Seeking Examples of ITSM Value

Ann All | | Posted 31 Dec, 2010

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Establishing a hard ROI for IT service management initiatives is a tough task. A number of experts told me so last spring when I interviewed them for a story on quantifying ITIL benefits. As IDC analyst Fred Broussard, who surveyed 600 global IT organizations for a whitepaper on IT service management needs and adoption trends, told me:

ITIL helps you manage services better and work across organizations more smoothly, so you make fewer errors. It's hard to think about that in a way that saves the company money. Money not spent in tracking down errors is much softer than reducing the number of servers or software licenses you are buying.

But that doesn't mean folks have given up on trying to illustrate clear returns from ITIL. (Nor should they.) Andrew Brummer, a sales executive for IT service management (ITSM) software and services provider ICCM Solutions, is recruiting folks willing to contribute examples of how they've derived value from ITSM, with the aim of creating a whitepaper filled with lessons learned that can help provide guidance to all organizations interested in ITIL. Wrote Brummer in an e-mail:

What I hope to get out of this is a set of information, documents and websites that people can use to try help find the ITSM ROI. I do not believe that any one size will fit all. I am after creating a library of information that I hope to maintain that we can help the market understand where it is seeing the ROI value of operational improvement programs.

Brummer plans to consolidate submissions, removing identifying information such as names and putting them into an easily accessible format. Participants will receive an invitation to access them and "the next step will be analyzing the information to see if there are trends and areas of particular depth," says Brummer. "Those areas identified will be further analyzed in hopes of compiling some examples of hard cost savings." Information will be available only to those who contribute examples.

Brummer provided a sample of the format he'd like participants to use:

Name
Phone number
E-mail
Vertical (government, education, etc.)
Country
Process (Example: request fulfillment/line of business)
Initiative/purpose (Example: to reduce the man time is takes to get CCTV footage to court rooms, thus increasing time police officers can spend on crimefighting activities)
Summary of activities (Identified time-wasting activities, developed relationship with line of business, demonstrated core capabilities to the LOB, developed process with the LOB, configured the Request process, placed into pre-production within eight days of initial work sessions, placed into production and POC, full adoption within 60 working days, customer funded the process and tool configuration)
Savings explanation (Time for officers to get CCTV footage reduced from an average of six hours per event down to 30 minutes. CCTV footage is requested electronically and delivered to the requested point. No loss of requests. No IT savings.)
Estimated benefits (4 hours per event, 200 events a month, estimated cost of officer GBP38k, GBP281 expenses to obtain, annual hard savings of 55 and annual salary productivity increase of 80k)
Project duration (5 weeks)
Time to see benefits (2 months)
How you created visibility of benefits (Engaged LOB in initial work sessions, tracked officer time of actuals against speed using the request system)
How did organization respond (LOB requested additional processes. Launched three additional initiatives, each introducing similar savings. All project work sponsored by LOB as a result of the low cost and quick turnaround. Business ready to fund two additional initiatives.)