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Align IT with the Changing Business Requirements – IT “IS” the Business

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Service Management Best Practice is as relevant today as it was a decade ago.  Some would argue that it is even more relevant.   Increase in demand, dynamic requirements and varied silo’s and cultures within an organization demand some semblance of management control.  Failure to do so results in just that …..“Failure”.  

Following ITIL Best Practice allows service providers to align IT with the changing business requirements.  Sounds Great!  What does that mean exactly?

Business requirements are consistently evolving and changing.  This creates a DEMAND that generates a workload for capacity.   The service provider must anticipate this demand and gear their service assets accordingly or consumers will not receive the value that they have paid for and expect.   We can anticipate demand by monitoring and measuring specified patterns of business activity and then adjust accordingly. 

Think of a NEST thermostat.  A NEST thermostat learns what temperature you like by learning your patterns. These patterns bend and weave throughout your life.  Patterns evolve as your family evolves.  If you like the temperature a bit cooler at night then turn it up in the AM so that the house is warm when the kids come down for breakfast.  The NEST thermostat will learn that pattern and then automagically turn up the temperature before breakfast time.  It learns your patterns and builds a schedule around yours. Service providers must be able to ‘adopt and adapt’ to dynamic evolving business requirements in the same way.

In addition to changes in demand, the way consumers get access to IT services and the way that they use technology will sometimes require a radical rethinking of what is required to deliver the service.  Delivery is not where it stops but rather where provisioning and sustaining that service over its life begins.   Continuous delivery and continuous deployment might get a product out the door faster but then what? We must be prepared to sustain that service while adapting to changing requirements.

Following ITIL Best Practice allows service providers to “Align IT with the Changing Business Requirements – IT “IS” the Business”.


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