IT Current Trends - HP IT Service Management

Today, when business success depends on a well-run IT infrastructure, your ability to manage IT services is being put to the highest test. You must deliver maximum value while tightly controlling costs.
Business and IT unite. HP IT Service Management (ITSM) combines powerful HP OpenView software with years of experience to transform your IT into a real business and competitive differentiator. See how HP IT Service Management solutions bring people, processes, and technology together to capitalize on change...

What is ITSM?

Lately IT organizations have been focusing greatly on the strong links between IT and its underlying business units. Service- or process-centric approach, with the customer ruling, is indicative of this trend.
IT Service Management (ITSM) is an outgrowth of ITIL. ITSM derives its guidelines and set of best practices to follow from ITIL (although there are other frameworks, too).

Standard IT best practices can indeed enhance an organization's effectiveness and value. However, a critical aspect is to ensure that services, tools, processes and the organization are all aligned well.

How different is an ITSM-enabled environment from a traditional IT environment? Here's a comparison for easy understanding:
Traditional IT ITSM process

Technology focus >> Process focus

‘Fire-fighting’ >> Preventative

Reactive >> Proactive

Informal process >> Formal best practices

IT internal perspective >> Business perspective

Operation-specific >> Service-orientation

ITSM encompasses two main areas: IT Service Support and IT Service Delivery.

IT Service Support includes Service Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Configuration Management and Release Management.

IT Service Delivery includes Service Level Management (SLM), Availability Management, IT Service Continuity, Capacity Management and Financial Management for IT Services.

ITSM and ITIL, in a nutshell, are both an integrated, process-based set of best practices to manage IT services. While ITIL defines and documents the best practices, it is ITSM which employs them in order to meet customer requirements and organizational priorities.

Why implement ITSM?
Managing IT without guidelines is like madness not having even a method to follow! ITSM provides for a complete set of instructions on how to manage IT services better.

An automated, integrated ITSM solution delivers IT-business alignment and, of course, leads to productivity and profitability. If one were to quantify the benefits of ITSM, it would look like this.

In sum, ITSM leads to:
1.Improved quality of service

2. Improved efficiency

3. Reduction in operation costs

4. Motivated staff

5. IT alignment with business needs

6. Constant improvement of service quality

Getting started
How do we initiate the process of ITSM? The ITIL has enlisted a framework for each of the IT Service Delivery and Service Support areas in a five-phase model. This model helps you ask the right questions before actually implementing ITSM in your organization, and guides you through subsequent steps, too.

The ITSM implementation framework encompasses:
Assessment:

Kick off the process by determining the current state of IT management in your organization, and also begin to collect and understand the metrics for the future desired state.

Architect and Design: This stage sees the creation of a matured design for the future desired state.

Planning: Brainstorm to arrive at feasible plans necessary to achieve the future desired state in a phased evolutionary manner.

Implementation: Implement and deploy the plans within IT and across the enterprise to achieve the future desired state

Support: Manage, maintain and improve the future desired state being able to adaptively integrate enhancements as required.