By Dick Stark
On Wednesday more than 100 people attended RightStar’s “What’s New in BMC Remedy ITSM 8.0,” webinar led by Solutions Consultant, Roger East. Just like the BMC service request module is now the cornerstone of Remedy 8.0, so should a service catalog be the cornerstone or center of the IT universe.
When I polled the audience, however I discovered that only 11 percent had implemented a service catalog, with only 20 percent planning to implement. This is a missed opportunity as service catalogs ranked third on Gartner’s list of elements that help most with IT cost optimization (see below). Service catalogs, which are sometimes referred to as self-service portals, or storefronts, have become mission critical to the entire organization. Properly deployed, a service catalog is the new “face of IT” within the organization providing actionable service offerings normally delivered quickly and efficiently to the requestor.
RightStar offers service catalog consulting and implementation services through BMC’s Remedy, Remedyforce, and FootPrints product offerings. With Remedy’s Service Request Management (SRM), RightStar recommends designing a service catalog based upon what matters most to the organization and move onward from there. For example, at US Customs and Immigration Service, RightStar implemented a Service Catalog for hardware, software, and cell phone requests across the USCIS organization.
SRM 8.0 allows a customer to login and create actionable service requests from a customizable menu as shown below.
IT’s goal should be to make provisioning a laptop or cellphone as easy as ordering a book from Amazon. It is the service catalog that:
- Defines and communicates standardized offerings.
- Provides an easy-to-use interface to enable self-service for business users or developers.
- Facilitates automated provisioning and tracks the lifecycle of the service.
In summary, service catalogs bring true automation and efficiency and provide IT organizations with improved customer satisfaction and cost savings.
