Exploring Best Practices: ITIL® Asset Management and Service Catalog Development

Strategic Views

Every issue of Evergreen Strategies explores key challenges facing IT organizations today, with common-sense approaches to addressing those challenges and transforming IT operations. This issue focuses on how ITIL best practices, in particular Asset Management, can leverage opportunities that will help organizations increase operational efficiencies, save money and labor and increase compliance.

Evergreen Strategies recently published a case study, in conjunction with its Cleveland-based financial services customer, KeyBank, that traces the origins, strategy, development and implementation of an asset management project that yielded a complete asset lifecycle management process over which the bank expects a 24-month payback.

The case study explores the following:

• The impetus for the project, including server sprawl and a complete inventory of data center assets.
• Best practice assessment of the ITAM approach, including policies, processes and enabling technologies.
• Recommendations that included a comprehensive framework for the ITAM organization and program and an IT asset repository.
• An implementation that combined revised request, procurement, receiving and deployment and maintenance processes.
• Sweeping results, which included improved governance, increased efficiencies, proactive management of IT assets, continuous improvement, increased fiscal responsibility and the introduction of operational metrics.

Do You Know the 8 Steps to Service Catalog Development?

Evergreen's new Service Catalog 'jump start' program delivers a complete Service Catalog in an 8-week timeframe, leveraging the 8 steps to implementation:

1. Definition of Service Families
2. Definition of Services Within Service Families
3. Mapping Services to Existing Customers
4. Mapping Expectations and Dependencies to Services
5. Establishment of Operational Level Agreements
6. Establishment of Service Level Agreements
7. Establishment of Costs for Services
8. Steady State

Upcoming Events

Join us at the national itSMF conference in Salt Lake City in September -- Contact us for a 25% discount on attending the conference and join us Monday night, September 18, from 7:15 to 9PM for 'an evening with Evergreen', for drinks, buffet and the comedy of Keith Barany, entertainer and writer for Jerry Seinfeld. This event requires pre-registration and is filling fast, so contact Amy Mergler now for your free tickets while space is still available. (Amy.Mergler@evergreensys.com; 571-262-0977).

Stop by our booth at the show (325) and register for our twice daily drawing for special edition U2 iPods, then stay to attend our ongoing presentations on Developing the Business Case for ITIL, Common Sense CMDB and the Quick Start Asset Center program. Fill out our survey on developing the business case for ITIL for your free pen!

Tools: Developing the Business Case for ITIL

If you have not yet picked up your copy of this provocative white paper, now is the time to do it. This paper develops the 'business case' for ITIL and other IT process improvements, including identifying areas for efficiency improvements and cost savings. A number of data points are taken from current research and enterprise IT process improvement case studies that consistently document a 20-40% reduction in the effort required for ongoing IT operations, powered by the implementation of ITIL process improvements. The same research clearly links ITIL with strategic gains in customer service quality, accuracy and efficiency while reducing IT risk and easing compliance management burdens. The development of an ITIL strategy is discussed and an incremental approach, which starts with small steps but shows measurable gains quickly, is presented.
The white paper discusses the following:

• How the market is quantifying ITIL improvements through case studies and research
• What the key business drivers are for ITIL
• The development of an ITIL strategy
• Applying ITIL improvements to Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Configuration, Service Level and Financial Management

Weblogs

Building the Business Case for ITIL -- Vice President of Consulting Joe Koester continues a multipart series on building the business case for ITIL. His point in his latest blog - while improving service quality may be a top business driver for those of us in IT, it might not be for those who fund IT. Joe makes the argument for building a business case that is comprehensive in nature and that includes not only the goal of improving customer service, but also looks at other key areas such as expense savings, risk mitigation, business alignment and improved agility... with a particular focus on reducing costs any way you can. Building a business case that focuses on multiple areas of cost savings, including driving down staff costs, increasing funding/time for strategic projects, improving efficiency, providing business alignment and meeting compliance needs, provides your best chance of getting the support and funding you need to move forward.

Technologies: AssetCenter

Evergreen Strategies has brought back its Quick Start program by popular demand. This program leverages your knowledge of your asset management needs and Evergreen's best practice process and implementation experience to deliver Hewlett Packard's Asset Center product at a fixed price. Using a pre-deployment planning package and a proven process, Evergreen takes your organization through business process alignment, project implementation, to test and quality assurance, through to knowledge transfer and project completion. For more information, contact Amy.Mergler@evergreensys.com

About the Evergreen Strategies Newsletter

Evergreen Strategies is a periodic newsletter distributed to clients and associates of Evergreen.

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