At the same time as Tim Henman was serving his way to the third round of this year’s Wimbledon, more than 150 IT professionals were thinking about service of a different kind at Computacenter’s ‘Adopting Service Values Seminar 2003’ in London. A solid line-up of speakers set out to explain why it was vital for organisations to champion best-practice IT service management (ITSM). And there were plenty of controversial rallies as they debated with the audience and one another exactly what this meant and how best to go about it.
Neil Meddick, Computacenter’s remote service director and one of the seminar speakers, said afterwards that helping customers understand industry trends and giving them the opportunity to engage with their peers on important issues was all about adding value. “We like our customer events to be lively, open and plain-speaking. No one wants to come and listen to a load of meaningless jargon or to suppliers who claim nothing ever goes wrong. It’s only by discussing these issues and approaches frankly that you can truly resolve conflicts and get closer to delivering the kind of service customers really want.”

Future Seminars Following the success of this event, Computacenter will be running two further Adopting Service values’ seminars in coming months. These will follow the same format as the event described above: Manchester - November 27 Edinburgh - December 9 For more information, please contact : amanda_johnston@computacenter.com

Honest opinions
Karl Schneider, editorial director of seminar co-sponsor Computer Weekly, was an able umpire for the day. As conference chairman, he opened by asking the audience how many of them understood the concept of ITSM. Very few hands went up. When he asked the same question at the end of the proceedings, however, the hall was a sea of hands. The audience all agreed the day had been a very valuable use of their time. “Too often, suppliers use this type of event to try to baffle, scare or hoodwink you into adopting some new standard or technology,” said one delegate. “It’s refreshing to hear some honest opinions and feel you’ve actually learned something of value.”
After a brief introductory address from Computacenter’s director of client services, Simon Walsh, Gartner research vice-president Simon Mingay took the floor to explain why he believed it was necessary for organisations to adopt a standard approach to ITSM. According to Mingay, the benefits include reduced total cost of IT ownership, improved customer satisfaction, increased employee productivity and the ability to align IT with the business and manage the process of change more easily. But he added that successful implementation would almost certainly mean changing your organisational structure considerably.

Next up was Andrew Wiles, a service management consultant at CEC Europe and former service manager at Kent Police. Wiles outlined the applicable standards and approaches – notably BS 15000, the rigorous IT service management standard, and the ITIL guidelines on which this is largely based. He made the point that adopting ITIL-based standards was more about getting the process and attitude right than about using any specific software tools – for example, by ensuring all IT service staff embrace the concept of best practice and by getting rid of ‘silos’ within the organisation. He also warned that it was a long-term approach, with somewhat hard-to-measure benefits at first.
Meddick ended the morning’s session with a discussion on Service Level Agreements, and their importance to successful service management. He particularly focused on the need for service providers and customers to develop strong relationships based on trust.

No holds barred
Of most interest to the majority of attendees were the customer presentations by Sequence’s Neil Chandler and Jim Davies of drinks distributor Tradeteam – who both gave no-holds-barred accounts of the nitty-gritty involved in implementing best-practice ITSM, and of the lessons they had learned.
Chandler said it was vital to consider your users as customers and ensure the IT services you provide are aligned with their needs. “We live and breathe a customer proposition, namely that our customers have needs and the organisation must strive to understand those needs and provide for them,” he said.
Sequence is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Sun Alliance and comprises 12 estate agency chains with over 350 branches across the UK. Chandler explained that prior to the change programme there were no standard processes or level of customer service across the branches. Branches were logging into the central Lotus Notes system via dial-up connections. This obviously meant a high likelihood of connection problems and poor service levels.

By following the ITIL guidelines and working alongside Computacenter, Chandler says, he was able to deliver a “compelling and robust capability” in just seven months, to an aggressive budget. But he cautioned: “Hold back the developers until you know exactly what it is your customers want, and you have worked out how to deliver. Never give a developer a blank spec or you’re not going to get what you need.”

After going through the necessary consultations, the team created a true branch network and developed a CRM-style application to manage customer relationships, transactions and properties. This was a greenfield J2EE application using ‘best-of-breed’ web technologies and concepts. He also standardised a set of core, repeatable processes.

Chandler echoed Andrew Wiles’ point about the importance of getting rid of silos and simplifying the organisational structure, which he adds was absolutely key to enabling services to be delivered quickly and effectively. But he pointed out that it is vital to ensure that all staff understand the changes and the reasons for them, and that their responsibilities are clearly demarcated.

Chandler decided to partner with Computacenter partly because of the company’s experience in implementing ITIL best practice, and partly because they already had a good relationship. He says the key to a healthy relationship with your providers is to try to understand their needs as well as your own and be honest – but negotiate hard and ensure you have appropriate service credits in place. “Of course, there are problems with such a big change process, but at least with Computacenter I know I can call them up and talk to them frankly about any issues,” he said. After giving a fascinating and well-delivered account of the changing nature of the pub retail market, Jim Davies of drinks distributor Tradeteam echoed many of Chandler’s points, but also emphasised the benefits of developing a comprehensive catalogue of services. “By codifying all our services in this way, we have been able to define responsibilities far more clearly,” he said.

Davies also explained that he developed a simple star-rating system in order to measure his progress towards ITSM without need for complex and time-consuming methodologies. “You should start capturing accurate performance data as soon as possible,” he said. He added that another great source of help is to consult with peers who are going through the same process. Davies is heavily involved in the IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF), which he says is an invaluable resource. As to his choice of Computacenter as service provider, he explained: “We have a common vocabulary. Tradeteam benefits from Computacenter’s scale, resources and expertise. They benefit from our feedback, configuration data and service management vision.”

By the end of the afternoon, most of the audience were not only more knowledgeable about ITSM, but positively committed to it. And if they follow the advice of the day’s speakers, when it comes to service they will see considerably more returns than Henman managed in his Wimbledon quarter-final the
following week!