How Service Integration and Management (SIAM) is Changing the Customer and Supplier Landscape

stevesiegel
ServiceNow Employee
ServiceNow Employee
‎08-31-2016 01:56 PM

SIAM (Service Integration and Management) SIG Panel at Knowledge16

The following panel discussion occurred at Knowledge 16 as a part of the SIAM (Service Integration and Management) SIG.   The content provides compelling examples regarding the issues companies face when integrating services from 3rd parties, best practices when undertaking integration of 3rd party services, and an early look at results of such a project implemented at the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK.

Abstract:

In this session, a panel of IT leaders discussed how Service Integration and Management (SIAM) is changing the customer and supplier landscape.   This discussion provided insight into how organizations can adapt and leverage this change and included prescriptive guidance and insight into how ServiceNow and its partners combine to deliver a unique approach to SIAM.

Panel Participants:

Context

The conversation started with Neil Moxon outlining the SIAM initiative at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).   The business initiatives had actually begun several years prior and involved defining policies and how DWP would operate with respect to IT services and standard processes including incident management. In the last few years their focus had turned to building out a single system of record and they knew they had to have their suppliers participate in their definition of a common set of IT processes and communication mechanisms.   DWP had chosen ServiceNow to help them manage their suppliers better.  

Dan Stavola (EY) commented that he's seen many organizations looking to evaluate their approach to supplier management to drive down costs. To support this they often seek to develop a single source of truth as a mechanism to help their service providers to work together with their internal service delivery teams.  

Peter Duffy (Sumerian) pointed out that in a multi-vendor model it's all about how you can get to end-to-end visibility to service performance.   Clearly building out the single source of truth sets the foundation.   But the real opportunity happens when the information is captured in one place and can be integrated with predictive analytics to help pinpoint and diagnose business and service provider issues.        

However, Johann Diaz (ServiceNow) pointed out - service integration isn't just about the technology, the biggest challenge is often the people challenge. Getting people to understand and adapt to new ways of working requires compelling vision, great communication & strong leadership. Further, when services are outsourced, the knowledge and control can be lost.   Customers often need to keep or bring both of these back in house.    

When re-evaluating one's service processes and supply chain, getting a view of the end-to-end service lifecycle creates the opportunity to redesign it from a customer perspective in, instead of the service delivery and supply chain out.

Best practices

Through the panel discussion, several best practices were highlighted:

  • The first question that should be asked when embarking upon a SIAM project is what's the business goal you're trying to achieve.   The answer should be built into the executive dashboards and delivered in the first phase with real-time data to drive it. This will provide quick wins and alignment to goals.  
  • There can be only one clock for SLAs.   Everyone needs to be looking at the same timeline and the same data.  
  • It's important to look at the services first, then the technology components and software stacks that support them. It's faster to bring the services into the data model first to show results, then evaluate consolidating them with technology elements where possible to remove costs.  
  • Work with a partner on Organizational Change Management (OCM). It's simply very challenging for an organization to dispassionately assess it's own readiness and capabilities for change and advancement.     The reality is people often only change when forced to — a 3rd party perspective can help here.   Dan Stavola (EY) pointed out missing this point often can result in misfires.  
  • It's important to think about timing activities around contract renewals. Re-evaluating business processes, SLAs, and service commitments should be well understood as contractual agreements are established or renewed.   Disconnects between timing of business objectives and contractual elements are often a source of commercial risk.
  • Advocating a new operating model requires top down messaging and leadership to drive change.   While this is not yet happening in all cases, this change is evolving.

Initial Results

When asked about what results DWP has begun to see, Neil Moxon responded:

  • DWP is now in a much better position to hold suppliers accountable to SLA's and contracts
  • ServiceNow is the layer that provides change management for DWP across it's suppliers.   Most other cloud, SaaS and IaaS providers don't participate in change management.
  • Organizational change is occurring more collaboratively between their client organization and their vendors.   There is a model to manage the relationships better and a bit more integration of the contractual requirements and the needs of the business.
  • DWP has required that their partners access their ServiceNow ITSM Platform.   This means that integrations are not required, saving deployment time, cost and maintenance.   However, it's recognized that not every company has the size and scope to enforce this type of requirement.  

Key Take Away's

  • Build your single system of record — capture your information in one place
  • Engage suppliers to help define a common set of IT processes and communications mechanisms
  • Integrate your service information with predictive analytics to pinpoint and diagnose issues
  • Take an end-to-end view of the service lifecycle and apply a customer in (vs. technology out) perspective as you refine your service definitions  
  • Don't forget the people challenge — use a strong Vision, Communications and Leadership to get people to adapt and change where needed
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