At the Pink Elephant ITSM Conference for 2014 we locked 8 ITSM "thinkers" in a room for a day to consider a problem: increasing complexity of multi-supplier IT value streams.
We tasked them with coming up with pragmatic actionable advice.
This is the result. Well, this is a summary. Watch out for white papers, discussions, a web presence fro sharing and dialog, and other outcomes from this highly successful one-day session. There may be more.
Why we did itDiscussed at PINK13 the opportunity of having ITSM philosophers come togetherThe energy / stimulation of the conferenceHow we choseA committee40 namesLimit of 8 – small groupRecognised “thinkers”Published“Balanced diversity”: ITIL establishment, itSMF, skeptic, cultural change, MSI service provider, cloud, leadership/CIO, architect, service deskBut no attempt to cover all constituenciesWhat we wantedTangibleactionable
The business and technology landscaping is shifting rapidly. The supplier and the business are squeezing IT because IT is perceived as slow to respond and the business has increasing choices from increasing number of suppliers to go around IT. The business is being forced to change and must reduce time to market as a competitive competence. Probably you, trad IT, are not ready to address the shift. Suppliers have become very good at managing commoditized environments. The end result of this is the need to dynamically manage a complex multi-supplier ecosystem. Everything that IT has been doing in the past is now no longer enough. IT presents more susceptible in a multi-sourcing approach as it is susceptible to emergent/complex behavior possibly leading to black swans. This is an emerging space, it is complex and not necessarily clear yetThe question is how will you remain relevant in IT today and tomorrow?
As commoditization increases, the traditional IT role moves to service providersBusiness innovation will accelerate through the use of emergent technologies and embedding those inside business practicesAnything that doesn’t demonstrate differentiating value is a candidate for externalizationA single set of outcomes can be provided by multiple suppliersSuppliers are aggressively pursuing this market Suppliers will standardize at a low level (e.g. EDI for Service Management, API, XML, etc.)Suppliers will develop service solutions, and tools to support them, that an individual organization cannot do on its ownOpen standards are emergingSupplier strata evolve, and contract duration shortensEvolving nature of multi-supplier will drive changes to how IT is organized and managedThe future is IT Governance, Service Management, and Assurance
Your organisation needs to be doing:Build a robust corporate governance policy, process, roles and assurance for Supplier ManagementKnow your business: Assess your understanding of your industry vertical and IT value in this spaceIT needs to define a value driven operating model that is embedded with common/core belief system and operating practices that span the enterprise (the Empire”)Define which Operating Model capabilities must be core - (“the Roman roads”)Service management (ITIL) should continue to be used, but with changed emphasis and prioritiesElevate IT Supplier Management as an enterprise core functionHave a multi-supplier ecosystem that supports a balance of organizational innovation and commoditizationUnderstand which services are strategic to the organization and which are not.Understand the difference between strategic and commodity suppliers.The drivers for the multi-sourcing model can be cost and/or business agility and the solution must be balanced across these.Multi-sourcing is going to change the way people work: address this as cultural change.IT needs to aim for the role of trusted advisor for the use of technology across the enterprise