What CTO?s and IT Managers Ought to know about IT service management (ITSM) Soft

Posted by AmandaTom on June 16th, 2015

Before we start, just to let you know IT Service Management, Software Asset Management Software, Software Asset Management Tools are all closely linked and are pretty much the same thing. On an academic level there is a difference, but from a commercial perspective they all are closely related and similar.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is ensuring that the services delivered by your business for internal or external customers matches the strategic objectives of your organisation. On a tactical basis, this can be maintaining service level agreements with your customer, using help-desk or issue logging capabilities as well as recording the technical knowledge required to service your IT assets. Whilst IT Service Management focuses on the service side of your business/IT, Software Asset Management Tools are designed to manage your core IT Assets (Software, Hardware, Servers etc)

Software Asset Management Tools has different deliverables for different teams;

For CTO’s, the deliverable is to ensure that the IT Processes and Services address the strategic objectives of the business with minimum number of people and maximum return. If it works and helps the business then CTO’s typically don’t care about the details. It maybe worth emphasising that IT Infrastructure is business enabler; it is not the business itself.

For IT Managers, the key deliverable is automating the manual work i.e. the hardware gets replaced on time, it ensures you have the right number of softwares with the right version, the process of procuring and releasing softwares is in line with dynamic needs of the business. For IT Managers, IT Service Management will free-up time and also ensure all the details are well managed (by reporting and task lists)

At a more granular level, Software Asset Management Tools are used for Configuration Management. For example; managing software configuration and hardware configuration for 10,000 employees based on role, location and department. IT Service Management also is an excellent tool for process changes – Businesses change every 18 months and as a result internal IT processes change too, which can be efficiently managed by IT Service Management Software.

Another key deliverable for IT service management is efficient service delivery which is administered via help-desk, problem or incident logging tools. There are two key areas of automation here – 1) The procedure to manage your service is significantly automated but more importantly 2) The reports and the data that comes out of help-desk or incident logging tools in most cases are business critical information, they can tell you which of your products/services require enhancements, which of your customers require more hand holding then others. Essentially, help-desk component of your software asset management tools can drive your product and/or service development.

Equally, software asset management tools ensure availability of your IT Infrastructure as per your business requirements. If you are a medium business with 50 people leaving and 50 people joining, that is 100 changes to software, hardware and your network. (Not to forget - Role, Location & Departmental changes). Even if a printer does not work for 2 hours or if your email system does not work for two hours, it causes significant impact to your productivity.

Effective IT Service Management Tools ensure your IT Infrastructure is robust yet flexible to manage changing business conditions. It also ensures that your IT Infrastructure has maximum uptime and is ready for business.

IT service management includes efficient utilisation of software asset management tools.