Two things are certain: first, IT is now at the center of most businesses; second, business is a moving target. The demand for coordination across value chains, functions, markets, and geographies will continue to accelerate, and it will be impossible to respond to this challenge without driving new ways of thinking through corporate ranks.

Information technology is fundamental to corporate success, and an IT decision, like all other business decisions, must consider the value of its contribution to the business. In light of this, a solid, sound business case for IT investments requires mature IT and business judgment. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to developing maturity or to developing judgment - both take time and experience. There is only one way to gain traction in these circumstances and that is to apply the collective experience of both IT and business people to the pursuit and execution of a single corporate strategy. In this case the integrated whole is definitely much greater than the sum of the two parts.

Successful IT/business alignment means developing and sustaining a symbiotic relationship between IT and business - a relationship that benefits both parties. This requires that the business recognize IT executives as essential to the development of credible business strategies and operations, and that IT consider non-IT executives equally essential to the development of credible IT strategies and operations.

In order to support this new IT/business model, IT needs to transform the traditional Business - IT paradigm from one focused on technological value to one focused on service value. This service provider paradigm encompasses IT best practices using the perspectives of people, process, technology, organization, and integration. The following attributes depict the transformation of a traditional "business - IT paradigm":

Traditional I/T	becomes	Service Focused - IT
Technology Focus		Process Focus
"Fire-Fighting"		Preventative
Reactive		Proactive
Users		Customers
Centralized, Done In-House		Multi-Sourced
Isolated, Silos		Integrated, Enterprise-Wide
"One Off", Ad Hoc		Repeatable, Accountable
Informal Processes		Formal Best Practices
IT Internal Perspective		Business Perspective
Operational Specific		Service Orientation

Table 1

A recent Gartner report examined long-term trends in IT. It concluded that over the next five years IT would transform itself into a business focused, process-oriented organization delivering the agility and innovation enterprises need to maintain their competitive advantage in the marketplace. In effect, IT would be delivering Business Technology solutions that would exploit technology in support of business objectives.

When examined in detail, the Gartner report predicts that IT as we know it will evolve into a Business Technology Organization (BTO), integrating itself into the enterprise or mission value chain. IT's focus will shift from traditional cost avoidance return-on-investment (ROI) from technology projects to total business value delivered to the enterprise or mission. To support this new model, IT will need to shift its focus from the internal delivery of technology to the brokering of services in a multi-source environment.

The New Business Technology Organization (BTO)

Before IT can adapt and transform itself to support this new business technology organization model it must rationalize the predictions Gartner is forecasting with something that is actionable.

In order to operate as a service provider, organizations must demonstrate three main characteristics; an unambiguous understanding of their customer's need, repeatable processes to ensure consistency of execution, and the ability to innovate in a structured manner. In effect this becomes the model for the delivery of business aligned-processes and technology.

In order to achieve an unambiguous understanding of the customer's needs, the service provider must, in a structured repeatable manner, define and categorize the enterprise process, technology and capability requirements. The next step is to compare these requirements to the existing environment to understand what it will take to achieve and manage the required capability. The provider must do this in the context of governance based on enterprise goals and achievement measured against expected outcomes.

Repeatable processes are required to ensure consistency of execution. This is critical because day-to-day business processes rely so much on embedded technology that failure to execute consistently directly impacts the enterprise's ability to deliver its product or service.

Finally, the service provider must develop a utility grade delivery platform and process management model that is capable of supporting emerging hardware and software architectures such as Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). A service provider provides the portal through which the enterprise receives its enabling business technology. The service provider brokers those services irrespective of their source, internal or external. Therefore, the provider can deliver utility grade, enterprise-aligned services as needed, and manage technology investments and innovation in a structured manner.

Underpinning all of this is the need for a model that helps identify what services need to be sourced internally and what services can be sourced externally. This model will provide the guidance the enterprise needs to classify the services and processes that are critical to quality service delivery and differentiation in the marketplace (See Figure 1). The internally sourced services are prime candidates for investment, as they are critical to the success of the business. The business may source other activities according to the capability of the enterprise using established sourcing policies and guidelines.

Figure 1

ITSM Frameworks, Methods & Standards

IT Service Management (ITSM), as we know it, is more than just the processes described within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITSM requires the coordinated design and management of several widely accepted frameworks, standards and methods as part of the enterprise value chain.

Today, IT executives are presented with a wide variety of service management options each being promoted as the "silver bullet" to IT's transformation problem. Over the years, frameworks such as ITIL, CobiT and methods and standards like PMI, Lean Six Sigma, ISO17799, and ISO20000 have come into being as the solution to the problems facing modern IT.

Why are there so many frameworks, methods and models? Good question; and the only answer that makes sense is that each addresses a particular set of problems from the viewpoint of its creator. In other words, each of these is a nail to someone's hammer.

When examined carefully, one discovers that there is significant overlap between these frameworks, models and standards. So, while created from different viewpoints, they all address a similar set of IT problems. The end result is a mish-mash of frameworks, models and standards with limited guidance on how to bring them together to support the end game of IT Service Lifecycle Management (ITSLM).

The Open itSM Solutions® BTO Reference Model

Today's multi-faceted business world demands that information technology provide its services in the context of a fully integrated business technology model (see Figure 2). To make this happen IT needs to implement a series of service management domains that will enable IT to become part of the enterprise or mission value chain. The primary domains include:

Figure 2

CobiT provides the context for the Open itSM Solutions® integration. Its 34 IT processes provide the high-level framework to:

• Govern the planning and organization of IT resources in support of business goals
• Acquire the resources to implement the IT services in support of these goals
• Deliver and support these services
• Monitor and evaluate compliance with the control requirements

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a lower level framework describing the process controls and monitoring requirements to support the business/IT goals outlined in CobiT.

When combined, CobiT and ITIL should be viewed as descriptive frameworks that identify what IT should be doing to align itself with the needs of the business. CobiT and ITIL also provide guidance on what quality improvement, resource management and security standards organizations should consider to fill out the remaining pieces of their IT service management program.

While both CobiT and ITIL provide guidance on "what" IT organizations should be doing to govern and optimize IT services, they both offer limited guidance on "how to" get it done.

The Open itSM Solutions® reference model and network of service providers provide the missing link to ITSM success by helping IT organizations identify and document the integration points between ITSM domains and acquire the skills and certifications to operate as a service provider integrated into the enterprise or mission value chain.