BUSINESSES ARE STARTING to realise how important business service management (BSM) is, delegates to a recent event heard.

The Software BSM breakfast, hosted by BMC, AL Indigo and ITWeb in Sandton recently, looked at how BSM helps facilitate the process of successfully orchestrating, managing and delivering IT processes, which are aligned directly with business goals, drives results.

, South African country manager for BMC Software, noted that most CxOs want to address the effectiveness of the workplace and improve business processes.

Other major focus areas for CxOs at the moment are software as a service, virtualisation, service-orientated architecture, controlling enterprise-wide costs, empowering the end-user, and regulations and compliance, he said.

"You have to remember - South Africa is the hub for the rest of Africa. It has a lot of responsibility and there is so much locally developed IT," he said.

Many of these issues, Wiersma believes, can be solved through BSM. He describes BSM as "the most effective approach for managing IT from a business perspective".

BSM consists of three dimensions, he says, including best practices, automated technology management, and a shared view of how IT supports business priorities.

THE NEED FOR GOVERNE

Also speaking at the event, , author of the King Committee Report, highlighted corporate governance as key to any business.

"Governance is seen as a mysterious thing," he said. "But we should be proud - in SA our listed companies are very well-governed!"

King believes the four qualities to good governance include fairness, accountability, responsibility, and transparency.

"We live in a geographically borderless world, and transparency is the cornerstone," he said.

He believes that bad governance can lead to failure and scandal, and used Enron as a good example of when good governance goes bad.

"Governance is not simply mindless compliance!" he said.

He believes every company should be treated like an incapacitated person by its staff, directors and shareholders who should continually maintain best interest for it.

"Intellectual property is linked to IT," he explained. "You must first address the technical and IT processes, then take them to the business process level."

, business strategist for BMC Software, believes that IT should form an integral part of business.

In a survey done on the state of the CIO, it emerged that proving the value of IT is becoming increasingly difficult and is ranked within the top ten of the biggest barriers to job effectiveness. Also, 40% of CIOs that report to the CFO had difficulties in proving the value of IT.

Like Wiersma, Armstrong believes the answer lies in implementing a BSM strategy.

"According to Forrester Research," he said, "as 76% of the IT budget goes to operations, firms that implement BSM can potentially save 25% of their overall IT budget."

Other speakers at the event included Anton Scheepers, solutions architecture capability lead from Accenture SA, who spoke about best practices for developing an implementing a service model.

A case study of how Motorsport optimised its IT services through BSM was also presented.

Tags: AL  Indigo  &  BMC