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A recent market share report confirms that IBM has maintained the top position in IT Operations Management for the 5th consecutive year. To get a perspective on the current ITOM market and how it is evolving toward IT Service Management (ITSM), we talked to Michael McCarthy, Director of Strategy, IBM Tivoli Software.
What explains IBM’s dominant position in the ITOM market?
First, we have a very broad portfolio that spans server, network, storage, security, and application management. Customers appreciate the ability to get solutions from as few vendors as possible.
Second, not only does Tivoli offer a broad portfolio of products, but it is unique in that these products are integrated. This integration improves the total value of the solution to the customer.
Customers are reacting to the breadth of our products and the integration of our solutions. They are buying into our vision of IT Service Management; they are able to see the value of a long term relationship with IBM. Our position in the market is a reflection of this.
With the current emphasis on IT service delivery, how is that changing the needs of customers?
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It’s not really changing the needs of customers, but it’s fundamentally making them more aware of the need to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the management of IT Services. With the announcement of our long-term vision around ITSM last year and our recent announcement of the availability of new ITSM offerings, customers are now able to see that they have better options to address these needs.
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Think of IT as a business and you’ll find the same needs to standardize, integrate, and automate processes. Technology enters the arena as the component that enables all of that to happen. |
What roles are business consultants and IBM Business Partners playing in ITSM?
The McKinseys of this world, along with traditional systems integrators, are definitely playing a key role in customer interest and adoption of ITSM.
There are often implications for change in organizational structure and organizational behavior that go beyond just a technology perspective when you start looking at a more process-based approach to IT. Customers are often looking for consulting assistance and readiness assessments, which is exactly why we are so tightly connected with IBM Global Technology Services. We know that customers need that assistance and IBM has the capability to provide it.
Would you characterize ITSM as more of a business process than a technology process?
It’s a little bit of both. When we started looking at IT Service Management, we quickly realized that we were often applying the same concepts to IT that we would for a business, whether it is a manufacturing business, a distribution business, a health care business, or a financial services business. Think of IT as a business and you’ll find the same needs to standardize, integrate, and automate processes.
Technology enters the arena as the component that enables all of that to happen. ERP is very analogous to the needs that ITSM is trying to address. As a result, some of the technology concepts around data integration, workflow integration, and policy integration apply equally whether you are talking about a business process or an IT process, which I would argue is a business process.
In fact, from our perspective, we are applying the same technology that we are providing for business processes. It could be the IBM WebSphere® Process Server for workflow integration. It could also be some of our information technology out of our DB2 team for data management, federation, synchronization, and reconciliation. It’s the exact same concept and the exact same technology.
McKinsey would make the argument that IT must be a business process. Is that where IBM Global Technology Services comes in?
Indeed, IBM Global Services has a tremendous amount of experience in assisting customers with IT Service Management projects. They can provide not only consulting services to help customers assess their situation and develop strategies for embarking on an ITSM initiative, but they also can provide services to deploy ITSM technologies from Tivoli.
What is the biggest challenge facing customers in implementing ITSM?
There are two major challenges to overcome here. First, it will be a challenge to go beyond process documentation to true process automation. There is value in documenting processes, and this must be done, but customers will fall far short of their potential for improved IT Service Management if they do not also automate their processes. Second, it will also be a challenge for customers to leverage their existing management technology in the context of ITSM.
IBM’s approach to ITSM addresses both of these issues by design. We provide technology to truly automate IT processes, including integration with IBM and other management tools to automate the tasks within those processes.
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