How Service Catalogs Make IT a Better Enterprise Business Partner

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Why is Getting Things From IT So Hard? You are supposed to know what you want

before you ask.

You are expected to understand insane levels of detail.

If you ask for the wrong thing, it’s your fault.

There are so many approvers you need a scorecard to keep track.

It seems like only emergency orders get any attention, so everything becomes an emergency.

When all you want is a taxi ride, you have to buy the taxi.

This is not the way to run a business…

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How Do You Order Electricity?

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You aren’t buying the supply chain, you are buying the product produced by that supply chain.

•The supply chain has to be there, but should be invisible to you

Consumers want choice, but choices can be limited.

•Residential electrical service is much simpler than commercial service

Catalogs are the way to define available choices.

•But those choices need to be something people want to buy

Complex Purchases Need to be Simple

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28% of enterprises are deploying self-service catalogs and another 26% are in the planning stages.

Credit to 451 Research Cloudscape Report, November, 2013

The Lure of Self-Service Catalogs

PLANNING

26%CURRENT

28%

So Why Service Catalogs?

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ITIL standards drive in this direction

Infrastructure complexity is not relevant to the consumer

Companies need to enforce policies across a diverse audience

Purchasing agreements define choices

Automation makes onboarding faster and less error prone

Cloud services demand a catalog for fulfillment

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The catalog is the visible face of IT to the rest of the business.

•You can’t make a first impression twice

The catalog is not a configuration tool.

•Does LL Bean ask you anything more than color and size?

The catalog is for products that the consumer understands.

•Different catalogs for different people? Maybe

The catalog does not replace the service desk.

•Hard to use a catalog when you don’t have an internet connection

The catalog is not to make IT’s life easier, it is to make the consumer’s life easier.

•A good catalog requires a lot of thought and effort to create and manage

Your Catalog is Your Reputation

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Not All Services are Created Equal

Services need to be designed and defined before being placed in the catalog.

•Simply declaring something to be a “service” does not work

Consumable services;

•Can be purchased by/provisioned for a line of business need

•Consist of multiple technical services and other consumable services

•Have a cost and a price

Technical services;

•Are building blocks that make up consumable services

•Typically, the “invisible” infrastructure services that every application or end user service requires to operate

•Have a cost

Behind the Catalog

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The consumer wants to order electricity, not the grid to produce it.

•The implication is that the “grid” is already there and you are simply consuming existing capacity

•This is where cloud automation solutions come into play

The catalog is the face of IT; don’t neglect that consumer experience.

•The catalog cannot be a façade with manual processing behind it; to be successful it has to be an integrated/automated solution

•Consumers don’t want to worry about corporate security, policies, etc

IT is not the only stakeholder in a successful catalog.

•HR/human capital information and reporting structures

•Financial connections to determine authority

Policies Reflect Your Business

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Policies fall into several categories:

Business policies

•Business policies specify who is entitled to request specific catalog items or perform specific actions on provisioned items

Machine policies

•Machine policies specify the lease period and which operations are supported on machines provisioned from a blueprint

Reservation policies

•A reservation policy is often used to collect resources into groups for different service levels, or to make a specific type of resource easily available for a particular purpose

Application policies

•Applications can be provisioned and governed through the application lifecycle

Catalogs have to enforce company policy to be successful;

this is the way that a firm can ensure compliance with licensing

agreements, purchasing agreements, etc.

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How Do You Get Started?

Start with services that everyone uses.•A desktop

•A mobile phone and service

•An email account

Start with services that are already reasonably well defined.•The catalog is the presentation of something that already exists

Start with simple automation.•The consumer only sees what you present; keep the plumbing hidden

Layer on new services and the rules that guide them.•Ordering a mobile phone in NA is not the same as in EMEA

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What Works and What Doesn’t

Do look for those services that can easily be standardized and consumed

Do provide simple cost/price transparency so people know what they are buying

Do make the catalog experience as simple and quick as possible

Do let the consumer know the status of an order

Do solicit and listen to feedback on the catalog

Do integrate the catalog into other social systems

Don’t think the catalog is a substitute for the service desk

Don’t make the consumer deal with IT issues

Don’t waste time trying to force highly complex solutions into the catalog

Don’t forget to give people a way to ask questions

Don’t assume that once you build it, they will come

Don’t push a rope

Do’s Dont’s

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What is Success?

Financial measures•Reduced procurement “leakage” to non-standard vendors

•Predictable and controllable costs to lines of business

•Economies of scale through exploitation of common infrastructure

Satisfaction measures•Employees have the tools they need in a timely fashion

•Project estimates become more consistent and predictable

•Emergencies decline

Influence measures•IT is viewed as a reliable supplier

•Catalog processes can expand to other business areas

•Budget and planning conversations become more about

strategy and less about cost

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Who Can Help You?

VMware provides a full range of solutions from cloud management through IT business management.

VMware vCloud Automation Center delivers a service catalog that can be used for all IT services.

VMware ITBM delivers service costing, financial transparency, and service management to help run IT as a business.

Homegrown Current

Planning

20%15%10%5%0%

VMware

Vendor Implementation

Source: 451 Research

How organizations deploy self-service catalogs

To learn more about service catalog solutions, go to:

Ordering Personalized Services On Demand

Cloud Management and Automation Highlights: A 451 Research Report

5 Ways Cloud Automation Drives Greater Cost and Operational Transparency Webinar