They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. However, in today’s IT management landscape, ITSM (IT Service Management), as an emerging management philosophy, needs to bridge the distance with its users as quickly as possible.
Influenced by the advanced guidance of ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), the ITSM framework that extends from it has become the new darling of the IT management field since its inception. Numerous domestic and international IT management vendors have adopted ITSM as the guiding philosophy to help users establish more scientific IT management architectures.
After two or three years of popularization, the call for ITSM has only grown louder. Yet, as users become more mature in understanding their own requirements, how to truly implement ITSM has become their most pressing concern. “ITSM urgently needs to be grounded!” said Li Hanzhong, Vice General Manager of BT Networks, with profound meaning.
ITSM Is Not a Product
When talking about ITSM, one must mention its origin鈥擨TIL. As far back as the 1980s, when Europeans applied their mastery of crafting standards and specifications to management concepts, ITIL was born. Subsequently, the IT management field began to face transformation under the influence of ITIL. According to the ITIL concept, IT management needs to go through four stages: management of the infrastructure, management of application systems, management of business processes, and management of IT changes. ITSM corresponds specifically to the management of business processes.
“ITSM is merely a concept; it is not a product,” Li Hanzhong emphasized. “ITSM should be considered a stage in the journey of users continuously improving their IT management systems.” During the interview, the reporter learned that BT Networks has focused on the IT management field for many years, growing in sync with China’s IT management market. Whether it is network management products for infrastructure or the currently popular ITSM-type products, BT Networks has been steadily providing users with products that suit their actual needs. Regarding the actual demands of the domestic user market, Li Hanzhong stated: “Currently, ITSM is more applicable to large-scale industry users鈥攖hose whose IT construction is relatively mature. For small and medium-sized users, the demand for infrastructure management still takes priority.”
So, what exactly can ITSM bring to users? Li Hanzhong believes: “ITSM is a blueprint. Regardless of the type of user, as long as they have an IT system, the ITSM concept can serve as their guiding philosophy for long-term IT management construction.” On the other hand, ITSM is still in its emerging stage in the current Chinese user market, and there are some bottlenecks in user acceptance. How to effectively exert the power of ITSM, how to make users truly feel the benefits of ITSM鈥?all questions converge on the issue of how to implement ITSM smoothly.
ITSM Urgently Needs to Be Grounded
The current characteristics of the IT management market show that investment in IT infrastructure is declining, the business benefits brought by IT are not obvious, and management systems have failed to effectively reduce manual workload. ITSM provides a process-oriented guide, and using the ITSM concept to bring process-based management to business systems naturally becomes an extremely exciting prospect for users. Amid this excitement, implementation becomes a major challenge that must be tailored to the user’s specific situation.
Based on a practical understanding of the user market, BT Networks provides three management lines to support users in realizing the ITSM concept. The first line meets the user’s needs for infrastructure management; the second line meets the needs for process management; and the third line meets the needs for business management. Specifically, for small and medium-sized enterprises, stability, availability, and security are the most critical performance factors when selecting management equipment. Compared to these, their need to organize business processes through IT management is not the most urgent. However, for large-scale industry users like those in finance and telecommunications, where IT systems are relatively mature and informatization keeps pace quickly, their IT systems are genuine production systems. These users naturally demand that their IT systems provide the highest possible level of business service, so the need to organize and control business through IT systems is very strong. “In other words, ITIL and ITIL-based products were originally designed to be recommended for high-end users as a priority,” Li Hanzhong admitted frankly.
From the perspective of the key object of management products鈥攄ata information鈥擝T Networks adopts an approach where network views and business views are both independent and integrated, helping users clearly manage network infrastructure and business systems separately and effectively locate the terminals and information objects that need processing. For the business view, combined with advanced ITIL concepts, BT Networks has fully considered user experience. It not only provides views from the user’s perspective but also offers open program interfaces for the user’s business management systems, allowing users to equip the most suitable products according to specific business and application needs. The new product BTSM has