Cutting through the Business Service Management hype between vendors is tough these days. With no standard industry accepted definition as to what BSM is, every vendor is free to define their own story and path towards BSM success. I have proposed my own definition and collected what many others have defined BSM to be.
I see at least two very distinct BSM schools of thought in the messaging today. One is very process oriented (ITSM/ITIL, etc.) and one is very technology oriented (events, relationships, etc.). I think they are both very viable and help clients meet the goals and objectives of BSM, but they take clients in two very different paths towards BSM success. I believe that one path leads to a slow and grueling journey and the other can show many of the quick wins that most clients seek today.
One of the biggest reasons I joined Micromuse (now IBM Tivoli) was to help clients reach the BSM pinnacle of the Micromuse “pyramid” that was used in all of their sales and marketing materials. It was a great concept, but the biggest issue was that they didn’t give their clients a path to follow to get there. My mission continues to be making the sales and marketing slicks real and something that the typical monitoring tools group can actually implement.
If you’re evaluating BSM solutions, what would your “Super Bowl” contest look like? I’ve included some things that I’d want to know about in my “Where’s the Beef?” presentation from BarCampESM that I intend to evolve into a standard evaluation checklist that everyone can use. I’d enjoy hearing about what you would consider important or would like to contribute to this effort!
- What would the key components of your “Super Bowl” of BSM evaluation between vendors?
- What are your most important capabilities, features and technology support required?
- Is a vendor’s BSM solution more important when you’ve heavily invested in that vendor or is a best of breed BSM solution more important? Why?
- Is there a green field market for BSM or is it pretty much one that the incumbents of a given client will win?
- Would you consider an open source BSM solution?
- How much does the message matter over the actual ability to implement, integrate and maintain?
- How much do you really evaluate a vendor or solution’s track record?
- How do you evaluate the cost over the entire lifecycle?
- How do you measure tangible and intangible returns? Can you?
Start adding some comments to this post and I’ll add this and my own to a dedicated page. Vendor and client input is greatly appreciated!
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