Technology has the power to enhance agility, boost productivity and fuel growth. To harness this power effectively, various disciplines have emerged to manage technology usage, control costs and optimize how technology is distributed across an organization. These include ITAM (IT Asset Management), SAM (Software Asset Management) and APM (Application Portfolio Management). Service Operations (ServiceOps) is a practice that brings together these disciplines to achieve a holistic approach to technology management.
ServiceOps embraces a unified approach, seamlessly integrating IT operations management (ITOM) and IT service management (ITSM) processes to provide a comprehensive 360-degree overview of IT delivery, utilization and accountability.
As IT environments become increasingly complex, the need for a holistic IT management approach becomes more crucial. This is where ServiceOps now plays a role, providing a unified framework that empowers IT services and operations teams to enhance their efficiency, swiftly address issues – and even prevent them before they occur.
ServiceOps effectively eliminates departmental, informational and knowledge silos within organizations, fostering a collaborative environment that enhances productivity, reduces costs, optimizes technology utilization and significantly improves the end-user experience.
The SoftwareOne CIO Pulse report revealed that an overwhelming 83% of CIOs recognize the urgent need to achieve more with fewer resources, or to “do more with less”. Optimizing asset and service management processes can play a significant role in fulfilling this need. This could involve reducing software licensing costs or enhancing the effectiveness of IT services.
Embarking on the path to a leaner and more efficient IT infrastructure can be daunting, especially when faced with a sea of acronyms. To help clarify the journey, let's delve into the core IT disciplines that form the foundation of ServiceOps. By understanding the role and benefits each discipline brings to the table, you can make informed decisions about optimizing your IT ecosystem.
A: Using APM, organizations can optimize their application landscape by identifying which applications offer the most value and which ones are underused or redundant. By aligning application use with business goals, APM drives operational efficiency by making the best use of each application. It also helps to minimize security threats and compliance risks.
Business value:
A: A CMDB is a central repository that stores information – known as configuration items (CIs) – about every hardware and software asset in your IT environment. Using a CMDB, IT managers have a detailed view of all IT assets that helps them to map dependencies, predict the effect of changes and identify assets that need replacing or no longer deliver value. A CMDB can improve core ITSM practices such as change, incident and problem management. It can also help with allocating IT billing statements and managing IT finance.
Business value:
A: ITAM is a system for managing an organization’s hardware and software assets throughout their entire lifecycle, from initial procurement to usage to retirement and disposal. Strong ITAM practices can have a significant impact on reducing IT spend – large organizations can achieve substantial savings of seven figures or more. ITAM also provides essential workflows and automation to support other IT management disciplines, including APM, ITOM, ITSM and more.
Business value:
A: Organizations use ITOM to manage the operational aspects of their IT environment, including desktops, servers and mobile devices; networking devices and applications; and operations such as user account management, backups and incident response. ITOM is aimed at ensuring efficient and cost-effective business operations and can improve operational efficiencies and outcomes by up to 35%. It also works to improve the quality and experience of how IT is delivered. In addition, it makes business operations more cost effective by improving service delivery – for example, by eliminating human error. ITOM can also improve decision making by up to 40% by consolidating multiple data sources, tools and applications into a single repository.
Business value:
A: ITSM is the set of practices used to manage end-to-end delivery of IT as a service. It focuses on meeting the IT needs of end users across an organization to help the business achieve its goals. For example, ITSM guides organizations on how to fulfil service desk or support requests and how to manage change in the IT environment. ITSM provides tools, processes and workflow insights to help IT teams improve costs, efficiency and productivity.
Business value:
A: SPM describes the strategic management process that organizations use to define, structure and manage their internal IT services, ensuring they are aligned with business objectives. Using SPM, organizations can gain valuable insights to improve the efficiency and efficacy of their IT services. This helps to develop IT services that offer greater value, support business growth, and improve return on investment (ROI).
Business value:
A: SAM aims to control costs and maximize value by identifying how much you own of each application and by mapping software license purchases to actual software usage. Using SAM, organizations gain better understanding of their software estate and licensing, which can help with software vendor contract negotiations, vendor audits and application rationalization/reduction efforts using APM, which complements SAM.
Business value:
By embracing a ServiceOps mindset, organizations can achieve multiple benefits. Although each of the IT and IT service management practices described above is useful when employed individually, they work better together. Combining these disciplines is the best way to deliver true value to an organization, enabling the organization to streamline operations, greatly reduce costs and build a much stronger foundation for business innovation and growth.
SoftwareOne has long-held experience in all aspects of IT asset and service management to deliver end-to-end ServiceOps solutions. Our accredited ServiceNow consultants work collaboratively with your organization to drive cost savings and enhance business performance through the combination of multiple practices – from ITAM to SAM to ITOM to ITSM – so they work better together.
Increased budgets for IT departments next year are being met with increased demands. SoftwareOne’s ServiceOps can help you meet next year’s expectations now.
Increased budgets for IT departments next year are being met with increased demands. SoftwareOne’s ServiceOps can help you meet next year’s expectations now.
