries in Singapore and the UK.
The company realised that -one of the things we really needed to look at was how to move forward as an organisation," says Gary Collins, general manager for managed services with Synergy, citing a growing expectation in many industries that suppliers be able to demonstrate their service management credentials.
-For the business to be successful, we had to make sure we had industrial strength, secure, reliable systems," Collins continues, -and that's at a business level as well as the technological level. For that to work, you need to have the right processes and standards in place."
To make that happen, Synergy enlisted the services of service management consultant Craig Pattison, who is also vice chairman of service management organisation itSMF International. To implement the kind of consistent processes the company wanted, the team chose to follow a two-stage approach.
Stage 1, based on ITIL, would get the entire organisation up to speed with a common service management vocabulary and process definition. The second stage, built around the new ISO 20000 service management standard, would take the initiative even further by guiding the formation of a complete integrated ITSM culture.
-On the one hand, Synergy could have continued putting out forest fires and running on a blind budget," says Pattison. -On the other, full prescriptive ITIL would make everyone a manager and turn IT into a set of silos and kingdoms. Synergy chose the middle ground, taking operational frameworks for implementing and auditing, and standards for organisational certification, and implemented them all in parallel."
Language lessons
To speed the project, Synergy applied an agile project management methodology in which progress towards long-term goals is regularly measured using short-term milestones. This approach turned up the heat on the project team, which broke the ITIL effort into four parallel streams: management buy-in, tool selection, process design and process training.
With management buy-in achieved, the team evaluated potential tools to support the implementation and ultimately settled on a number of offerings from BMC Software including the Business Service Management and BMC Atrium configuration management database (CMDB), as well as other tools to support the ITIL project.
Each of the four stages has been managed with its own key performance indicators (KPIs), ensuring that any problems during the implementation were identified and resolved as quickly as possible. Staff needing training in ITIL or the 13-step ISO 20000 standard were streamed into appropriate educational programs to ensure everyone across the organisation was on the same page.
-The whole issue around culture and language, and being able to talk a service language, has been really fundamental in moving forward," says Collins. -The key really is making sure everyone in the organisation understands that language."
Judging from the company's experience so far, employees have been more than willing to pick up the new service vocabulary. Whereas broad user buy-in is often difficult to achieve during major IT-related projects, the enthusiasm of the Synergy executives, and employees' recognition of the company's efforts to improve, saw many employees approaching the implementation team asking for ITIL training of their own accord.
-From the leadership down to the operational teams, they can all see the tremendous value in this initiative because they're able to offer a full suite of services, and they know they can do that consistently and repeatedly," Collins explains. -Overcoming scepticism at the beginning is key -- and communicating that the changes aren't going to make peoples' jobs harder, but that they're going to make their jobs better."
The new Synergy
Synergy's service management project is still underway, but the strong executive and user response to the initiative has demonstrated the recognised importance of consistent service management in continuing to grow the business.
Having decided to go with both ITIL and then ISO 20000, Synergy is confident the two service management methodologies will complement each other, with ITIL providing the foundation and ISO 20000 the refinement of its new processes.
Return on investment for the project is still unclear -- but there is no doubt there will be one, although Collins concedes most of it will be intangible.
-You're only as strong as your weakest link, and the return will be that we can really maximise our profits and revenues from providing these services," he explains. -Everyone with a touchpoint to IT service management should have a basic understanding of what it is and how it can help them do the job."
With standards in hand and all of its employees riding the ITSM bandwagon, the company expects its strengthening brand in service management will pave the way for considerable growth in the future.
Furthermore, says Collins, this growth will come with more efficiency and at a lower cost than was previously possible, since a standardised service menu and vocabulary will ensure Synergy's predominantly financial services customers can engage with the company's various employees in a consistent way.
-By adopting the standards, we can more constantly offer the services that have become our bread and butter," he explains. -This opens up a whole new world of services that we can offer to clients in a very targeted way, and give us very good market coverage across things like enterprise management. We can take our business into new geographic regions in a way that allows us to provide a consistent business interface wherever we are. Ultimately, our goal to deliver a good business service becomes a way of doing business as usual."
