Forrester Blogs › Category: IT automation

The Forrester SaaS ITSM Tool Market Overview: Who Is Where With What

Posted by Stephen Mann on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on February 26, 2013

Stephen Mann

It’s finally here. The Forrester Market Overview: SaaS IT Service Management Tools covers: a little ITSM tool history and how we have moved on, the benefits and risks of the SaaS delivery model, key selection criteria for selecting a SaaS (or on-premises) tool, and overviews of 23 tools (from 21 vendors) and their functional capabilities across the enterprise and midmarket marketplaces.

“Why on earth did you write a SaaS-only ITSM report?” I hear some cry

It’s simple – Forrester client demand. In 2012, a good 25% of my 400ish a year client inquiries related to IT service management (ITSM) tool selection; and the SaaS-delivery model (and the key vendors) was covered in nigh on all of them. That’s not to say the client ultimately went SaaS though, inquiries are very much about rapid information exchange in helping clients make important decisions. It’s not about making the decision for the client.

What the SaaS ITSM market looks like

The following figure shows the 23 vendor tools split by average customer subscription (seat) count (described as Enterprise, Upper Midmarket, and Lower Midmarket) and their degree of customer success (the number of paying customers):

There are of course other ITSM tool vendors who declined to participate for a variety of reasons. One would be that they were not briefing Forrester analysts and thus not on our radar.

The key benefits of SaaS for ITSM

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Automation: Is It The Only Way For IT To Really “Do More With Less”?

Posted by Stephen Mann on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on February 5, 2013

Stephen Mann

The changing business and IT landscapes bring increased demand for IT (or IT services) AND increasing complexity. The slide below (a tweaked version of a genuine Glenn O’Donnell original) paints a picture of increasing complexity and an impending capability gulf; if it isn’t already here.

So can IT organizations cope by increasing their manual ability, usually by employing or buying in more people resource?

Even if they could get suitable resource (availability and recruitment can be issues), could the parent business afford the jump in labor costs as these continue to be a highly-visible element of overall IT service delivery costs? Adding more people doesn’t necessarily fit in with the now oft-quoted mantra of “do (or deliver) more with less.”

A recent webinar with ServiceNow looked at drivers for and opportunities from automation, and how to approach building the business case for service management AND automation. Where Forrester defines automation as:

“Tools that perform functions otherwise done by humans.”

If you want to cut to the chase (i.e. don’t want to read the blog) …

… Then the on demand webinar can be found here: http://info.servicenow.com/LP=1021 (sign up required)

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What's Your IT Service Management Strategy (If You Actually Have One)?

Posted by Stephen Mann on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on August 20, 2012

Stephen Mann

Unfortunately I don’t often hear “strategy” and “IT service management (ITSM)” in the same sentence, unless of course someone is maligning the ITIL 2011 Service Strategy book or if an organization is justifying a significant investment in a new ITSM tool (to me this is too often the breeding ground for failed aspirations). Alternatively we often talk about (and are consumed by) tactical ITSM issues and our tactical responses. So where and what is your ITSM strategy? And where is your ITSM strategic plan?

If you have answers to these questions you probably don’t need to read this blog so feel free to choose another. If you don’t, don’t you think you should? I’ve stolen some written-word from my colleague Jean-Pierre Garbani to get you thinking.

What’s your strategy for ITSM strategy?

I’m not going to answer this – I just thought it a funny question. Better starter questions are probably: “What do I mean by strategy?” and “What is strategic planning?”

I can’t help but use the ever-useful Wikipedia for the first:

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Prepare Your People For The Future Of IT Service Delivery

Posted by Stephen Mann on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on August 13, 2012

Stephen Mann

At our core we are “IT people” (hopefully you are shouting at your screen, “No, I'm a business person!” but please bear with me), so it is all too easy for us to look at the future of IT service delivery purely from a technology perspective; that is, to be absorbed by the opportunities and challenges such as bring-your-own-device (BYOD), mobility, social, shiny SaaS ITSM tools, and cloud per se.

For instance, my colleague Glenn O’Donnell can often be heard saying that “the future of service management is an automated one,” and, unless you have access to the report from which I lifted this quote (and much of this blog), it is too easy to forget about how the “yellow brick road” to the future affects our people. Glenn’s report covers this in some detail, and I have politely stolen some of it to include below.

Looking at the future from an employee perspective = fear

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The Future Of ITSM Drops The “IT” And Replaces It With Automation

Posted by Eveline Oehrlich on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on July 26, 2012

Eveline Oehrlich

 

Here’s the hard truth:IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams are becoming less relevant. This will only accelerate now that we are in what Forrester calls “the age of the customer” where bring-your-own-technology policies and “as-a-service” software and infrastructure proliferate.

In this new world, developers still need compute and storage to keep up with growth. And workers need some sort of PC or mobile device to get their jobs done. But they don’t necessarily need you in corporate IT to give it to them. Case and point: employees pay for 70% of the tablets used for work.

At the end of the day, if you can’t deliver on what your workforce and developers care about, they will use whatever and whoever to get their jobs done better, faster and cheaper.

Much of this comes down to customer experience, or how your customers perceive their every interaction with the IT organization, from your staff in the helpdesk to corporate applications they access every day. Here’s a proof point on how much customer experience matters from Forrester’s soon to be published book, Outside In: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew 22% percent.

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IT Service Management AND Automation: Now That's A Double Whammy Of Business-Enabling Goodness

Posted by Stephen Mann on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on June 21, 2012

Stephen Mann

A recent Forrester report helps IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders understand the business and IT impact of service management and automation (SMA). While both IT service management (ITSM) and automation can be used effectively in isolation, I&O organizations should be seeking to use them in tandem for an "amplified" business impact.

The General Benefits Of Service Management And Automation

The general benefits of SMA can be divided between the I&O organization and the business, though these benefits often overlap:

While SMA is much more than the adoption of IT infrastructure library (ITIL), the ITSM best practice framework, thinking and processes — ITIL's benefits are quite reflective of the general benefits of broader SMA. In a survey of 491 members of the USA chapter of the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF), Forrester found that organizations which adopted ITIL experience the following benefits:

  • Improved staff productivity that allows the business to become more competitive (85%).
  • Heightened quality of service that improves business uptime and customer experience (83%).
  • Reduced operational costs to reinvest in new and innovative initiatives (41%).
  • Improved reputation with the business (65%).
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NetIQ + Novell: A Nice Combo That Could Be Even Better If ...

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on September 14, 2011

Glenn O'Donnell

 

On 22-Nov-2010, Attachmate Corporation announced it was acquiring the assets of Novell, Inc. Once on top of the IT world, Novell's glory had clearly faded. Along the way, however, it acquired several attractive assets of its own (e.g., PlateSpin, Managed Objects). Towards the end of its independence, the future certainly looked bleak for Novell and especially its management software businesses.

The immediate reaction to the Attachmate acquisition was skepticism among most industry watchers, including yours truly. My reaction was similar when Attachmate acquired NetIQ. After all, what rationale is there to a legacy mainframe software company buying either NetIQ or Novell? The perception was that all of these product families would be milked for their maintenance revenue and innovation, and other development would be killed. It now appears these fears were largely unfounded, though I stand by my original skepticism. Veterans like me have seen such things unravel before.

The various Novell assets have been redistributed across four companies in the Attachmate Group, with the management assets being assimilated under the NetIQ brand. While a full merger of the NetIQ and Novell assets will take at least a year, the (now) NetIQ team has moved with impressive speed to launch its initial consolidated families.

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Forrester's Infrastructure & Operations Forum US 2010 Day One Roundup

Posted by Rachel Dines on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on March 19, 2010

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Rachel Dines

Well, it's been a whirlwind two days at the Infrastructure & Operations Forum here in Dallas! I know that not everyone has the opportunity to attend these events, so for all of you stuck at home (and not in sunny Dallas), I've summarized some of the keynotes (with help from Christian Kane and Lauren Nelson) for you to check out. There is also a great conversation about the forum on twitter , so you should definitely check that out as well.

Rob Whiteley kicks off the day with a preview of the next two days and some AC/DC music (the theme of the event is "Back in Black"). First up is Glenn O'Donnell:

The New I&O Landscape: Aligning I&O With Post-Recession Business Imperatives 
Glenn O'Donnell, Senior Analyst, Forrester 
Ha, this presentation is based on the book "He's Just Not That Into You" and it is about the love story between I&O and the business.
I&O, how can you win the love of the business?

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Opalis Was NOT Acquired By Microsoft

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on November 6, 2009

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Glenn O'Donnell

Glenn O'Donnell

The IT management software and operations communities have been buzzing this week about reports that Microsoft acquired IT process automation vendor Opalis Software. We have unequivocally confirmed that this rumor is incorrect. Opalis has NOT been acquired by Microsoft. It remains an independent entity, at least for now.

Opalis, based outside of Toronto, has repeatedly reported impressive revenue growth over its short history. For the past few years, it has been a desirable morsel for larger vendors seeking to add strong process automation to their portfolios. Many have expressed interest, but its success allows Opalis to command a high premium that no suitor has yet been willing to pay.

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Glenn's Picks for the ITSM Fusion 09 Conference

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on September 21, 2009

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Glenn O'Donnell

Glenn O'DonnellI am off to the annual itSMF USA conference in Dallas TX, better known as Fusion 09. This is expected to be the biggest and best IT Servcie Management conference yet and the pinnacle of the itSMF USA organizations progress to date. I hope these predictions come true because I am an avid supporter of itSMF and its mission to promote service management excellence.

As one element of a new partnership between Forrester Research and itSMF USA, we will be holding one-on-one meetings between conference attendees and Forrester analysts. Both my delightful and brilliant colleague Evelyn Hubbert and I will be there and we look forward to one-on-one meetings with as many people we can fit in!

With all the wonderful sessions that will be happening at the conference, it is tough to pick favorites. Still, here are the sessions I hope to catch while I'm there.

Monday 21-Sep

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