Are SMBs ready for service management?

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: LISA ERICKSON-HARRIS ON
NETWORK/SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
06/13/05
Today's focus: Are SMBs ready for service management?

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Selling service management to small businesses
* Links related to Network/Systems Management
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Are SMBs ready for service management?

By Lisa Erickson-Harris

It's no secret that the technology needs of small to midsized
businesses are often left unmet. For most SMBs, budgets are
lower, IT staff is limited and overtaxed, and strategic planning
is secondary. Will these organizations be able to shift their
paradigm to take advantage of managing IT from a services
perspective?

Let's begin by looking at process models. There are innumerable
products that address service-level management. Many of the
vendors offering them are taking advantage of the increased
interest in process development and "management of IT as a
business."

Enterprise Management Associates' research has repeatedly shown
over the past two years that the IT Infrastructure Library
(ITIL) is the process model most commonly on the minds of IT
groups across every vertical market segment in North America. It
was widely accepted in Europe long ago.

But a recent EMA study revealed that companies with fewer than
500 employees are not adopting ITIL or really any process model
at the same rate as their large enterprise counterparts. In
fact, 30% of the 191 survey respondents indicated that they had
no plans to adopt a process model at all.

That's not to say that there are not some SMB organizations
moving down the process path: 19% of participants have adopted
ITIL, 26% have developed their own process model, and 23% are
planning to adopt an unspecified process model.

EMA sees this as reflective of financial and staffing resources
required for this investment. It is not largely a lack of
awareness, but rather one of ability to implement.

There are many challenges involved in implementing a service
management strategy, not the least of which are dealing with the
politics of working closely with business leaders to understand
the company's priorities and goals, evaluating the status of
business processes that may or may not exist, integrating
silo-oriented technology management, and dealing with all the
different personalities along the way. IT must then add to this
a solid understanding of how to manage IT from a service
perspective, implementing tools and IT processes, negotiating
SLAs, gaining approval for SLM purchases, and then training IT
and business personnel on the merits of IT service management.

EMA's research shows that of those SMB organizations that have
begun the process of adopting ITIL, service-level management has
not been the first priority. Instead, those disciplines that
help to address the inherently reactive nature of small
businesses have been implemented first. The most common
priorities were problem management (93%), change management
(69%), incident management (67%), and configuration management
(68%). Implementing these particular ITIL disciplines will help
to put small businesses' IT shops in a position to move to
service management. But they are not reflective of service
management more broadly - creating a gap for these companies
that needs to be filled.

IT groups have a finite set of resources - human, budgetary,
tools - regardless of company size - so decisions have to be
made on a daily basis about how to allocate these resources. For
SMBs, this can be related to Maslow's hierarchy of needs - basic
needs have to be satisfied before more visionary approaches can
be tackled. While IT managers can allocate some resources to
move in a services direction with the knowledge that it will
serve its enterprise well in the long run, core needs must be
met to maintain IT functions in the near term.

Most service management products are geared towards large
enterprises, but 56% of the products covered in SLM Solutions: A
Buyer's Guide, Third Edition, claimed to target SMB businesses
about 20% of the time. This represents significant growth in SMB
attention from one year ago.

But how many are truly tailoring their products to SMB needs?

SMBs can and do hire consultants to help them move more quickly
towards service management - but as I heard recently from one IT
shop, "consultants with ITIL and service management expertise
are difficult to find." Perhaps the call to action in the
question of SMB and service management must go out to vendors.
Vendors that reach out to SMBs and listen to their needs for
simplistic, automated, and phased approaches to service
management may in the end help market growth.

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_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Lisa Erickson-Harris

Lisa Erickson-Harris is a research director with Enterprise
Management Associates <http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/> in
Boulder, Colo., a leading analyst and market research firm
focusing exclusively on enterprise infrastructure management.
Lisa has more than 18 years of experience working in all aspects
of IT, including network administration, software development,
product management, and strategic partnership development. Her
current focus at EMA is service-level management, partnership
strategies, and management systems for the SMB/SME environment.

She can be reached via e-mail at
<mailto:erickson-harris@enterprisemanagement.com>
Download a free copy of the new SLM Buyer's Guide at
<http://www.slm-info.org/>
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