Many Unprepared for BT Disaster Recovery

Disaster strikes. Your primary place of business is destroyed by a fire tomorrow, are you prepared to recover? According to the historical statistics, fires permanently close 44 percent of the businesses that are affected.

Business continuity planning is the creation and validation of a practiced logistical plan for how an organization will restore interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption.

Business Technology survivability is an imperative for many organizations that operate in the global networked economy, yet some are unprepared for a natural disaster. Cisco recently shared the results of an insightful nationwide survey.

Informed, but Otherwise Unprepared
The market study uncovered that while many organizations appreciate the increased employee productivity and other benefits offered by laptop computers, smart phones and virtual private networks, they may be unprepared to enable the majority of their employees to effectively telecommute.

Without the proper networking infrastructures to support remote work by a high percentage of their employees, these organizations will be unable to maintain their operations should their team be blocked from coming into the office for an indefinite period.

The telework preparedness survey, conducted by InsightExpress for Cisco, interviewed 502 information technology decision makers from U.S. businesses of all sizes. The survey questioned IT professionals in the health care, retail, finance, government and education sectors.

Highlights from the study include:

• 53 percent of the of the IT executives surveyed said that less than half their employees were currently enabled to work remotely; 21 percent said that they have no employees enabled to work remotely.
• Asked why more employees didn't have access to technology that would enable them to work outside the office, 38 percent said that business requirements did not necessitate it.
• Only 22 percent of the respondents believe that their current remote-access solutions have positioned their companies for disaster preparedness and business continuity.
• Just 15 percent of the respondents listed 'pandemic or other disaster preparedness' as a top business driver for providing remote access to employees, and only 5 percent listed it as the primary business driver.
  

Service Providers Offering Guidance
The results indicate that the majority of companies are not considering the importance of remote-access solutions for potential business interruptions -- focusing more on business technology needs under normal conditions.

In most cases, the cost to implement secure remote access across an entire workforce is a fraction of what the loss of business would be if employees could not work remotely during a crisis. Contact a managed service provider to learn more about the best-fit solution for your particular business needs.

A Managed Service Antidote to Organic IT

The accelerating Organic IT phenomenon is being driven by executive frustration that today's business technology demands are not being fully met by their internal support organization. Some IT teams, however, have taken decisive action to free-up time to become more responsive to their savvy user's requests for new capabilities.

Perhaps that's a key leading indicator why remote managed services have emerged as a rare growth area within this tough economic environment. Clearly, proactively increasing business process agility and cutting operational costs has never been more popular.

As a result, annual spending on remote managed IT services by the North American Small and Medium Business (SMB) sector is expected to increase 3.3 times in the next five years. That represents a compounded annual growth rate of 28 percent, according to the latest market study by AMI-Partners.

Extracting Value from Business Technology
"While SMBs have been steadily increasing their reliance on IT over the last several years, they have always been challenged in managing their growing IT infrastructures. The severe economic conditions of the last one year have forced SMBs to look for more cost effective ways to manage their IT. Remote managed services offered by 3rd parties provide 24/7 availability of critical IT infrastructure -- without increasing the need for internal IT staff," according to Anil Miglani, SVP of IT Infrastructure and Managed Services at AMI.

Apparently, SMBs increasingly use remote IT services to selectively out-task critical areas like security and storage, while others are now extending the use of remote services to manage PCs, servers, networks, communications equipment and various other business technology devices.

Yet, many more businesses could benefit from a managed service solution. "Of the total installed base of 60 million PCs and 8 million servers in North America, only a tiny fraction is currently managed remotely," says Miglani.

Enabled by Cloud-Based Infrastructure
Managed service providers are increasingly offering remote managed services to better serve their customers with fewer resources. While some deliver remote services from their own infrastructures, others have started relying on cloud-based infrastructure solutions.

"By using automated software to remotely monitor and manage their customer's infrastructures, solution providers have increased their productivity while also improving their service levels," according to Melissa Chong, Senior Research Analyst at AMI and chief architect of the study.

The potential growth of this market is also attracting several new types of providers like telecom companies, IT vendors, distributors, retailers and online resellers in the SMB IT services market -- currently dominated by local channel partners.

Given the diverse nature of the SMB market, AMI believes that vendor channel partners will continue to play a critical role, as more IT organizations willingly embrace the out-tasked managed service delivery model now -- rather than react after Shadow IT has taken hold.

Revelations from Online Collaboration Adopters

Cisco conducted one of the first comprehensive studies of the factors associated with successful adoption of network-based collaboration solutions. You can use the study results to maximize your return on investment from today's online collaboration tools.

One way is to implement business practices shown to lead to more enthusiastic collaboration. Another is to identify and then actively support the employees who are most likely to benefit.

Twenty First Century Collaboration
Collaboration is a process that brings people and information together to accomplish a common goal. What's new today is that in a connected world, people no longer have to be in the same location, time zone, or culture to collaborate.

Tools such as videoconferencing (or TelePresence) and web sharing enable real-time collaboration across distance. Blogs, wikis, and shared workspaces enable online collaboration across time boundaries.

Cisco conducted the first formal segmentation study of collaboration tool users. Their objective was to understand how workers choose to collaborate, which tools they use, and how they believe those tools positively affect productivity, innovation, and cost savings.

Study participant collaboration habits and attitudes placed them into one of four segments: Collaboration Enthusiasts, Comfortable Collaborators, Reluctant Collaborators, and Collaboration Laggards.

Lessons Learned and Best Practices
The results from the Cisco collaboration segmentation study suggest that organizations experience the greatest productivity benefits from collaboration when they:

• Recognize that personal attitudes and organizational culture regarding collaboration are as important as collaboration tools.
• Begin by introducing collaboration tools to people and groups meeting the characteristics of Enthusiasts and Comfortable Collaborators. These people tend to be managers or supervisors, have held their job position for 3 to 10 years, and are already using Web 2.0 tools at home.
• Encourage executives to model the desired collaboration practices.
• Reward collaboration by including it in performance reviews, offering rewards for successful outcomes, or both.
• Implement formal collaboration processes. Provide the tools, IT support, and training needed to foster increased collaboration.
  

The survey studied 800 people in a wide variety of U.S. medium-sized and enterprise organizations who: spend at least 20 percent of time at work using a network-connected computer; use a mobile phone or handheld device; and participated in two collaborative activities within the past month.

Enabling the Early-Adopters to Thrive
The researchers conducted a segmentation analysis, separating individuals into distinct groups based on a large set of attitudinal and behavioral variables. Previous knowledge of collaboration habits did not include the personal or cultural factors that influence success.

Do you proactively nurture a culture of collaboration in your organization? What obstacles did you have to overcome before your employees could fully utilize the latest online productivity tools?

IT Power Users Will Lead the Way

Have you ever wondered if your company's utilization of Business Technology is in line with the creative market leaders? The Harvard Business Review recently published an interesting commentary by Susan Cramm entitled "How to Support Your IT Innovators."

Ms. Cramm believes that to realize the full potential from business technology, all enterprises need IT-smart business leaders -- up, down, and across the organization.

According to the results of her ongoing survey, however, business leaders apparently don't feel very smart about their IT adoption and application practices.

• Only 11% personally use and fully leverage the capabilities of the technology currently in place.
• 50% agree with the statement that "business leaders don't understand how to use their systems and technologies."
• And, only 25% of business leaders consider themselves "IT-smart."
  

Liberate the Business Technology Innovators
One person she interviewed said "business groups that have somebody on their team who is an IT expert do much better -- in terms of leveraging technology to meet their needs -- than those who do not." While that may not be profound, it's a noteworthy comment.

Tech-savvy business users perform a valuable function for their less-informed peer group. They are able to determine what is truly possible, with current technology. Why? It's because power-users sometimes have better productivity enhancing tools in their home-based office than they do at their place of work.

How can this be possible? Well, IT managers focused on total control of all physical infrastructure are consumed by operational tasks and remedial user support activity. They have little or no time available to research, test and adopt the best-fit productivity tools for their business user needs.

Don’t Assume, Follow the Informed User
Moreover, there's often a major disconnect between what business users say they need, and what their IT team assumes they would apply. Most organizations use only 64 percent of their enterprise systems core functions, according to a recent Accenture survey.

"About half said they don't need all the capabilities, while a fifth explained that they didn't make use of all the functionality due to lack of time to learn how to apply them," said Accenture.

In summary, Ms. Cramm says that you should identify your lead users, give them more of what they really need, free up your IT team's time to study what they are doing (and why), and then decide how to standardize and scale the most promising innovations to benefit the whole enterprise.

Discover the Pathway to Cloud Services

Do you have your head in the clouds? Well, if so, then you're surely not alone. In breaking news, eWeek reports that Cisco Systems is pulling together key pieces of its data center and networking portfolios to create a blueprint for building a cloud computing infrastructure for service providers.

Is this yet another business technology hype-cycle, or is there something truly remarkable occurring that builds upon the escalating widespread adoption of IT managed service and hosting service offerings?

Cisco's Simon Aspinall provides the context for the launch of the Unified Service Delivery solution, as he shares an analogy that explains why innovation sometimes requires starting the design process from a totally different point of view.

The cloud computing phenomenon is generating a lot of interest worldwide because of its potential to offer services on-demand -- at lower cost than current options, and with significantly less complexity, greater scalability, and wider reach.

Motivation for Cloud Services Adoption
A study by the University of California, Berkeley entitled "Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing" looked at cloud computing from the end-user perspective. It focused on three features that are major advancements for you, the business and IT decision maker:

• The illusion of infinite computer resources available on demand that eliminate the need for you to plan far ahead for provisioning.
• No need for an up-front commitment by your business, allowing you to start small and increase your use of cloud services as needed.
• The pay-as-you-go model that allows you to buy just what they need, and what you can budget, either on a short-term or ongoing basis.
  

The study also emphasized that companies with large batch-oriented computing tasks can get results more quickly and cost-effectively than ever before when using the broad resources of a managed cloud services provider for a short period of time.

Cloud Service Call to Action
The on-demand nature of cloud computing is also a productivity boon to both the enterprise CEO and the CIO, allowing them to quickly react to changing market conditions and opportunities. Are you ready to out-task your next IT or enterprise networking related project?

If you need to gain a deeper understanding of how this emerging space of new business technology is developing, then consider the "Working in the Cloud" Industry Round-Up Report series from THINKstrategies.

IT Survival in the Hunt, Kill, Eat Economy

Business Technology related market research used to be targeted primarily at the CIO or IT manager roles within an organization. How times have changed. Research and Markets has added the "Business Technology Trends & Impacts Advisory Service" subscription to their market study offerings.

The service is designed to help all savvy business decision makers develop and implement an effective IT strategy, plus take advantage of the opportunities -- and face the many challenges -- today's rapidly evolving business technology changes will bring.

Developing a Plan of Attack
Clients will receive the usual forecasts and predictions, as well as the strategic implications of those predictions. Subscribers receive advice on practices they can employ now to help organizations succeed within the turbulent economic environment.

The Cutter Business Technology Council is the source of this insight, which includes a team of IT authorities who use a collaborative forecasting approach to provide clients with monthly Council Opinions and present future scenarios for business technology and its many applications.

Monthly council opinions provide a steady flow of predictions, including commentary from each Council Fellow and the logic behind their concurring or dissenting opinion, as well as the strategic implications of the apparent trend.

TelePresence and Other Innovations
Recent opinions have focused on software delivery versus compliance; removing barriers to collaboration through TelePresence; the new IT governance model; IT in the "hunt, kill, eat" economy; systems acquisition and management; timing IT investments, vernacular computing, and more.

Twice-monthly Executive Updates include statistical results of related market research. Cutter's market research focuses on topics such as IT funding, organizational agility, information security, instant messaging, IT litigation, and more.

Weekly Trends E-Mail Advisor alerts subscribers to new technologies, the latest advancements in technology implementation, and new thinking on technology management -- such as managed and hosted services.

The Data Center Metamorphosis
Significant transformations within the realm of the evolving data center, such as the emergence of Unified Computing models, will be an incremental topic included in our ongoing commentary -- right here on the Business Technology Roundtable.

Many forward-looking organizations are eager to develop next-generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization. Unified Computing is an architecture that bridges the silos in the data center into a single unified architecture -- using industry standard technologies.

Progressive Business Technology Adoption Trends

Business leaders are still upbeat about the benefits of technology adoption. It's key to their market penetration, central to competitive differentiation, and vital to their supply chain and distribution strategies.

However, according to Forrester Research, they are less than satisfied with their own IT organization's contributions. In fact, reducing the cost of operations is believed to be one of the few attributes where expectations are aligned.

Members of the Forrester Leadership Boards (FLB) CIO Group recently discussed this challenge. Forrester presented results from their business technology survey of 600 executive leaders.

The study uncovered the following significant gaps:

IT teams rarely are aligned around key business priorities. When asked to rank business drivers by their importance to the firm's technology strategies, business executives identified customers, productivity, and costs as the most important themes.

But, when asked to rate their IT organization effectiveness, there was a wide gap between critical business drivers and the perception of IT's focus -- even in the key areas of cost reduction and workforce productivity.

Business executives consider several sourcing alternatives to fulfill the IT requirements of their enterprise. When asked to rate sources of technology solutions, leaders continue to rank their IT organization as a primary source.

However, they also referred to a wide range of other viable sources -- from their own staff, consulting firms, as well as out-tasked subscription-based managed service offerings.

Proven Strategies for Success
CIO Group members noted that these survey results accurately reflect the overall situation for IT organizations today -- an unfortunate scenario where many CIOs typically spend considerable effort.

These CIO Group members have adopted best practices for IT-business alignment ahead of the general population. Almost all have dedicated relationship managers, as opposed to only 37 percent of surveyed IT organization. All have a PMO dedicated to IT governance, whereas only 47 percent of the typical firms do.

Proven strategies to integrate business and IT include: formalizing IT's role in the overall planning process; formalize, embed, and expand the role of relationship managers; embed IT skills within business organizations; create centers of excellence for business change skills; and, separate business enablement functions from IT delivery and operations.

End of the Do-it-Yourself Era
Forrester concludes, the era where IT said "we can do it all for you" is no longer viable. Business executives see IT inflexibility as a detriment to their agility. They're aware that internal IT is but one of many options.

Therefore, CIOs who insist that their role is the "sole source for technology solutions" will be marginalized. The savvy IT managers have embraced a coexistence scenario, where selective out-tasking is a welcomed addition to their solution portfolio.

Managed Service Scenarios: Choosing the Best-Fit Solution

Are you puzzled about how to choose the best-fit managed service solution for your particular business needs? As a basic guide, the following are three typical high-level scenarios for deploying managed network services.

Scenario 1: Customer Owns Network and Shares Management Responsibility

Companies that already have an internal IP network can continue to manage it while out-tasking the management of onsite equipment -- usually known as customer-premises equipment (CPE), used for the managed service (see Figure 1).


The Roles and Responsibilities are as follows:
Managed service provider -- Sets up, maintains, and administers the equipment needed for the managed service, including company-owned equipment such as servers.

Company -- Managed service customer maintains and administers its internal network.

Scenario 2: Service Provider Owns the CPE; Customer Can Share Equipment Management with Service Provider

Some companies do not own a LAN, either because the location is new or the company already out-tasks its LAN services. In this situation, the service provider can manage the equipment needed for the corporate network as well as the managed service.

Many large enterprises like this arrangement because they can maintain physical control of the equipment while relying on the service provider for 24-hour network operational support (see Figure 2).


The Roles and Responsibilities are as follows:
Managed service provider -- Sets up, maintains, and administers the equipment for the managed services as well as the corporate network.

Company -- Monitors its corporate network through a Web interface provided by the service provider, receives regular reports on the network status and managed services, and is notified in case of a defined emergency.

Scenario 3: Service Provider Owns Equipment in its Own Facility; Customer Monitors Service Provider's Management of the Equipment

The difference between this scenario and the previous one is that most of the equipment is physically located in the service provider's "hosting" facility instead of on the customer premises.

The Roles and Responsibilities are as follows:
Managed service provider -- Sets up, maintains, and administers the corporate network and related managed services; most of the network equipment is physically located in the provider's computing center; the exceptions are the equipment for the LAN and network connections, as well as gateways for computers and IP telephony.

Company -- Monitors performance of its systems through a Web interface provided by the service provider, receives regular reports on the network status, and is notified in case of a defined emergency.

Summary: each of the three basic scenarios can be customized to meet your particular requirements. In upcoming posts, we'll identify some more specific application examples.

Managing Enterprise IT Operations, from Afar

According to a recent McKinsey & Company report, their research results demonstrated that the potential for managing servers and other IT resources remotely is essentially underutilized.

However, changes in the current business environment will increase the adoption of this approach. Plato, a wise Greek philosopher, wrote about how "necessity is the mother of invention." Certainly, that perspective is equally valid today.

The motivation for utilizing the resources of a service provider can be considerable. A case in point: Fortune 50 companies, with budgets of $2 billion, can save as much as $500 million of their IT infrastructure budgets.

How, you may ask? Apparently, it's mostly from reducing fully-loaded labor costs.

Evaluation of IT Assets and Liabilities
McKinsey surveyed 141 CIOs at multinational corporations, and 34 percent of them said that they anticipate utilizing some infrastructure management services over the next three years -- which is an increase from 19 percent of respondents in a similar survey performed during the prior year.

Economic justification is the basis for the expected growth. As hardware costs fall, labor has become the focal point. They estimate that costs for non-labor IT components -- the hardware, software, maintenance, and facilities -- declined by almost 44 percent between 2000 and 2008 as prices have dropped.

McKinsey also estimates that total costs will fall by nearly half from 2000 to 2010, however the labor component will more than double -- to 62 percent, from 30 percent.

Apparently, the attraction of a managed service solution is due to changes in the deployment of infrastructure. Many organizations have simplified their IT and network architecture, making it easier to decouple components, and utilize service providers.

Selectively Out-tasking the Drudgery
Besides, standardization has made some management tasks ready for automation. As a result, it is now easier to manage some complex IT tasks, like network security monitoring, from a remote location.

Furthermore, organizations can selectively out-task parts of their IT infrastructure management. Some companies will choose to only out-task network monitoring, while others seek assistance with the total management of their data center needs. Clearly, it's a flexible model that can adapt to shifting business requirements.

In summary, McKinsey believes that the greater speed and security of data networking has made interactions between the service user and their provider more stable. This progress has therefore increased acceptance of the managed service delivery model.

By the way, before you rush to reduce your Business Technology deployment plans, you may also want to reflect upon McKinsey's guidance on IT spending cuts: they believe that "IT investments deliver more value to a company's top and bottom lines -- by creating new efficiencies and increasing revenues -- than any savings gained from traditional IT cost cutting."

Opportunities for Advancement in an Economic Downturn

Can the current economic environment actually create an opportunity? Even though the present financial crisis will adversely affect capital investment, the uncertainties are also creating new demand for the application of certain business technology offerings.

"In particular, ICT solutions that shift costs from a capital to variable component, focus on productivity increases and cost reduction, and support organizational restructuring and acquisitions are likely to see growing demand," says Andrew Milroy, ICT director at Frost & Sullivan.

Four Areas of New Demand
This belief that there will be a strategic increase in IT demand is the result of the consulting company's latest global market study.

While their assessment acknowledges some ICT setbacks, it identifies four key areas that are likely to experience heightened demand -- sustainable IT; outsourcing, managed and hosted services; information management tools; and those services that support mergers and acquisitions.

Sustainability initiatives range from server or storage virtualization and low-energy consumption hardware, through to the use of online collaboration tools, thin client technologies and power consumption modeling. Most of these activities have the dual aim of reducing costs, as well as lowering carbon emissions.

An Increase for Online Collaboration
The anticipated reduction in business travel will create a corresponding increase in demand for conferencing tools. These applications will allow more employees to work remotely, further cutting travel costs and emissions. Secure remote access solutions will therefore experience demand.

The need for cost controls and a desire to minimize risks will place greater focus on variable costs, leading to an increase in demand for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hosted service models.

Frost & Sullivan's research suggests that the hosted model will be adapted to suit a wider range of services -- including storage and unified communications. New opportunities are expected in many areas of managed services -- such as managed handsets, managed network services and leasing services.

Change Creates Abundant Opportunity
In a summary of their findings, Milroy adds, "We believe that there are opportunities for solutions and services that can help organizations to cut costs, change cost structures, or increase productivity."

The lean times ahead of us will foster the environment where all "business as usual" thinking is challenged -- and, rightfully so. Forward-looking leaders will not falter; they will grasp that potential for new sources of advancement and take the appropriate action.

Perhaps all IT and business decision makers must now ask themselves the ultimate question -- is my organization preparing for a purposeful advance, or an unpredictable decline?

IT Financial Management - Now is the Time

I've heard many excuses, during my years as an ITIL consultant, as to why a client did not want to start IT Financial Management -- the business is not ready, we don't have the tools, we don't know where to start, etc.

However, in these troubling economic times, it is imperative that IT adopts IT Financial Management in order to respond to the increasing pressure to reduce costs.

IT can reduce costs through service-based cost transparency and charge-backs. This method does not mean IT is a profit-center; it just means that IT is educating the business on the cost to provide the services.

With this knowledge, the business can adjust their consumption to better manage their budget and ensure spending is aligned with the value of the service they are receiving. Contrast this with a nebulous IT overhead charge which does not incent the business to use scarce IT resources wisely.

A Roadmap to IT Financial Management
The secret to successfully starting IT Financial Management is to develop a roadmap with increasing levels of maturity.

For example, in Phase 1, pick four to five key services for consumption based costing, e.g. number of servers, storage consumed, network bandwidth consumed, etc., then allocate the remaining costs (i.e. Service Desk, data center operations, etc) as a surcharge against this base price. In Phase 2 and subsequent phases, continue to expand the number of services covered by consumption-based charge-backs.

Another dimension of maturity is the approach to charge-backs. In Phase 1, you may want to just publish costs (i.e. cost transparency with no dollars changing hands). In Phase 2, you may want to provide invoices that show consumption and a hypothetical charge-back amount but stop short of consummating the transaction.

Finally, in Phase 3, implement the actual charge-backs. This gradual approach will allow the business to adapt and prepare for a new way of interacting with IT.

By establishing and communicating a roadmap, you can start IT Financial Management today and be better positioned to manage the IT budget.

About the author: Reg Lo is the VP of Technology Solutions at Third Sky Inc. He has over 14 years of IT consulting experience in ITSM/ITIL consulting, research compliance and healthcare, and custom solutions. He is a frequent speaker at itSMF and HDI events and a contributor to "The Forum", the offical newsletter of itSMF USA.

Top Ten Business Technology Trends

Gartner analysts recently identified the top ten key technologies -- and related trends -- that they believe will be strategic for mainstream organizations. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner's Symposium and ITxpo.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as having the potential for significant impact on the enterprise -- within the next three years. Factors for significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major financial investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

The technologies were chosen because they could affect an organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives. They are deemed strategic because they’ve matured to broad market use, or because they enable strategic advantage from early adoption.

Gartner's top 10 strategic technologies for 2009 include:
Virtualization; Cloud Computing; Servers (beyond blades); Web-Oriented Architectures; Enterprise Mash-ups; Specialized Systems; Social Software and Social Networking; Unified Communications; Business Intelligence and Green IT.

As you consider each of these technologies in turn, and the associated applications within your own business environment, it would be wise to reconsider the notion that embracing a new technology always must equate to a financial investment in infrastructure.

In this context, is the purchase of an on-demand managed service an investment, or is it more accurate to characterize it as an expense? Let's consider the Gartner description of Cloud Computing, as an example.

"Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. The key characteristics of cloud computing are 1) delivery of capabilities 'as a service,' 2) delivery of services in a highly scalable and elastic fashion, 3) using Internet technologies and techniques to develop and deliver the services, and 4) designing for delivery to external customers.

Although cost is a potential benefit for small companies, the biggest benefits are the built-in elasticity and scalability, which not only reduce barriers to entry, but also enable these companies to grow quickly. As certain IT functions are industrializing and becoming less customized, there are more possibilities for larger organizations to benefit from cloud computing."

According to Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, "Companies should evaluate these technologies and adjust based on their industry need, unique business needs, technology adoption model and other factors."

Lowering the Barriers to Progress
Perhaps one of those other factors would be an candid assessment of what advantages are being gained by competitors who have already chosen to take action. Meaning, can you make a determination of the direct and indirect cost of your potential inaction?

Moreover, by utilizing a selective out-tasking model, it's now possible to minimize the financial impact on new technology pilots and full deployments, while at the same time creating the environment to maximize the strategic impact.

The perceived barriers that may inhibit you from taking action have essentially been lowered.

The Business Case for BT Convergence

The structured approach of Business Technology Management (BTM) is a proven methodology that seeks to unify business and technology decision-making at every level within a company.

Originally conceived to address the needs of large enterprises, there are now very apparent benefits for both small and medium sized businesses. Let's consider the growing body of evidence that supports that business case.

Put simply, BTM is applied to ensure that a company's business strategy can be realized by the technology it deploys. This approach is used by business leaders to align, synchronize and even converge technology and business management for the purpose of ensuring better execution, risk control and profitability.

The Path of Total Convergence
Clearly, these are the type of guiding principles that should transcend all businesses, regardless of their size. Let's explore the meaning of those three states of progression.

Alignment is defined as a state where technology supports, enables, and does not constrain the company's current and evolving business strategies. It means that the IT function is in-tune with the business thinking about competition, emerging threats and opportunities.

Synchronization implies that business technology (BT) not only enables execution of current business strategy, it also anticipates and helps to shape future business models and strategy. In this state, BT leadership, thinking, and investments may be ahead of business needs.

The state of Convergence includes both alignment and synchronization, with technology and business leadership willing and able to operate simultaneously in both spaces. Essentially, the disciplines have merged in both the strategic and tactical senses. A single leadership team working together to orchestrate one intertwined agenda.

A Business Impact Case Study
Does this seem like an academic exercise? Consider the following facts, and then you decide.

According to the BTM Institute, in research covering 50 industries, companies with a more converged business technology management exhibited superior revenue growth and net margins relative to their peer group:

• 12% average annual revenue growth vs. 4% for their industry groups.
• 36% average annual earnings per share growth vs. 7% for their industry groups.
  

Not only did these companies grow at a faster pace than their peers, but they also exhibited consistently greater returns than those of their competitors:

• 6% higher EBITD margins than those delivered by their industry groups.
• 4% average higher return on equity, 8% average higher return on assets and 14% higher return on investments.
  

Therefore, perhaps the most important question is not whether you should strive for BT convergence, but how will you be able to compete with those companies that have already evolved to that state? It's something to think about, as you consider your next steps.

The Quest for IT Service Management Excellence

In the highly-charged economic environment facing organizations today, competition is fierce and any competitive advantage needs to be identified and maximized to ensure survival.

Increasingly Business Technology service providers, whether internal or external, are reaching out to the growing discipline of IT Service Management (ITSM), particularly as expressed in the "IT Infrastructure Library" or "ITIL (®)" to provide the critical competencies needed to create that competitive advantage for their organization.

ITIL recognizes the need for IT departments to think of themselves as Service Providers to their business, providing technology-based services that are critical to the mission of the larger organization. In support of this mission they must, like their own suppliers in turn, meet challenges such as:

• Providing services that are selected and positioned correctly for their internal "market"
• Delivering real value to the business to ensure satisfaction and value
• Working efficiently to maximize the value received from resources and capabilities
• Prioritizing investments to manage and grow the function, in sync with their market
• Adopting and adapting flexible work methods, and support service provisioning in an ever-changing business and technology environment.
  

The good news is that ITIL provides guidance on industry-tested approaches to addressing all these challenges and more. The ITIL v3 core guidance is organized around a service lifecycle, with a set of five books describing guidance on each of the five phases or stages: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement.

To spread the word on ITIL specifically and ITSM in general, a global practitioner organization has grown up in the form of the IT Service Management Forum or "itSMF" with an International body as well as national chapters across the world.

Members actively share ideas and develop the methods of ITSM through national conferences, regional events, and the work of local interest groups and specialty interest groups.

itSMF takes an important and active role in the development and maturity of the actual content of ITIL, contributing many authors, reviewers and leaders to continual improvement of the materials and qualifications programs.

In future posts we'll explore ITSM practices and how they can be applied to the challenges of service provisioning and service excellence.

About the author: An IT Service Manager and ITIL v3 Expert with over 20 years of experience in service industries, Ms. Hunnebeck is the VP of ITSM Vision & Strategy at Third Sky Inc. Her passion for improving how we work led Ms. Hunnebeck to IT Service Management from a background of process consulting, training and Service Management systems consulting.

Gaining the Freedom to Fuel BT Innovation

Without a doubt, the reason why most business decision makers consider an out-tasked solution -- based upon a managed service offering -- is still primarily the need for cost-reduction.

Clearly, that's a valid motivation for any business leader. But, it's only a part of the inherent benefit that can be attained by choosing to play this particular game with a very different set of rules.

Ask yourself, if your IT organization can rarely find the time to invest in meaningful business innovation activity, then shouldn't you consider the common reasons why -- and seek out the proven methods to proactively apply an alternative approach?

Innovation stuck in a holding pattern
According to a Forrester Research market assessment, a fundamental "lack of time available to invest in innovation" is one of the main reasons given by CIOs and their staff to explain why they're unable to participate in substantive new business impact activity.

In reality, they're consumed by routine IT operations and associated voice and data network management work. Better project management practices can ease the load, since adding new headcount to the team really isn't an option for many companies.

However, tweaking the current model rarely delivers significant results, because most IT teams have diligently squeezed every single ounce of efficiency from their daily routines.

Granted, sometimes the only way to gain a quantum leap in effectiveness is by applying a totally different model. Also, we already know what the typical "wait and see" attitudes will likely deliver. Enough said.

A profound new way of thinking
Therefore, people who have chosen to deploy a managed service solution have, in essence, taken themselves off the treadmill of perpetual drudgery by applying swift and decisive action.

No longer victims of legacy-thinking about how their IT role should function, they've evolved. Now, they're on a new path of creative Business Technology (BT) enlightenment, by choice.

Imagine what your traditional IT team could accomplish, if only they had the time. Better yet, now take the first step towards enabling them to gain the freedom to fuel their business technology innovation ideas that have been placed "on-hold" for way too long.

How to Enable the IT to BT Transformation

According to Forrester Research, as technology becomes integral to all types of commercial offerings and associated business strategy, the traditional model of IT as an independent and monolithic entity is clearly obsolete.

A proven Business Technology (BT) model will replace IT's legacy orientation -- with a focus on providing business value through process-governed services, measured in business-relevant terms.

Forrester believes that all business professionals should understand what is driving the shift from traditional IT -- as well as the key challenges around strategy, process, and culture when implementing BT practices.

So, how do you avoid the mistakes of the past, and pro-actively transform your IT capability to address today's apparent challenges? Forrester offers three key suggestions.

Deliver services and value, not hardware and software
IT's traditional focus on system components means that it has neglected to maximize business-relevant services for its internal customers. This piecemeal approach led to excessive complexity and redundancy.

In contrast, BT convergence is meant to align or better synchronize disparate processes and technologies into integrated services that provide value to the business user.

Organize around holistic processes and a lean culture, not silos
Instead of allowing low-level tactical responses to proliferate, BT relies on a broader view of IT processes in order to make decisions that maximize value for business users.

This process shift must often be accompanied by a culture change. Lean methodologies and behaviors shed the traditional IT use of one-off workarounds in favor of continuous aggregation, experimentation, and learning that keep sight of overall business objectives.

Measure performance with business-relevant metrics, not IT assets
BT also means stronger performance management systems. IT has traditionally focused on providing resources that sometimes don't have a clear impact on business outcomes.

As an example, server availability and capacity utilization, while important, are not relevant to business executives. By replacing technical benchmarks with metrics like alignment to business strategy and IT spend ratio, the BT model enables decision makers to objectively consider business cases for the inherent value they provide.

Intro to the Business Technology Roundtable

Today, the application of technology is an integral part of most businesses – in some shape or form. However, while many decision makers are now primarily concerned with using technology to pursue new business opportunities, and gaining business-related capabilities is their main objective, the vendors and suppliers that they encounter sometimes don't speak the same language.

Matching buyer's business needs with technology vendor's offerings is sometimes referred to as the business/technology alignment chasm. Filling that void with substantive information, meaningful guidance, and compelling "how-to" storylines is the charter of the Business Technology Roundtable (BTR). We seek to shed light where there has been an apparent absence of editorial illumination.

A business technologist -- perhaps a new term to some -- should be focused on driving business technology adoption, rather than purely the acquisition of new systems.

They should also value delivering business results promptly, instead of merely applying inventive product features and functions. Once informed, they'll likely crave low-cost integration into existing business processes, pay-as-you-go pricing, and efficient knowledge transfer.

Given this backdrop, new business technology adoption is often more dependent upon changing behavior than the common prior scenario -- changing underlying technology.

Within this new scenario, the insights and recommendations of trusted peers and independent subject-matter experts supersede all others in the process of choosing a justifiable approach, and supporting key business decisions.

As the co-authors of BTR, we will be on the lookout for resources -- plus proven and repeatable processes -- to speed-up the shift to subscription-based business technology offerings. We'll also highlight the competencies required to enable the facilitation of adoption education and acceleration.

A Call to Action
We invite you to join us in an exploratory dialogue about managed Business Technology services, and welcome contributions of your ideas and associated expertise, as we embark upon this journey together.