Latest MATERNA survey: ITIL® picking up speed - but only partly
MATERNA IT Service Management Survey 2009/2010
Dortmund, 2010-06-23
IT departments in Denmark, Finland and Sweden are well on the way to improving their level of professionalization by using IT Service Management (ITSM) strategies. This is the key statement revealed by the latest survey from the IT service provider MATERNA Information & Communications. The results have now been published under the title of “Executive Survey 2009: status quo in IT Service Management”. The results show that acceptance for the IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) is continuously on the increase: 90 percent of the companies which took part in the survey placed their trust in ITIL® in 2009, in the year 2006 it was only 59 percent. ITIL® describes rules and processes for running companywide IT-infrastructures efficiently.
According to the survey, only 24 percent of the participants have defined a service strategy, but another 54 percent are currently planning one. Altogether these values are a clear improvement on earlier results. But the survey also shows that some central topics are being neglected when it comes to practical implementation: the innovations contained in the latest ITIL® version are often not known at all. There is also a backlog where aligning the IT and company strategy are concerned.
Many IT departments continue to concentrate on operational issues when implementing ITIL®. Important customer-oriented functions and processes are often only present to a minimal degree and will probably not be extended in future either.
The majority of the respondents repeatedly point out that increasing the quality of IT services is right at the top of their agendas and ITIL® is the benchmark which the majority of the IT departments are aiming at. Some of the main points of the latest ITIL® version 3, such as continual service improvement and comprehensive service orientation, are still not as widespread as they should be – a development contradicting the idea of quality which ITIL® is based on.
The majority of respondents already uses a service catalogue today, but mainly for internal purposes only.
The ISO 20000 norm is well-known and in general is seen as an important tool towards achieving quality improvements.
Service automation is also very widespread and will continue to increase. Focusing, among other things, on compliance topics will enable the IT to demonstrate the added value they contribute to the company’s success even better in future.
“IT departments’ expectations of themselves are very high”, Uwe Scariot. Head of Business Unit Information at MATERNA, explains the results of the survey. “Procedures which have already been implemented, together with the wide variety of processes, key performance figures and automation approaches, form a good basis for achieving their own high ambitions in the medium term.”
Status Quo: ITIL®
The respondents expect to gain clear benefits from the continuing spread of structured processes in accordance with ITIL® guidelines. Approximately one third of the participants expects predominantly cost reductions and more standardised procedures from implementing IT service management processes. Together with the expectation of error reduction these results suggest a high degree of historically and uncontrolled grown IT departments. Around 30 percent of the participants expect challenges in effort, organisational integration and cost.
This concentration on operative processes continues where established processes are concerned, too: the main focuses are on the service desk together with incident management or change management and problem management. Aspects which were neglected in the past such as service level management and service catalogue management are moving much more into focus. Almost three quarters of the companies are planning to introduce more ITSM processes. Service asset and configuration management and capacity management are up at the top of the list, followed closely by knowledge management.
But the awareness for efficiently controlling the total added value chain is quite limited. So the structured and coordinated measuring of service and process quality is not seen to be particularly relevant, neither are financial or demand management.
ITIL® version 3 – an unknown beast?
Many of the respondents do not know anything about a whole series of the new processes and functions which have been brought into focus by ITIL® version 3: almost half of the respondents stated that they did not know the 7-Step-Improvement-Plan. This means that one of the significant improvements in ITIL® v3 is largely unknown.
Service catalogue and key performance figures
Only 47 percent of those asked have identified their most important services and mainly evaluate them in terms of turnover or profits. But other criteria also play a role when prioritising services: These include, among other things, the influence on customer satisfaction as well as the impacts on the company image. All in all only 19 percent of the companies now have a service catalogue for all their services, another 63 percent have one for selected services – and only 14 percent use such a catalogue as an externally-oriented product catalogue.
Less than 50 percent of all those asked state that they know the relevant process and infrastructure figures, such as how long it takes to provide new servers or the costs per storage unit, which are needed to calculate the prices of their services.
Due to the fact that IT departments are responsible for providing IT services, there seems to be a discrepancy between the understanding of and use of key performance figures. A detailed look at the key performance figures shows clearly that over 70 percent of the respondents concentrate mainly on reactive types of key figures; proactive service figures for monitoring and reporting are much less well established.
ISO 20000: proof of quality is vital
The majority of the respondents knows the contents ISO 20000 provides certification for in ITSM and rates this worldwide-accepted standard as relevant. More than 40 percent of those asked do not know the norm at all. More then 50 percent is striving towards gaining this certification within the next 12 months which is a big increase compared to last year’s survey. The main motive here is to receive proof of their own quality from an independent body.
Service Automation in focus
About 30 percent of respondents are currently using automation approaches in several areas. Large organizations are at the forefront here. Over one third of those asked are planning to invest more in this topic in future. The most important aspect for the respondents is ITIL® compatibility followed by lower costs. At the moment automation solutions are mainly to be found in the fields of installation and virtualization, for example in storage. The results show that automation is particularly seen as an internally directed support method so far.
In future the companies which responded would like to look into topics with a clear compliance focus which demonstrate the close interaction between business strategy and IT. These include automated processes for change management as well as automated software licence and contract management.
About the survey
176 IT-decision makers from Denmark, Finland and Sweden took part in the online IT service management survey in the autumn of 2009. Almost half of the people (46 percent) who answered the survey are in management positions in the field of IT. The companies which were invited to take part come from a wide variety of sectors. One clear focus is on the IT service sector and public administration (both 18 percent of the replies). 72 percent of the participating companies employ more than 500 staff. Another focus are companies/organisations counting more than 1,000 employees. The IT departments at the respondent companies mostly range between 50 and 500 staff.
MATERNA has been carrying out the IT Service Management Executive Survey every year since 2006 now in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. In addition to that, the survey is also carried out in Germany and Austria since 2003.
Graphics
Chart 1: The chart shows the status quo regarding the usage of a service strategy. One quarter already has such a strategy.
Chart 2: The chart shows the top 10 of already implemented ITIL® processes. Incident management and service desk are in place in almost all companies/organisations.
Chart 3: The chart shows the top 10 of ITIL® processes that are planned to be implemented. Tactical processes are in the spotlight headed by service asset and configuration management and capacity management.
Chart 4: The chart shows the top 5 of ITIL® processes being unknown. More than 40 percent do not even know the 7-step improvement process.
MATERNA GmbH Information & Communications
As a leading information technology service provider, MATERNA employs approximately 1,300 staff throughout Europe and achieved a turnover of 153 million Euros with their two business divisions in 2009. The Information division provides process and technology consulting and implements appropriate IT solutions as well as delivering maintenance, operational and training services. The target groups are IT departments and specialist user departments in large and medium-sized companies. MATERNA is highly skilled in the segments of IT service management, individual solutions and portals as well as in SAP corporate solutions. They also have in-depth knowledge and expertise in the public sector and for IT service providers. MATERNA Communications has comprehensive know-how in marketing services for new media, e-commerce and m-commerce solutions, voice and video applications, service platforms and hosting. In addition to innovative MVNE solutions, their portfolio also comprises integrated passenger services for airlines and airports.
Further Information:
MATERNA GmbH
Information & Communications
Press and PR Office
Christine Siepe
Voßkuhle 37
44141 Dortmund
Germany
Phone: +49 231 5599-168
Fax: +49 231 5599-165
Email: christine.siepe@materna.de
