New Optimism for the ITSM Space

Posted on May 12, 2014 by dick1stark

“A rising tide lifts all the boats. And a partnership, by definition, serves both parties…”

—-John F. Kennedy

By Dick Stark

I have three good reasons why I’m more optimistic about the ITSM space than ever before.:  (1) BMC is making good progress on many fronts, (2) the RightStar pipeline looks very strong now, and (3) ServiceNow continues to outperform on a continual basis.

Let’s start with ServiceNow (SNOW). On April 23, SNOW reported another breakout quarter by exceeding all expectations: $139M in total revenue in Q1, with an expectation of $665M in 2014. Hard to believe, but in Q1 alone SNOW added 115 new sales and marketing people. SNOW also disclosed a 97% customer renewal rate and announced nine new annual contract value (ACA) deals worth more than a million. BMC is private and is no longer required to disclose revenue, but my guess is that SNOW is quickly approaching BMC in terms of total ITSM revenue. Since both BMC and RightStar compete against SNOW, how can this be good news?

Competition is always a good thing. As a result, BMC has responded with more innovative products like MyIT, and a soon-to-be beta tested new version of Remedy.  Also thanks to SNOW, more attention than ever before has been focused on ITSM, especially  in areas beyond the traditional service desk. Additionally, we can all thank SNOW for pushing the benefits and value of a SaaS solution, especially just as Remedyforce is getting much better. Although our win rate against SNOW vs Remedyforce has been low, that’s changing. Remember, SNOW did not get to be a $665M company because their products are inexpensive.

After going private last year, BMC is making good progress on many fronts. BMC has consolidated some sales functions and is looking for more partners to sell to the lower mid-market.  FootPrints v12 shipped on April 29, amid some glowing reviews.  Especially interesting is the personalization and customization capabilities that FootPrints v12 offers.  Likewise Remedyforce Winter 14 is more competitive than ever. Included now is a gamification options featuring Bunchball’s Nitro.

Finally, RightStar’s pipeline looks strong for our SMB team and the Remedy forecast shows several significant opportunities as well.   I also look forward to the Forrester ITSM consultancy Wave report and reading about RightStar.  This report should be out in the next 30 days or so.

Additionally, I’m encouraged because industry pundits are optimistic.  According to Gartner, IT services is expected to total $964 billion in 2014, a 4.6% increase from 2013.  And SaaS still remains the hottest growth sector of all. Stay tuned–it’s a good time to be in the ITSM space.

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The Great Debate: SaaS vs. On-Premise

Posted on May 5, 2014 by dick1stark

By Dick Stark

RightStar’s eighth annual customer appreciation cruise, held Thursday on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., drew a large crowd. Stewart Ainsworth, CTO of BMC Federal moderated a panel discussion on SaaS vs. On-Premise, BMC’s  Carrie Anne Mosley, VP Sales of Remedyforce and Michele McFadden, Senior Product Director, ITSM were the panelists. Carrie-Anne represented BMC Remedyforce, and Michele, Remedy on-Premise or FootPrints Service Core. Here’s a short synopsis of a few key points:

1. Financial Implications. Carrie-Anne pointed out that for many, the key benefit of SaaS is its simple, subscription-based pricing model: Organizations pay a subscription fee per year per user that covers everything needed to operate, including support and maintenance. This model provides a lower and consistent level of opex without any of the capex investment required for on-premises hardware and software licenses. As a result, the total cost of ownership of SaaS is lower.

Michele said to watch out for hidden costs of SaaS providers such as charges for disaster recovery, data storage, and back-up. She also quoted from a Gartner study that showed that implementation cost for a SaaS based ITSM system is no lower than an on-premise based system.  Michele stated that a FootPrints Service Core system could be up and running in three weeks, whereas a SaaS based system could take much longer.

2. Security. Carrie-Anne discussed Salesforce’s force.com platform’s security record, pointing out that Salesforce’s #1 goal is security.  She said that because, Salesforce is a public company, a security breach would pummel the stock.  In Salesforce’s 15 years that has not happened.  Carrie-Ann then mentioned that Remedyforce is “in line” for FedRAMP certification in June.  FedRAMP is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. (Some Federal Agencies may not be able to procure Remedyforce until it is FedRAMP certified).

Michele stated that a key advantage of on-premise is that customers are in control of their own environment and by default, security. Customers control their own data centers and  access to their environment and data.  Security tests such as intrusion detection and virus scans are the customer’s responsibility, not something left up to a cloud provider.

3. Integration Considerations.  Carrie-Anne said that there are a myriad of options to integrate with Remedyforce.  One is Pentahoe, which is included with Remedyforce and allows integration to various data sources and systems.  She said that customer data is always owned by the customer and is available should the customer decide to move to a new system.  Michele described integration flexibility as a key differentiator for Remedy and mentioned integrations such as: network monitoring tools, ticket exchanges to other systems, and even an integration to a blood donor system.

One attendee summed the cruise up this way, “I’ve been to every cruise and this was by far the best one ever.”

RightStar will repeat this session in a live webinar to be held in mid-June.  Stay tuned….

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The Hunt for the Coveted “New Logo”

Posted on April 14, 2014 by dick1stark

madmen

By Dick Stark

People want to be told what to do so badly that they will listen to anyone.

The day you sign a client is the day you start losing one.

            –Don Draper, Mad Men

BMC wants its partners to focus primarily on new logo opportunities.  That is, accounts that are “net new” to BMC and its array of business service management products. And who wouldn’t want new customers? Most sales metrics show that new markets, customers, and products are critical for growth. Not surprisingly, however, and according to Forbes Magazine, new customer acquisition is six to seven times more expensive than maintaining an existing customer.

While Don Draper’s customers in the 1960’s may have wanted to be “told,” that is no longer true today. According to the Corporate Executive Board, prospects are 60 to 70 percent through the sales cycle before they even want to engage with a sales rep.  When they do, more often than not they will contact the manufacturer rather than the reseller. Despite advances in automatic dialers, lead lists, and cold calling techniques, if a prospect doesn’t want to be contacted, it is nearly impossible to break through. So how does RightStar become a successful hunter and finder of new business opportunities?

The answer is simple.  We must be our client’s expert advisor in the service management space and we must continue to demonstrate thought leadership. Prospects want content and value and we can help give that to them.  Here’s how:

ITSM Blogging.  Other than me, RightStar has four other bloggers focused on Remedy, ITIL, FootPrints, Remedyforce and Asset Core.  A new customer told us that their decision to use RightStar for their professional services was due in part to our FootPrints blogs.

Webinars and Seminars. In Q1, RightStar marketing has orchestrated 17 events: 12 webinars, three lunch and learns, and two tradeshows.  Knowing that time is precious, RightStar has focused on more 30-minute webinars with good success. The result: nearly 1000 signups . In Q2, we will roll out a new discussion webinar format utilizing WebEx’s video conferencing capability.

Apollo 13 simulation training. In Q1 we offered a free Apollo session and will follow up with another free session in Q2.  Simulation training focuses on problem solving and the value ITIL provides to an organization.  Plus it makes ITSM fun and entertaining.

Website updates.  Anyone been to the RightStar website lately? We haveadded new content around Remedyforce Winter 14.  Additionally, we have 178 videos available on our RightStarTV, YouTube channel. And please don’t miss my discussion on Alf’s Zoo.

We’re off to an excellent thought leadership start in 2014 but we can do even better.  Expect more white papers, solution briefs, success stories, and speaking engagements.  RightStar will continue to work hard to turn consultants into educators and sales reps into challengers who understand needs and value.

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Remedyforce Winter 14 Update

Posted on March 29, 2014 by dick1stark

By Dick Stark and Wade Wennik

What’s new with Remedyforce Winter 14?

BMC hosted a Remedyforce Winter 14 preview webinar last week for its customers and partners. Winter 14 adds significant improvements and BMC is making it much easier and quicker for its customers to upgrade. The new release of Remedyforce focuses on the themes of usability, IT productivity, gamification and integration.

Winter 14 brings with it the integration of MyIT, which can cut support costs and boost customer satisfaction enabling the productivity of social collaboration. End users and service desk analysts can view, post and comment on technical issues for peer support or use the One-to-Many channel that lets IT departments help multiple customers in real-time. Service desk staff can also review questions, appointments and requests in the activities stream.

Also new is the IT Staff Console which allows IT staff to access and manage Incidents, Service Requests, Tasks, Problems, Change Requests and Releases from a centralized screen and enables the user to navigate between open records and add attachments to improve communication and information flow. This can reduce the mean time to repair as well as process flow enforcement and accompanying documentation of ITIL best practice in the problem management.

The Winter 14 update also brings with it gamification. This allows management to motivate IT staff with real-time feedback, incentives and rewards to create a more productive team. Winter 14 also has improved customization features. For example, the self-service portal can now be branded, including color customization and imagery. These configurations can be broken out by multiple internal or external audiences (Human Resources, Business Partners or Customers) to create unique experiences.

CMDB enhancements, reconciliation and normalization via BMC Atrium is also available. This allows for simplified reporting, imports, integration and data management. Normalization and reconciliation of asset data imported from the multiple discovery tools including the BMC Atrium enables the management of a single authoritative source of inventory and configuration data in Remedyforce. New Remedyforce customers will now be using CMDB 2.0 data model. Customers upgrading have the choice to migrate to 2.0 or stick with the older data model.

Another new feature is the “Push” updates where customers no longer have to grant access to BMC Support to upgrade their Org. Upgrades can be scheduled for either Sandbox, Production or both. Customers must continue to contact BMC support or their customer success manager to schedule upgrades.

Other Key Integrations Include:

  • BMC FootPrints Asset Core
  • BMC ADDM & Atrium CMDB
  • BMC BladeLogic Client Automation
  • Bunchball Gamification
  • Cloud Coach Project Management
  • OneLogin Identity Management
  • Survey Monkey

Availability

BMC has already begun pushing Remedyforce Winter 14 to Sandboxes starting February 23rd and all Sandboxes should have been updated by March 5th. The final production release was Monday, March 24.

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Character + Competence = Trust

Posted on March 16, 2014 by dick1stark

sports Illustrated

By Dick Stark

I just read an incredible story in Sports Illustrated by Chris Ballard, about a high school basketball team in San Jose, California.  In the fall of 2011 and fed up with his team’s poor attitude, Coach Mike Allen suspended every starter.  A boycott by the other players left him short of a full team. In the competitive world of high school basketball, when it is all about winning at any cost, this never happens.  But was the suspension, and the resultant boycott, the right thing to do?

With all but four players either suspended or boycotting, Coach Allen took the only action available. He started over, recruiting new players and promoting several freshmen.  The result?  They lost all their remaining games.  They didn’t just lose, they were “blown away.”  To rub salt in the wounds, many of the boycotting players watching games from the stands laughed and joked at the young team.  Coach Allen came under intense pressure from parents, that the punishment did not fit the crime, that these were kids, not adults, and this was not the right time to “take a stand” or “make a point.” Further, nine of the players were seniors and this was to be their year.  Now, it was like their senior season never existed.

Yet, public opinion and the media stood firmly behind Coach Allen.  He did not back down, finished out the season and looked to next year.  In the fall, 35 kids showed up for varsity tryouts, including several players that had boycotted the previous season. Amazingly, the team went 17-12 and made the section quarterfinals.  Was Coach Allen vindicated?  Whose character was tested, and was this the right action?

These were life lessons about authority, sacrifice, loyalty, and setting the right example–lessons that carry over to later in life, that could make a huge difference in career or life performance.

At RightStar, we view doing the right thing (ethics) as a business driver that adds value to our customers, employees, partners, and to our bottom line.  Interesting, BMC recently surveyed their sales and sales management team about RightStar.  Two things stood out: RightStar is trusted immensely and we are great team players, very transparent in working with BMC.

Of course, trust is a critical success factor in sales success. Mike Bosworth, author of What Great Salespeople Do, points out that trust is the most important characteristic of sales performance.  Trust is built though character, competence and emotional connection with the customer. Maybe not surprisingly, according to Sales and Marketing Magazine, 39% of salespeople are NOT trustworthy.

How do we know when a customer trusts us? Since RightStar’s mission is to be our customer’s trusted advisor in the ITSM space, trust is the key word.  Yet, trust is a feeling, it is not tangible, nor is it necessarily teachable. Customers trust us and then in turn give us access to all key groups and buyers, share business pain and gain behind projects, and may even share their life stories.  We become trustworthy when we share our experiences, both personal and business. That’s why our customer success stories, good and bad are so powerful, and why we must continue to show that every customer is a reference and that we will always work hard to do the right thing.

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Remedy vs. Remedy-onDemand

Posted on March 12, 2014 by dick1stark

By Dick Stark

I excerpted the following from a government proposal we submitted that required a comparison between Remedy and Remedy OnDemand.  The answer might surprise you…

To excel at BSM, Big Government Agency (BGA) must rely heavily on out-of-the-box BSM tools. This space is quickly being disrupted by software-as-a-service options from existing and new competition. But is SaaS actually cheaper, and is the higher customer satisfaction due to the SaaS delivery model or to new and better fitting solutions such as Remedy OnDemand (RoD) from BMC?  The big question:  Is SaaS the answer to BGA’s perceived on-premise tool woes?

Organizations like BGA that have not kept pace with Remedy’s current software version, and not made the investment in continual process improvement typically have complaints such as:

  • “Is too costly to run.”
  • “Too much time is required to move between versions.”
  • “Is complicated and cumbersome to use.”
  • “Is a poor fit to operational and organizational requirements.”
  • “Is too heavily customized.”

So should BGA blame BMC and more specifically, Remedy?  No, Remedy is not perfect, but the entire ecosystem is responsible, from consultancies, systems integrators, administrators, and IT departments. Many Remedy users do not use Remedy to its maximum potential due to a number of issues such as day-to-day firefighting.  It is like having a Ferrari parked in a garage.

BMC Remedy is offered in both a SaaS basis, RoD or an on-Premise basis.  Although the functionality of both products is identical, the delivery model is not.  Remedy requires dedicated servers operating system and database software. The pricing model is perpetual with annual maintenance pricing. RoD is SaaS based meaning that the application is hosted and managed in a secure data center.  Software upgrades are provided by BMC, and as long as customizations and integrations are standard, the upgrade process is quick. The pricing model is based upon yearly subscription payments.

RightStar’s proposal documented a case study that resembled BGA.  That case study proposed two solutions:  200 users of Remedy on-Premise and 200 users of RoD. BGA’s purpose is to acquire, implement, and maintain complete and integrated Business Service Management (BSM) architecture solutions of processes, tools, and professional services.

The big question:  Is SaaS the answer to BGA’s perceived on-premise tool woes? The answer is a resounding no.  As a cost analysis shows, SaaS is not actually cheaper when all factors are considered over a seven year lifecycle. And when SaaS based security concerns are examined, the risk for a SaaS based solution hosted at a non-government data center is just too great.  To excel at BSM, BGA can rely heavily on out-of-the-box BMC Remedy on-premise ITSM. BMC is the market leader in this space and RightStar is BMC’s #1 public sector solutions provider.  This will significantly lower the risk of project success with the ultimate goals of better, faster, and cheaper.  The end result– improved staff productivity, heightened quality of services, and reduced operational costs should make BGA a model for BSM within BGA and other government organizations.

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The Martian

Posted on March 8, 2014 by dick1stark

The martian

By Dick Stark

When I kicked off our Apollo 13 simulation session last Friday, I mentioned that I was just finishing a new book by Andy Weir, The Martian, in which an Astronaut is accidently left behind on Mars to fend for himself, some 120 million miles from earth. (If you think getting back to earth on Apollo 13 was difficult, just wait until you read The Martian.)  The book is really about problem solving as the Astronaut confronts predicament after predicament.  Lack of food, water, and oxygen are immediate concerns as he struggles to figure out how to return home without a spacecraft.

Of course, Astronauts are skilled problem solvers, and training, combined with good problem solving skills may mean the difference between life and death. While the decisions made on the service desk may not be life threatening, good problem solving skills can make a huge difference in overall service management effectiveness.  Here are several ways IT professionals can solve problems like Astronauts.

Visualize Failure. In our first run-through our Apollo 13 simulation, the Astronauts did not survive. Why? Communication break-down, lack of defined service level agreements, uncertainty about priorities, and no clear plan. As Canadian Astronaut Col Chris Hadfield said in his book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Earth, “there is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.” This applies not only to re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, but also to solving an IT challenge such as performance tuning a Remedy implementation.  Anticipate problems and figure out how to solve them.

That’s why simulation exercises such as Apollo 13 are so effective. The collective group: L1, L2, Vendors, Mission Control, Change managers, get to prioritize risks, understand how they interrelate and decide which ones must be dealt with immediately. In Space, decisions must be made quickly given the severity of the situation, which may not be unlike supporting a mission critical server that just failed.

Problem and Knowledge Management. NASA has been capturing missteps, disasters, and lessons learned since the early days of the Mercury program. This compilation of knowledge is the basis for decision trees, rules, and procedures for troubleshooting almost anything in Space or on the ground.  Like an analyst remotely fixing a user’s computer virus, Mission Control, can walk Astronauts through problems they experience in orbit.

Training. Astronaut Chris Hadfield spent thousands of days in training after being selected into the Astronaut training program at JSC before his first Space voyage aboard the Shuttle. Astronauts study constantly, practice endlessly, and work every contingency.  They sweat the small stuff. While RightStar does not have an endless training budget, it is possible through self-study to train and learn like an Astronaut.

So, what happens to the Astronaut from The Martian? Well, I’m not quite finished with the story, and right now he is figuring out how to deal with a Martian dust storm, but given his training and problem solving skills, my bet is that he makes it back to earth alive.

 

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Report from the Pink 14 Launch Site

Posted on March 1, 2014 by dick1stark

Pink 14

By Dick Stark

The 19th annual Pink Elephant Conference, held February 16 to19 in Las Vega, is IT’s annual tribute and awards ceremony to all things ITIL. It’s fun and entertaining–words, not often found in the same sentence as ITIL. Here are a few things I learned at this year’s show.

There is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse. So said Canadian Astronaut Col Chris Hadfield, as he delivered the keynote address.  Chris spent four months in the international space station and is well known for his rendition of David’s Bowie’s Space Oddity which he sang from Space.

What do Astronauts and RightStar consultants/sales people have in common?  Answer: problem-solving skills. Astronauts practice endlessly, work every contingency, and visualize failure.  They work the “problem” like it really happened. So, I excitedly observed an Apollo 13 ITSM simulation held in our office yesterday. All organizations solve problems constantly and ITIL (and mature ITSM) provides an excellent problem-solving framework.  Returning Astronauts safely and troubleshooting a tricky Remedy job just have different priorities.  The challenge for those in IT, is knowing the difference.

I see dead IT services. Anthony Orr, BMC Director in the Office of the CTO, led a session entitled, “Plan, Direct, and Operate your Service Catalog.”  The CEO expects that the CIO, will among other things, simplify IT, and a Service Catalog, can improve the overall value of service delivery, control costs, influence user behavior, and improve customer satisfaction (self-service experience). Anthony discussed how IT struggles to understand who is using IT services, why they are using those particular services, and the value to the organization. A way to “bury” dead IT services is through a requestable catalog (manages requests for end-users) or a product catalog (like Definitive Media Libraries of approved software versions to support production baselines). In this way, IT gains insight into what matters for the customer, not what IT thinks the customer needs.

Business users are no longer beholden to IT. Forrester’s David Cannon, ITIL Author and VP, in his session, “Why Your State-of-the Art ITSM Implementation Just Won’t Cut It,” discussed technology commoditization. Thanks to the cloud, vendors are getting much better at delivering services such as hardware, operating systems, storage, and network capacity.  A coming “apocalypse” threatens to significantly alter the way IT services are delivered—from service provider to broker. Only those working in IT on projects that are more complex are safe.

David pointed out that Service Catalog and Asset Management initiatives provide the most value. To survive the coming “apocalypse,” IT must establish a service management office, better understand business needs, simplify the CMDB, establish vendor management programs, and drive cultural change.

Interesting, Pink’s annual thought leadership paper on the evolving service organization showed a decline in interest in some ITIL service areas.  The overarching trend, however is the importance of IT’s role of business value generation and business enablement.  Remember ITIL is a framework and organizations don’t need every part of ITIL implemented to achieve value.

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Report from BMC’s Exchange

Posted on February 25, 2014 by dick1stark

By Dick Stark

BMC’s Exchange, held last Thursday at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City, was well attended by more than 250 customers, prospects, and partners. Sessions held all day covered topics such as Cloud, ITSM, Data Center Automation, and Performance and Availability. Here are a few notes from the show.

Paul Avenant, BMC Senior VP and Chief Customer Officer, spoke about life in these interesting times, and discussed a new SMAC—Social, Mobility, Analytics, and Cloud.  Paul said that it is a new digital service world.  Users expect self-service anytime and anywhere.  They are used to mobile apps that have updates monthly instead of yearly.  He pointed out that the users expect a personalized experience from their IT department, similar to what they receive from Google or Amazon.

In regard to mobility, Paul cited a large Bank that has seen a drop in bank transactions of 35%, a drop in ATM transactions of 10%, and an increase in mobile transactions of 400% over the past year. He went on to say the Bank is keeping its branches open more for marketing and community support than anything else. Paul was optimistic about BMC’s direction especially in regard to MyIT, v2.0 and BMC’s new AppZone product, a private application store for organizations to distribute software to its employees.  Paul closed with BMC’s new tagline, “30 Years, One Focus: IT Management.”

Next up was James Staten, VP Cloud Infrastructure and Operations, Forrester Research.  James discussed why and how organizations are adopting the cloud.  He summarized:

Cloud is agility driven, not cost driven. The cloud values autonomy, standardization, automation, and elasticity. For example, RightStar has used Salesforce.com for sales force automation since the company was formed more than 10 years ago.  In that period, we have spent more than $250K on software subscription fees. Had we selected an on-premise software solution, we would likely have spent no more than $50K during that same period.

Yet, Salesforce was the right solution for us due to its ease of use, quick implementation, and integration with other applications.  Most importantly, we are always on the current version, and the software has improved exponentially during that time. Agility, not cost is what matters.

In the age of the customer, drop IT from ITSM and replace with agile. CEO’s expect that CIO’s will simplify IT and mature ITSM is a way to deliver on that objective. The challenge is that IT has moved from becoming a service provider to a service broker, as empowered employees can easily bypass IT and order applications, mobile devices, and disk storage without IT’s knowledge or approval, and expect IT to support everything. James stated that even ITIL has lost its luster, really its customer focus.  In a related survey, James said that organizations that implemented Incident and Change, reported little value from all this effort.

In summary, IT must return to showing value without sacrificing agility or security. Start simply, adapt agile methods—and carefully consider what systems, applications and processes move to the cloud.

 

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No More Boring IT

Posted on February 5, 2014 by dick1stark

By Dick Stark

RightStar’s Dan Wilson held a Google Meetup at RightStar last Wednesday to introduce his group to ITIL.  In case you don’t know, a Google Meetup is a way like-minded individuals can come together in person to discuss any area of common interest. Dan created and organized the group, No More Boring IT, and selects the subject matter and plans each meeting. For Wednesday, the topic was, “ITIL Overview by an ITIL Expert in IT Service Management.” Nine out of ten people who signed up attended which is a terrific start for Dan’s first Meetup. If you want to join or learn more about Dan’s Group, visit: http://www.meetup.com/No-More-Boring-IT/events/158312252/ 

We began the Meetup by discussing the value ITIL brings to organizations—to become a partner in strategic business decisions with the organization, not simply a “technician” to implement operations requirements. We also discussed ITIL terminology such as good practices vs. best practices and the value of ITIL training within the organization.

While it is true that RightStar has seen a drop in demand for foundation level training and ITIL based assessments, that is more of a function of tighter IT budgets and a commoditization of ITIL training. Just recently, however, we’ve seen an uptick in interest as we’ve sold ITIL training to customers such as CCC and a major insurance carrier, ITIL is as important as ever in returning value back to IT organizations. We then discussed several ideas for moving forward with ITIL.

Implement ITIL along with an initial (or upgraded) software ITSM toolset such as Remedyforce. Remember, ITIL is a framework, not a step-by-step instruction manual.  Included with most software toolsets are flowcharts, mapping ITIL modules such as Incident and Change Management to specific work instructions. While this may not cover specific details such as the time and date of your Change Advisory Board (CAB) Meetings, you can fill in these details in your own policy and procedure manual.

ITIL Foundation training does make a difference. While not all IT organizations have highly motivated people that will all self-ITIL certify, ITIL training does give everyone in the organization common nomenclature.  Most importantly, ITIL training provides employees the impetus and value behind good ITIL practices.  Based on RightStar’s ten years of experience with ITIL, we far prefer working with an ITIL savvy organization over one that is not.

Make the value palpable. We discussed ITIL simulation training that we performed at a Northeastern University, prior to a Remedy upgrade. Not only was the simulation training not boring, but it provided tangible proof to the CIO and her direct reports of the tremendous value offered by full blown Incident, Problem, Change, and Configuration Management.

Management support is essential for success. We made it clear that ITIL, or at a minimum, process discussions around good practices are essential.  But it is more than that.  The hard part is getting our clients to fully buy-into the changes that accompany a new process redesign and toolset roll out. That is where our efforts need to be focused because it is at that point that value to the client organization becomes real.

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