VitAL Cherwell Supplement 2011

Innovative Technology Built On Yesterday’s Values

Businesses are also unique...

Is your service desk software smart enough to ensure a perfect match?

Service Desk comes of age Software as a Choice www.cherwellsoftware.com

COVER STORY

Cherwell. The service desk solution that covers all your ‘vITIL’ areas

So this is the software I can easily customise and configure. Let’s look at the product videos on their website...

The complete IT Service Management solution Cherwell is the ITIL solution that covers every angle – more powerful, more customisable, more scalable and more cost effective than other systems. Fast and easy to deploy, simple to manage, offering ITIL best practice ‘out-of-the-box’.

Available as a traditional ‘On Premise’ installation or via a fully hosted SaaS solution, the choice is yours and with our unique CBAT technology, Cherwell delivers a truly powerful, scalable solution without ever stripping your budget.

Don’t leave yourself exposed, contact us today on 01793 858181 or visit www.cherwellsoftware.com

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Innovative Technology Built on Yesterday’s Values www.cherwellsoftware.com

“the times, they are a changing” Introduction O

ver the past 25 years I have experienced firsthand, the growth and evolution of today’s It Service Management industry, from the early beginnings of the humble help desk to the more sophisticated and diverse requirements now required by organisations.

As the use and reliance of Information technology becomes increasing entrenched in the fabric of everyday business life, the single biggest change has been the shift of focus from ‘something has broken, it needs fixing’ to end user demands based on “I want, I need, can you do?” therefore, legacy based call logging and ticketing solutions are no longer sufficient to meet the increasing demands of today’s service delivery culture.

The objective of this supplement is to introduce you to Cherwell Software as a leading provider of technology and solutions, plus provide information and independent content on the challenges and future issues being faced by the IT Service Management industry. One of the most enjoyable aspects of compiling the content has been the willingness of our customers to be involved in the project. They were enthusiastic to share their experiences of working with Cherwell and the capabilities provided by our technology to deliver them business advantage and innovation above and beyond their initial ITSM project needs.

In the economic climate of today the acronyms ‘ROI’ Return on Investment and ‘TCO’ Total Cost of Ownership have never been more important in driving organisations to review the viability of their existing systems. Therefore, it is no surprise that many organisations are in the

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process of evaluating their existing legacy enterprise type solutions that they find costly to support, maintain and manage both from a resourcing and real cost perspective. Alternatively, incumbent legacy systems can lack the functionality and flexibility to meet the changing demands being placed on them by their users, creating the need for change.

Cherwell Software has not only recognised the need for change and appropriate software tools to fulfil these requirements, we also understand that organisations want more complete, cost effective solutions that are more flexible, easier to use, deploy and manage. The economic climate of recent years has forced all organisations to deliver more, with fewer resources, at lower costs. In order to meet these demands it has become incumbent on vendors such as Cherwell Software to develop solutions and a business model that is able to address the new demands of customers.

I would like to thank our industry experts who have provided us with useful insight and comment and I hope you find this supplement to be of interest and value. Our goal has been to provide information that can help you to review the way you currently deliver services to your organisation and position Cherwell Software as a viable technology partner for the future.

Regards

Tony Probert European Managing Director

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Message from our Chairman and President, Vance Brown

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t Cherwell Software, we’re passionate about our business – listening to our

customers and caring for their needs. We are building a company that we believe will survive the test of time by providing quality products with extraordinary customer care.

We want to treat our customers according to the ‘golden rule’. We take seriously our tag-line: Innovative technology built upon Yesterday’s values.

The company has grown consistently year on year even in this very challenging financial climate. this is no mean accomplishment, when in recent times we have seen many of our competitors have to cut staffing numbers, lose focus on product development or seeking to be acquired.

Cherwell is gaining significant recognition from leading industry analyst groups such as forrester, IdC, Ovum and gartner, with forrester recently citing Cherwell as an ‘emerging leader of ItSM solutions’ able to compete with the ‘megavendors’ of BMC, CA, hP and IBM. We have also been finalists for recent industry awards, Pink elephant ‘Innovation of the Year’ and Service desk Institute ‘Supplier of the Year’, terrific recognition of the advances we have made.

Our owners at Cherwell have numerous years of experience in this industry. I was the former CeO of goldMine Software® (currently frontrange Solutions®). ron Muns, my good friend and Cherwell’s director of Innovation, was the founder of both frontrange Solutions (formerly Bendata) and the help desk Institute (hdI). Arlen feldman, our CtO, was the

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Chief Architect of frontrange Solutions.

We are not looking to just build a company and sell it, so we have no “exit strategy.”

Our collective desire is to build great technology – in an industry we enjoy – while building lasting relationships with both our employees and customers.

Accordingly, our private company has no outside debt, no venture capital funding and we have been profitable for the past three consecutive years during very difficult global economic conditions.

With more than 30 years in the It industry, Cherwell’s european managing director, tony Probert has spent more than 18 years helping to build, develop and manage startup operations for software companies within the uK and eMeA region. he spent eight years as european managing director for goldMine, growing the european business from a two person start-up to more than 100 people, with revenues in excess of $15m. he subsequently held a variety of senior management positions with responsibility for sales, channel management, marketing and international business development for a number of software companies. having been involved with the help desk and service management industry within the uK and europe since the late 1980s, Probert brings a wealth of knowledge, relationships and practical operational experience to Cherwell Software.

The vision of the Cherwell founders is to create a solution that changes the face of this industry for the benefit of the customer, by delivering a feature-rich, open solution that is more scalable and flexible, simply

priced, with significantly lower ongoing management overheads and choice of deployment, than that of the legacy companies people have been used to dealing with in recent years.

We are ‘changing the rules of the game’ in this industry by offering more choices to our customers. We offer choice in financing (subscribe or purchase); choice in deployment (you host or we host); and choice in user-interface (rich-client, browser, mobile device, or Outlook integration). More importantly, we offer these choices in the context of a compelling value proposition – enterprise power without enterprise cost and complexity.

Cherwell is a privately-owned and privatelyfunded company, with no outside influence from vC companies or corporate investors.

It has corporate headquarters in Colorado Springs, uSA and european offices in the uK. We also have partner companies operating in North America, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland, germany, holland and Italy.

We are founded on the genuine principles of friendship, high morals and building for the future.

Warm regards,

www.cherwellsoftware.com

Contents 1 Introduction TONY PROBERT, MANAGING DIRECTOR EUROPE the times they are a changing. Cherwell european Managing director, Tony Probert extends his welcome to this special supplement.

2 Chairman’s message VANCE BROWN, CHERWELL CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT Vance Brown explains the Cherwell ethos and principles and outlines the company history.

4 A self service revolution A new survey from the Service desk Institute reveals that self service support will have a significant impact on the majority of organisations in the next five years.

5 The Service Desk comes of age!

HOWARD KENDALL – SDI With every organisation now being almost 100% dependent on the effective and efficient operation of It Services, with technology integral to so many customer product lines, the support operation for all this, and hence the Service desk, has Never been more important.

6 Software as a Choice – The rise of ITSM solutions via the SaaS model TONY PROBERT Tony Probert tries to defi ne and eliminate some of the confusion about Software as a Service and discovers that true SaaS is all about choice.

8 Deploying the IT Service Desk SIMON KENT Simon Kent, head of technical Services at Cherwell Software tackles deployment.

9 Help! No-one is following our processes!

ALAN MCCARTHY – PINK ELEPHANT Why, when you have done everything by the book and are certain it will all work, is there no real adoption of or compliance to the new processes?

10 The Cherwell Software offering 12 Three customer case studies three case studies where Cherwell technologies have been used in innovative ways in diverse environments.

14 A compelling case for investment When Cherwell wanted to commission a white paper examining the total economic impact and potential rOI offered by its Service Management offering it turned to forrester Consulting.

16 Why ITIL Lite?

MALCOM FRY ItIL guru Malcolm Fry explains ItIL Lite, an approach to implementing key components of ItIL v3 to ensure a sound basis for It Service Management either as a starting point for full implementation or as a deliverable for those not wishing to fully implement ItILv3.

17 Cherwell Product portfolio

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A self service revolution A new survey from the Service desk Institute reveals that self service support will have a significant impact on the majority of organisations in the next five years.

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N A major survey conducted by the Service desk Institute (SdI) and Cherwell Software, 65 percent of service desk managers, who responded, expect self service support to have a major impact on the business over the next five years. given that the top driver for self support was identified as budgetary, it is interesting to learn that less than ten percent knew the cost of each self support interaction.

The purpose of the survey was to identify the level adoption of self service in the Service Desk industry and highlight how it was being used, as well as discovering whether this technology was improving service delivery and how it was changing the way that users are supported.

Almost 80 percent of the organisations surveyed are using Self Help or Self Service technology, but the survey made it clear that the initial focus has been on reducing call volumes and improving the user experience. So the initial business case justification had been about reducing the amount of time support staff spent handling calls.

It comes as no surprise to industry expert of 20 years Tony Probert, European managing director at Cherwell Software, that a majority of service desk managers are still concentrating at the coalface end of delivery, when they should be increasingly focussed on the delivery of business services to the users. “For many organisations IT Service Management (ITSM) still needs to make a paradigm shift from help desk to service desk and now that there are the tools to make it happen there is no excuse.”

A good example of using metrics to promote business change has been made 4 Service online : May / June 2011

by Rosh Hosany, IT service desk manager at worldwide Mutual Fund Investors, Alliance Bernstein; when an incident is raised with the service desk a ticket is created which is the record of the incident. Before the self service option was available 35 to 40 percent of their calls were for ticket updates, so the service desk was in a strong position to make their case for self service on the basis of reduced call volumes.

For those organisations with the technology in place it is important for them to look to the technology to optimise the user experience. Key to this is defining the value expected from self service and enabling the use of metrics to track the costs of each self service interaction. Once that has been done it allows for the systematic improvement of the service by measuring the effects produced by changes, enabling an organisation to realise the value.

“ITSM is not solely about problem resolutions and reductions in call times, it is about the delivery and integration of services to the business through IT.” said Tony Probert.

“Organisations were quick enough to appoint a social media manager to manage and leverage the business benefits for competitive advantage, so why not appoint a Self Service manager to develop and drive the benefits of self service to the business?”

In Tony Probert’s opinion, the business and user landscape for the service desk could be remarkably different in as early as 2013 by; a) Increasing the provision of business services via self service. b) Every employee should be trained on the use of the self service portal, so they realise the benefits it provides to them. c) The business needs to drive the

“For many organisations IT Service Management (ITSM) still needs to make a paradigm shift from help desk to service desk and now that there are the tools to make it happen there is no excuse.” requirement, providing the budget IT will need to deliver increased business benefits and competitive edge.

“How long can other major organisations ignore the benefits of self-service when Amazon has made the front end of their business so customer friendly using selfservice thinking and technology?” asks Howard Kendall, founder and chairman of the Service Desk Institute. “This report reinforces the need to accelerate the pace of take-up to improve service and save cost.”

The online survey was sent to over 5000 IT Service Management professionals and conducted over two months in January and February 2011. Service Desk managers were the main respondents and further detailed interviews were held to provide an insight of the answers given.

The full report can be downloaded at: www.cherwellsoftware.com/emea www.cherwellsoftware.com

The Service Desk comes of age! the SdI’s Howard Kendall explains why the Service desk has never been more important than it is today.

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Ith everY organisation now being almost 100% dependent on the effective and efficient operation of It Services, with technology integral to so many customer product lines, the support operation for all this, and hence the Service desk, has Never been more important. It may be the ONLY contact that that customer has with your organisation and be fully responsible for the impression left with customers.

T herefore at SDI we have recommended the following ‘top 10 points’ for today’s successful Service Desk: 1. Developing the mission and goals for your Service Desk – in order for it to be that pivotal hub for business and IT service integration. Build the positioning and ability of the Service Desk to be both the CIOs trusted advisor ( maybe the CEO too? ) on the quality and potential of IT to business services, and a reliable business support team renowned for keeping its business customers productive.

2. Focus on Customer Service & Relationships – really understand the customer business & culture and their needs and pains to address in order to achieve the above positioning to the satisfaction of your customers. Will that result be achieved by delivering a great customer experience or simply by the phone, chat or email being answered and their problem fixed?

3. Recruit and build the right team of people for your Service Desk – you www.cherwellsoftware.com

need to create the culture where you are keeping them motivated, business relevant and informed, continually improving and cost effective.

4. Grow the business and soft skills in the IT services and wider support teams – to help with the essential understanding of customers and what they really want across the support operation.

5. Use the ITSM or ITIL framework to best effect – find the best ways to use service management disciplines to give you the maximum return on investment (ROI) for the business. You need to focus on designing or re-assessing your process model based on a revised customer led strategy (outside in). You need to interpret current ITIL messages and trends for your effective use – and remove the distraction and agony of ITIL fatigue.

6. Use technology tools well – to help improve your processes, productivity and most importantly, service to customers.

Cut through the marketing hype to pick out the key technologies that will give you best value for your spend.

7. Measure the ‘right stuff’ – the KPIs and success indicators that really matter to your customers and the business. Report, use and communicate the data to significantly improve your products & services, as well as the customer’s perception of them.

8. Note and sell your achievements – you will need to market your service successes, and even failures, in order to build the reputation and credibility of the

Service Desk for both internal and external purposes and publicly drive – or champion – an ongoing customer service culture.

9. Commit to Continual Service Improvement – and use the best quality methodologies and standards available to keep your service quality improving year on year for your organization.

10. Innovation, innovation, innovation – capture, steal and implement new ideas wherever you find them.

It really is that simple! Well, the list is simple, but experience tells us that actually implementing it is the tricky bit... which largely centres around the first 4 points.

The right, skilled people, pursuing the right goals in the right culture gets you there in most circumstances. It is not dissimilar to a successful sports team in that respect.

Over and above that, using all of the technology available, both to help you do the basic support tasks and processes, and to promote your successes. The rise in the use of social media mean that the use of Facebook sites, Youtube videos and Twitter messages can all be relevant to your messaging. However this can also give rise to the problem of what is business use and which is personal use in the workplace… and some organizations ban use of these sites at work!

So the message is to get your Service Desk basics right, promote success as best you can, and keep improving.

Good luck!

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Software as a Choice The rise of ITSM solutions via the SaaS model Cherwell Software’s Tony Probert tries to define and eliminate some of the confusion about Software as a Service and discovers that true SaaS is all about choice.

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he terM SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Service. forrester research reports that fifty-four percent of all organisations are interested in SaaS deployment. According to gartner, even though only approximately five percent of the It Service Management (ItSM) software market today has embraced SaaS, it is estimated that ten percent of this industry will do so by 2012.

So while it appears that many organisations are demanding the benefits of SaaS, they are confused about what SaaS truly entails, and whether or not it is the best choice. Consider the following question recently posted on a SaaS blog: “Please tell me just what exactly is SaaS? Is it a business model? Is it a delivery/ hosting model or something else?”

This person is not alone in their confusion.

Unless we can define the term and understand the components of SaaS, it is difficult to determine whether or not it is the best option for an organisation’s needs.

In a recent report Ovum/Butler Group recommended the following: “SaaS solutions must be architected so a customer is able 6 Service online : May / June 2011

to self-customise its ‘application instance’, with these customisations preserved through an effortless upgrade process. Without these facilities, the SaaS business case is not so compelling.”

The evolution of SaaS In his article, On-demand/SaaS reality, author Rick Sklarin described the three generations of SaaS evolution. The first, which he calls SaaS 1.0, became popular in the 1990s and involved the early Application Service Provider (ASP) model. This first generation of subscription-based pricing typically was offered via client-server, was mostly accepted by the SMB market, and had very limited ability to customise the applications and integrate with other systems.

The second generation, SaaS 2.0 or pure SaaS, was made popular by the success of Salesforce.com. This generation currently defines the SaaS marketplace. It typically requires subscription pricing; deployment and hosting of the application and the data off-premise; and delivery over the Internet through an HTML browser. In short, pure SaaS www.cherwellsoftware.com

SaaS 2.0, aka ‘pure’ or ‘modern’ SaaS, has been narrowly defined and deployed. Because of this, its days may be numbered. Enterprise-savvy customers today are demanding more choice in the financial model, the deployment model and the user interface model. offers few choices. This model also has been criticized as having very limited customisation and integration capabilities.

Sklarin predicts the evolution to SaaS 3.0, a hybrid SaaS alternative, offering many more choices for end-users. As he describes: “larger companies are demanding an evolution from the pure-play SaaS model”

Software as a Choice (SaaC) – the 3rd generation of SaaS 1. Financial component – lease or own?

From a legal perspective, software generally is licensed from software vendors. However, these licenses can be purchased or leased.

By purchasing the customer generally has the right to use the software in perpetuity.

When the software is leased, however, the customer can only use the software for as long as the subscription fee is paid.

It is not much different from leasing a car, it may be cheaper in the short-term, but typically is much more expensive over a longer timeframe.

When software is leased it is paid for out of the company’s operations budget. All of the current subscription costs can be expensed on the income statement in the current period.

Alternatively, purchased software over a certain purchase amount must be capitalised. The software shows up on the balance sheet as an asset that must be depreciated over time.

So which financial approach is preferable?

Some organisations that are constrained from a cash-flow perspective may choose to lease the software. Other organisations might be concerned about utilising a mission-critical application that they do not own. There is no correct answer; it will vary given the business circumstances. With respect to the financial model – choice matters. But there is no technical reason that a software product could not be deployed on premise, yet paid for using a subscription model.

2. Deployment component – on-Premise or off-Premise hosting? Pure SaaS typically www.cherwellsoftware.com

requires that the software application and the company’s data be hosted offsite, which has some real advantages. For example, the service provider supplies and administers the server, the operating system and deploys all software updates from a remote location.

Accordingly, all such costs and services are bundled in with the leasing price. This model can offer great efficiencies and economies of scale.

However, some organisations, such as Government and financial institutions, have greater security requirements. The idea of trusting an outside company to protect it can be a show-stopper. Hosting data offsite also has implications for organisations that are subject to legal requirements, such as the EU Data Privacy Directive and other governance regulations.

Additionally, most SaaS 2.0 hosted environments require that every client has its software and data upgraded at the same time – offering no choice regarding when that occurs. That may be great for early adopters, but for companies that would rather wait until all the kinks and bugs are worked out in the applications, it is not a desired approach.

From a technical perspective, customers should be able to switch back and forth between hosting on-premise and off as their business needs change. The bottom line is that the hosting model should be a choice. Once again, there is no correct answer. It depends on the business needs.

3. User interface component – rich-client or browser? The advent of the Internet has been revolutionary, providing an inexpensive way to share data from multiple geographic locations. However, should the data and application be accessed via a browser or smart-client? From a technical perspective, the hosting choice discussed above of onpremise or off-premise should support either method of accessing the data. However, many pure SaaS vendors imply that a remote hosting model requires that the application

and the data be accessed only by using a common browser, for example, Internet Explorer. This is not the case with more modern and flexible software applications.

Regardless of whether a smart-client or browser-client is utilised, software applications today can deliver the data over the Internet in exactly the same manner, utilising protocols such as SOAP over HTTP. With a smart-client, less bandwidth typically is needed and the user experience can be faster and more robust, because the screens and other software overhead do not need to travel over Internet.

A browser-based application also has its advantages. For example, all upgrades to the software are done remotely at the server. With a smart-client, updates to the client must be downloaded or ‘auto-deployed’. However, this automated installation to the client typically requires very little effort on the part of the end-user. Probably the greatest advantage of a browser-only application is that it can be accessed from different computer platforms, such as Windows, Mac, or UNIX.

Hello SaaC SaaS 2.0, aka ‘pure’ or ‘modern’ SaaS, has been narrowly defined and deployed.

Because of this, its days may be numbered.

Enterprise-savvy customers today are demanding more choice in the financial model, the deployment model and the user interface model. An organisation should be able to choose, to host the application and data on-premise, yet pay for the software using a subscription model – while accessing the data using either a rich-client or a browser. If any model is really going to offer true ‘service,’ it should offer choices to the customer.

SaaS is here to stay, but it will continue to evolve because of customer demands.

The third generation of SaaS solutions will continue to emerge, forced by enterprise companies to offer choice. Good-bye ‘pure’ SaaS, hello SaaC – Software as a Choice!

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Deploying the IT Service Desk

By Simon Kent, head of technical Services, Cherwell Software.

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S the global economy begins its recovery from the economic downturn and with costs being more analysed and managed than ever before, every organisation is being asked to deliver more, with less resources and for lower costs. A real differentiator is the quality of service and support an organisation is capable of delivering and if these can be more automated and efficient, the business benefits can make the difference between business success and failure.

Whatever the service currently being delivered, the provision of a helpdesk/ support desk is now an established and crucial element of any organisations day-today operational management, be it internally and/or externally focused. Customers can be served more proactively and employees can be more productive, if the quality of support they receive is faster and more effective. It is also a huge influencer on the user community’s perception of the IT services delivered within an organisation. Gartner surveys have shown that 50% of an end users perception of the IT services they receive is directly influenced by the quality of the support they experience.

Therefore, provision of a quality service desk operation is no longer an option, it is essential.

In principle the requirements and issues involved with the deployment of an IT Service Desk are well documented by the ITIL, given

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that it has been developed over many years to provide good practice guidelines based on the experience of many organisations that have gone before. That old saying of ‘Not re inventing the wheel’, should be the mantra for anyone involved with or considering such a project. However, my experience over the past 18 years clearly shows that the ‘wheel’ is being constantly re invented for a variety of reasons. Therefore, it is evidently clear that one size does not fit all and the project to deploy or upgrade an organisation’s Service Desk, albeit helped by the ITIL framework, is different for everyone.

Having identified the critical business processes that need to be developed and initiated via the Service Desk team, it is then necessary to re evaluate any incumbent software solution(s) being used as to their suitability for the new requirements. It is no good having scoped and designed the greatest processes in World, if the means by which they are to be delivered is not just capable of delivering the end result, but more importantly adding significant value, the flexibility to meet changing business needs and future scalability.

In either deploying or upgrading a Service Desk the de facto standard is now for organisations of all size and type to adopt the good practice framework and recommendations offered by ITIL v3. To

what extent an organisation is prepared to undertake the considerable investment required to fully adopt ITIL is a commercial decision they need to make for themselves. However, the benefits of the good practice framework cannot be denied but it is not necessarily right for everyone.

So back to the original topic ‘deploying the IT service desk’. Having made a decision about to what extent, if any you are going to adopt ITIL good practice and then selecting the best software solution to meet the requirements of your organisation, the project focus should be around People, Processes and Technology.

The hidden curse of any well planned project is ‘Scope Creep’. Although a well executed Statement of Work is designed to provide focus on the core deliverables for a project, project managers/project executors must be disciplined enough to refer customer contacts back to the Statement of Work, negotiating project extensions and additional funding, if required.

The ultimate objective of deploying an IT service desk has to be to enhance business value, through the delivery of competitive advantage from improved customer service and/or increased productivity of an organisation’s employees, whilst reducing overall business costs. Although this might seem a high ideal, it is possible with the right planning and choice of software partner. www.cherwellsoftware.com

Help! No-one is following our processes!

Why, when you have done everything by the book and are certain it will all work, is there no real adoption of or compliance to the new processes? Alan McCarthy of Pink Elephant explains.

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e dId everything by the book and was certain this would work: the CIO declared her commitment to the project; everybody passed the ItIL foundation; We developed process design teams with participation from key stakeholders; We had creative communication sessions; We delivered quick wins and small improvements to show people we were on the right track; and we purchased a great ItSM tool.

Why then is there no real adoption or compliance to the new processes?

Apparently many companies are in the same boat. We often get asked by organisations who have adopted ITIL to come in and, “make the processes real – bring them to life, we’re still doing things the same as we did three years ago”.

To be clear, all of the points above are necessary and the right things to do when you are tackling a major transformation project.

However all of that is not sufficient to ensure the organisation follows the process after you go live.

We rarely come across organisations who actually do all of the above, ITIL is simply treated as a technology change – the most common scenario we see is: “We bought a tool and were told it would give us ITIL.” The item missing from this list comes down to Professor John Kotter’s 8th step for Managing Organisational Change “Anchoring new approaches in the culture”. His steps are: 1. Establishing a sense of urgency 2. Creating the guiding coalition

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Developing a vision and strategy Communicating the change vision Empowering broad-based action Generating short-term wins Consolidating gains and producing more change 8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture.

Without that last step in the Kotter model the result of all your work comes to naught leaving you frustrated and disappointed.

In the end, this last step may well be the most critical to your transformation activities. Incidentally, we find very few organisations that have even attempted any of the early steps. No wonder then that a recent Forrester report highlighted a 52% failure in ITIL adoption projects.

When you address these critical success factors for anchoring the new approach at a personal level for every individual in your organisation you will get real change. The more positively inclined and cooperative people will get your message and intuitively understand why the new process is better.

However, it probably means more work for them, and they will be willing follow the process until, during a stressful moment, they are forced to make decisions about what to do and what to drop.

Unless the individuals / departments and organisations believe they are being measured and held accountable for the process in a real and tangible way that actually has consequences, they will resort to the path of least resistance when deciding

about how they operate and what work they will prioritise.

This inability to establish the organisational capability to deploy the process is one of the key impediments to success that we hear over and over again.

Designing an ITIL Process is the easy part. Moving people to change their current practices takes effort on many levels. In one sense you need to engineer any potential excuse for non compliance out of the organisation.

So, if you are on an ITSM journey and you look back on your efforts and are asking “Why is there no real adoption or compliance to the new Processes?”, the chances are that you have not created the necessary organisational structures, governance roles and performance measurement systems to motivate people to believe that this is a change that benefits them as well as the organisation and that they have to follow the processes or suffer the consequences.

Ask yourself, “What are the real consequences (in terms of cost and risk) of not following that process you worked so hard to establish?”

“Build it and they will come”, only works in fantasy movies like “Field of Dreams” You can have the world’s best process design and a great ITSM tool and people will still not choose to change and follow your processes unless you have anchored your new approaches into the culture with personal accountability.

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Incident, Problem, Change

“Since implementation of the Cherwell solution it has had a massive impact on both the actual service delivered by IT and the perception of the service being delivered.”

Each of these management processes work seamlessly together to provide an integrated life-cycle between Incident, Problem and Change, delivering a structured workflow and ease of use out of the box, which has been designed to recommended ITIL v3 ‘good practice’.

IT Manager

Knowledge Fully accessible within the Cherwell system via the client interface, browser and self-service views, the knowledge module delivers powerful searching across federated knowledge sources, using dynamic mapping to provide simultaneous access to multiple information sources, including knowledge articles, wikis, document stores, web sites, CMDB and any part of the Cherwell system.

“We reviewed Gartner and Forrester report recommendations and chose Cherwell as it is functionally rich, modern, good value for money and easy to implement.”

Head of IT Operations

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Anywhere/ Anytime Reporting Mobile access to systems and management information is increasingly important in the fast paced, dynamic business world of today.

Irrespective of the mobile device you choose to use on a daily basis (iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Nokia), Cherwell provides you with the connectivity you need to stay in control.

www.cherwellsoftware.com

Configuration (SACM) Fully integrated and extensible, the CMDB enables the creation and management of any CI and associated attribute.

All CIs are linked by their relationships to each other. Data can be dynamically viewed and managed via Cherwell’s integrated Visualisation module and reside in external data sources to provide a truly extensible, visual and federated CMDB.

Service Catalog Cherwell enables customers to easily define, classify, present and modify the range of business services they want to offer to users across their business community, whether they are internal users or external customers.

Self-Service The ability for end users to help themselves is a key requirement for the new Service culture of today. With a fully integrated, unlimited user access self-service module, Cherwell ensures that an organisation’s end user community is able to view, input and modify information that is important and relevant to them.

Request Fulfilment Cherwell provides the capability to easily and dynamically differentiate incident tickets from service requests, define appropriate workflow, assign tasks, status tracking, enable discrete dashboard displays and management reporting.

www.cherwellsoftware.com

“I cannot think of another product on the market that would allow us the same level of functionality, flexibility and usability.”

IT Service Desk Manager

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Bloxx upgrades its service desk with Cherwell

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Mark Smith, operations director, Bloxx

nternet surfing for personal reasons during working hours carries a multi-billion dollar price tag in today’s business. European specialists in Web and email filtering, Bloxx has replaced its incumbent service desk with a service management solution from Cherwell Software.

Having investigated the cost of adding a web portal service and additional licences, Bloxx realised the price to upgrade its existing system was similar to that of switching to the Cherwell solution.

Mark Smith, operations director at Bloxx, was impressed that Cherwell could be adapted to suit specific requirements for incident, change, service level and configuration management, and could be configured to create a new

licensing system. “We had no idea that an entirely new service would come out of using Cherwell. We are over the moon with our ‘eureka’ moment which has enabled us to develop the licensing service, provide a value-added service to our customers and in turn increase our business proposition.”

The ability of Cherwell software to provide a Self-service module is another key reason for Bloxx’s decision; “Self-service is an important milestone in our plans for future offerings to our customers. Cherwell has many of the same functions as similar products, except the bonus is that it has removed all of the limitations,” concludes Smith.

ControlCircle completes its ITIL circle with Cherwell

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Ken O’Neill, network operations centre manager, ControlCircle

ver 100 of the world’s largest online businesses and blue chip companies in the banking, legal, accounting and commercial sectors rely on ControlCircle’s 24/7 data centre services.

With a ten-month plan in applying for two international standards ISO/IEC 20000* and ISO 27001* involved ControlCircle moving from a legacy system to Cherwell Service Management, deploying the software in five areas of the business; customer support, projects, assets, sales and CRM. Ken O’Neill, network operations centre manager had two key goals for the project to succeed. “The primary one was to find a mechanism to manage the core ITIL processes, and the second was to identify service management software that brought an ease of use and flexibility, so that any of our IT team or a non-development resource could set up, configure and use it.”

ControlCircle is currently stripping out all their previous systems so that the backbone of the sales operation would go through Cherwell CRM. At the end of the ten-month project the outcome is to have an end-to-end process.

“Going back to ITIL, this is the last piece linking the various components across the business, in essence, completing the circle.”

Explaining the reason that ControlCircle is putting the infrastructure in place O’Neill added; “as a company we need to have a reliable automated back end system to assist us with the ISO 20000. We are also planning to use Cherwell’s self service solution in two ways; the first for a service catalogue, and second to process orders online.” * ISO/IEC 20000 is the first worldwide standard specifically aimed at IT Service Management. It describes an integrated set of management processes for the effective delivery of services to the business and its customers.

Consolidation of IS Support systems and adopting ITIL management processes

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Tim Dewson, UK IS service desk manager, Spirax Sarco

he design, delivery and management of steam powered systems continues to have a huge impact on our everyday lives, even more than we might think.

Whether it is powering hot water systems, sterilising hospital equipment, keeping the factory canning line running to deliver baked beans to the shelves, or in the specific case of breaking five British land speed records for a steam powered car. Spirax Sarco, the global engineering firm, provides the application of steam across a wide range of industries.

In the latter half of 2009, Spirax Sarco initiated a standardisation project, based on ITIL*, to consolidate all its various IS support systems, asset and service management processes onto a single software architecture. After a rigorous selection process the decision was made to go with ITIL compliant Cherwell Service Management.

“We were keen to eliminate the anomalies and inconsistent processes that inevitably arise when you have a variety of different legacy tools in place,” said Tim Dewson, UK IS service desk manager. “We looked at ITIL’s good practice guidelines

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and with the Cherwell solution have adopted and adapted them to fit our working environment.”

When new software is introduced within a company there is sometimes resistance to change. To provide an easy way for the staff to become accustomed to the new functionality and to minimise any potential change conflict, Spirax Sarco implemented a phased approach across the five groups.

Dewson said: “Introducing new ways of working required an individual approach, since the groups were using different monitoring methods; one team handled low volume incidents and requests and were capturing those manually on spreadsheets, therefore they really welcomed the transition to a software-based system. The cultural change-over was more of a challenge with those groups that had previously been working with legacy help desk products. However, once they were able to configure Cherwell’s features and use the increased functionality they became convinced. The option to use Cherwell’s out-of-the-box software on day one, and adapt it to suit our needs as the IS team becomes more familiar with the product, is an added bonus.”

www.cherwellsoftware.com

Customer overview Bloxx is an enterprise Web and Email filtering company.

Established in 1999, Bloxx is a privately held company with offices in the U.S., U.K., The Netherlands, and Australia. It has grown to be the premier independent provider of Web filtering across Europe, and, it has been recognised by Deloitte as one of the U.K.’s Top 50 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in its prestigious “Fast 50.” in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Its patent-pending Tru-View Technology analyses, categorises and filters web pages in real time with multi-tiered filtering algorithms.

Innovative use of Cherwell “There is nothing we have thought of that we want to do with Cherwell, that the software has not been able to do.”

www.bloxx.com

* ISO 27001 (Information Security Management), the basic objective of the standard is to help establish and maintain an effective information management system, using a continual improvement approach. It implements OECD principles, governing security of information and network systems.

Deploying Cherwell to achieve ISO status

Customer overview

“Flipping over to Cherwell was one of the most seamless migrations I’ve ever seen!”

ControlCircle is a privately owned company, founded in 2001 to provide solutions ranging from secure hosting and global connectivity to managing all security, networking, server and database technologies covering a full range of market sectors.

Customers include many of the world’s largest online businesses and blue chip companies in the banking, legal, accounting and commercial sectors. They rely on ControlCircle’s industry knowledge, technical expertise, innovation, accuracy and skilful team management.

www.controlcircle.com

Spirax Sarco is already using self-service out-of-thebox and plans to ramp that up during 2011. “To evolve the use of Cherwell’s service catalogue functionality, one of our goals is to push self-service to replace legacy Excel and Word forms online., For example, provide standard services to new users and access to applications.” Dewson added: “From January 2011 we will create a baseline to compare year on year statistics and adapt the Cherwell customer satisfaction survey module to monitor and measure our improvements in service delivery.”

Customer overview Spirax Sarco provides products and services for the efficient use of steam and other industrial fluids.

We focus on helping our customers to attain greater energy efficiency, higher productivity, safer operations and lower carbon emissions, through expert consultancy, plant audits, design, installation, commissioning and maintenance – all backed by first class training and support.

Consolidation of IS Support systems and adopting ITIL management processes “The feedback from the IS team is that Cherwell is a very intuitive tool.”

www.spiraxsarco.com

www.cherwellsoftware.com

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A compelling case for investment When Cherwell wanted to commission a white paper examining the total economic impact and potential rOI offered by its Service Management offering it turned to forrester Consulting.

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herWeLL SOftWAre commissioned forrester Consulting to examine the total economic impact and potential return on investment (rOI) enterprises may realise by deploying Cherwell Service Management, its fully integrated software solution for management of service desk, help desk, or customer call centres. It is a web-enabled product that uses Microsoft’s .Net technology and out-of-the-box Pink elephant-verified ItIL v3 best practices. the product is available through a traditional licensing model (Cherwell On-Premise) or as a subscription service (Cherwell On-demand), implementing the latest in the SaaS evolution: SaaS 3.0. either model supports a ‘browser-based’ or ‘rich client’ user experience. this study illustrates the financial impact of implementing on premises Cherwell Service Management for the information services department (ISd) of a uS-based research company with 14 major locations.

The client organisation had grown considerably over the previous five years, the IT director wanted to align the ISD with its longterm business needs through managing costs, processes, and services. The IT director initially

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implemented a manual change management process and developed a home-grown solution for service management. Struggling with the need for a more sophisticated solution for change management and reporting requirements, the organisation purchased an enterprise class service management solution.

The organisation attempted to implement the solution for more than a year but was unable to do so due to challenges with upgrade compatibility, contractors, and matching the software configuration with its requirements.

It ultimately decided to discontinue the implementation of the previously purchased software and to start its search for an IT service management software solution from scratch.

It conducted an extensive requirements and needs assessment phase for three months, identifying 33 different possible software vendors. This field was narrowed to four vendors. After a series of site visits, two vendors were selected to pilot their software over 30 days with the organisation.

After this evaluation process, it picked Cherwell Service Management.

In conducting in-depth interviews with the organisation, Forrester found that with the selection and implementation of Cherwell, it achieved:

www.cherwellsoftware.com

• Productivity savings from improved IT service management processes around incident and problem management.

• Savings from cost avoidance of software maintenance fees for the previous IT service management solution.

• Labour savings from cost avoidance of additional administration for the previous IT service management solution.

• Additional savings from solution development, such as a project and portfolio management solution, using Cherwell Service Management.

• Improved reporting in terms of timing, accuracy, and flexibility.

• Improved accountability to address continuous service improvements.

• Better perception of IT within the organisation through improved customer service.

Purpose The purpose of the study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Cherwell Service Management on their organisations. Forrester’s aim is to clearly show all calculations and assumptions used in the analysis. Readers should use this study to better understand and communicate a business case for investing in Cherwell Service Management.

Methodology Cherwell selected Forrester for this project because of its industry expertise in IT systems management — particularly IT service management — and Forrester’s Total Economic Impact (TEI) methodology.

According to Forrester, TEI not only measures costs and cost reduction (areas that are typically accounted for within IT) but also weighs the enabling value of a technology in increasing the effectiveness of overall business processes.

For this study, Forrester employed the four fundamental elements of TEI in modelling IT service management: 1. Costs and cost reduction.

2. Benefits to the entire organisation.

3. Flexibility.

4. Risk.

Given the increasing sophistication that enterprises have regarding cost analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology serves an extremely useful purpose by providing a complete picture www.cherwellsoftware.com

of the total economic impact of purchase decisions.

Approach Forrester used a four-step approach for this study: 1. It gathered data from existing research relative to Cherwell Service Management and the IT service management market in general.

2. It interviewed Cherwell Service Management’s executive leadership, marketing, product management, and sales personnel to fully understand the potential (or intended) value proposition of Cherwell Service Management.

3. It conducted a series of in-depth interviews with an organisation currently using Cherwell Service Management.

4. It constructed a financial model representative of the interviews.

Key Findings Forrester’s study yielded the following key findings: ROI: Based on interviews with the organisation, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for the organisation and the associated ROI analysis illustrating the financial impact areas. The ROI for the organisation is 108 percent with a breakeven point (payback period) of 9.7 months after deployment.

Benefits: The main quantified benefits for the organisation were: 1) Productivity savings from improved service management processes such as incident and problem management; 2) The avoidance of software maintenance fees due to the replacement of the previous purchased service management solution; 3) The avoidance of administrative costs from the previously purchased service management solution; 4) Additional savings from development of a project and portfolio management solution using Cherwell Service Management. These benefits comprise a net present value (NPV) of $842,182 over a three-year analysis.

Costs: The costs of Cherwell Service Management include: 1) Software license fees; 2) Associated annual maintenance fees; 3) Additional software costs; 4) Implementation fees for external contractors; 5) Training fees; 6) Internal labour fees for implementation; 7) Annual administrative costs.

The costs add up to an NPV of $405,381 over three years. Forrester risk-adjusts these values to take into account the potential uncertainty that exists in estimating the costs and benefits of a technology investment.

The risk-adjusted value is meant to provide a conservative estimation, incorporating any potential risk factors that may later impact the original cost and benefit estimates.

Conclusions Based on information collected in interviews with a current Cherwell Service Management customer, Forrester found that organisations can realise benefits in the form of: • Productivity savings from improved IT service management processes around incident and problem management.

• Savings from cost avoidance of software maintenance fees for the previous IT service management solution.

• Labour savings from cost avoidance of additional administration for the previous IT service management solution.

• Additional savings from solution development, such as a project and portfolio management solution, using Cherwell Service Management.

• Improved reporting in terms of timing, accuracy, and flexibility.

• Improved accountability to address continuous service improvements.

• Better perception of IT within the organisation through improved customer service.

The financial analysis provided in this study illustrates the potential way an organisation can evaluate the value proposition of Cherwell Service Management. Based on information collected in the in-depth customer interviews, Forrester calculated a three-year risk-adjusted ROI of 108 percent for the organisation with a payback period of less than 10 months. All final estimates are risk-adjusted to incorporate potential uncertainty in the calculation of costs and benefits.

Based on these findings, companies looking to implement Cherwell Service Management can see gains around the benefits of improved efficiency in IT service management, productivity savings, and cost avoidance. Using the TEI framework, many companies may find the potential for a compelling business case to make such an investment.

The full report can be downloaded at: www.cherwellsoftware.com/analyst-reviews May / June 2011 : Service online 15

Why ITIL Lite?

ItIL guru Malcolm Fry explains ItIL Lite, an approach to implementing key components of ItIL v3 to ensure a sound basis for It Service Management.

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efOre We discuss ItIL Lite it is important to explain the reasoning and logic behind the concept of ItIL Lite. first of all it is not meant to compete with or in anyway denigrate ItIL v3 rather it has been created to complement and enhance organisations that are adopting or are thinking of adopting ItIL v3. there are many organisations that for different reasons cannot or will not be implementing ItIL v3 in its entirety: Cost – just don’t have the budget plain and simple No customer support – knocked back by customers who are just not interested ISO20000 limitations – ISO20000 only needs about half of the v3 components Time constraints – a full v3 project is to big to be managed by a small team Ownership – many of the v3 components have different owners and are not interested in ITIL Running out of steam – v3 project is dragging on and has lost momentum Too complex – there are too many ITIL components where do I start Have already implemented v2 – happy with v2 and don’t want to approach Boss with more ITIL There are also those organisations that are looking towards full ITI v3 implementation but are confused as to where to start this journey.

ITIL Lite is aimed both of these groups; those who will not be fully implementing ITIL v3 and those who intend to fully implement ITIL v3 but are looking for a starting point.

To illustrate these points here is a brief description of ITIL Lite: 16 Service online : May / June 2011

‘ITIL Lite is an approach to implementing key components of ITIL v3 to ensure a sound basis for IT Service Management either as a starting point for full implementation or as a deliverable for those not wishing to fully implement ITILv3’ The objectives of ITIL Lite are to provide an approach to selecting the most appropriate ITIL v3 components for ITIL Lite and then how to prepare a project to implement those components.

One of the most significant claims of earlier versions of ITIL was that they were a ‘framework’ and not a ‘methodology’.

For many people this was a major factor for them selecting ITIL. How many experts would a have a slide stating the ITIL was ‘A framework and not a methodology’?

How often were we told that you didn’t have to implement all of the ITIL components or that each component was guide and not a set of stringent rules or procedures?

Interestingly procedure is a word that rarely figures in ITIL yet many organisations once had procedures whereas now we have processes.

So what is the difference between a framework and a methodology? If in doubt refer to the dictionary has always been a reliable maxim so here are dictionary definitions of framework and methodology Methodology – A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods.

Framework – a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published

by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Let us look at these definitions to help us decide whether ITIL v3 is a framework or a methodology starting with methodology.

The words in this definition that characterise methodology are ‘procedures, rules and discipline’. These words do not leave much room for flexibility they are very much associated with a given set of activities that must be performed in a precise and prescribed manner. Many of us in IT are able to remember Computer Operations procedures that had to be followed to the letter. In essence a methodology is the same a set of inflexible instructions that must be followed to the letter.

On the other hand framework is a completely different approach illustrated by the words ‘assumptions, concepts, values and a way of viewing reality’. These are words that advise and guide you towards a solution rather than provide a path that has to be followed. Framework allows you the option of choice, flexibility and the scope to create an ITSM service that is fit for purpose.

ITIL Lite is concerned with adopting key ITIL components as either a starting point for full implementation or as a means to an end. Each component should be considered on its own merits and created to be ‘fit for purpose’. ITIL is a guide not a set of rules. www.cherwellsoftware.com

Deployed “On Premise” or “On Demand (SaaS),” Cherwell Service Management (CSM) offers the most compelling value in the market today. Built as an XML-based, 3-tier application on the Microsoft .NET framework communicating over the web, Cherwell Service Management is the first service management software solution that your organisation will never outgrow. Recognised

by Forrester Research® as an “Emerging Leader” in the ITSM market, discover the compelling benefits of Cherwell Service Management for yourself.

Comprehensive Service Management Solution Cherwell Service Management is a comprehensive service management solution with all the functionality you will need to manage your internal service desk or external service centre. Whether requests are generated from the Self-Service portal, e-mail, desk-top client, browser-based client or as an event from your network monitoring tool, Cherwell provides you the full life-cycle that makes your staff more efficient and effective, ultimately improving the quality of your IT and customer support departments.

Low TCO/Incredible ROI Today’s IT investments are subject to intense Return On Investment (ROI) scrutiny. Cherwell Service Management excels in providing you a greater return through concurrent licenses, quicker start-up implementation, and easier to configure and maintain software. Whether you choose our On Premise model or our SaaS model, Cherwell Service Management uses a concurrent license approach, rather than a named license model, giving you much more flexibility with staffing and typically saving 30% - 50% off named licenses. One concurrent license includes all thefully-integrated core functionality of Cherwell Service Management.

Ultimate Connectivity & Productivity

ITIL® v3 PinkVERIFYTM Out-of-the-Box Management Processes Incident Problem Change Configuration (SACM) Knowledge Release Event Service Level Service Catalog Service Portfolio

Ultimately Cherwell Service Management provides you with easy and convenient access to your centralised data from anywhere. Is your work managed by your Inbox? Records can be created, updated and closed via e-mail. In a meeting? Use the native iPhone®/iPad® application, Blackberry® or Android® to approve emergency change requests or update a record. On the go? Log into the browser-based application to update or create a record using any machine as long as you have internet access. Constantly in the system? Harness all the power that Cherwell provides via the smart-client that is auto-deployed right to your desktop.

Minimum Installation Requirements Server Requirements • Intel or compatible • Pentium ®4, 1.5 GHz or better • 2 GB RAM • 500 MB free hard disk space • Microsoft ® .NET 2.0 • Microsoft IIS 5.0 or higher • Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP2 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP1 Client Requirements • Intel or compatible • Pentium 4 • 512 MB RAM (recommended) • 100 MB free hard disk space (recommended) • Microsoft .NET 2.0 • IE 7.0 or higher, Firefox, Safari (PC or Mac), Chrome • Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista • 1024X768 resolution monitor or better (recommended)

www.cherwellsoftware.com

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You choose the direction ClOud ITSM ON PREMISE ITSM

Cherwell will get you there

Cherwell offers a single ITSM solution with 11 ITIL v3 processes delivered outof-the box and you choose how you want our software to be deployed, On Premise or On Demand, it’s your choice!

Utilising true 3 tier client architecture, built on the .NET platform, using Web 2.0 technology, with rich client and browser interfaces, Cherwell Service Management is more powerful and more cost effective than comparable

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The complete Service Management solution from Cherwell gives you the choice

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solutions. Whether deployed on your servers or in the cloud, our unique CBAT platform empowers you to configure, customise and develop the system and be more responsive to the ever changing needs of your customers and business.

Powerful, flexible, scalable and easy to manage, Cherwell believes that true ‘Software as a Service’ is about CHOICE.

Call us on 01793 858181 to discuss your requirements and the Cherwell choices available or visit www.cherwellsoftware.com

Innovative Technology Built on Yesterday’s Values