Managing IT as a Portfolio of Services

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Abstract

Despite findings from research that the engagement and involvement of business managers and users is a critical ingredient for success with information technology, for many organisations this has proven difficult to achieve. By adopting a service orientation and managing IT as a portfolio of services, this paper illustrates that it provides a language and perspective that all employees can identify with and understand. It highlights the critical role that employees at all levels play in the delivery of services in and around the processing, provisioning and stewardship of information. The paper presents a number of frameworks and models to guide management action. The discussion also raises particular issues to consider when outsourcing. The concluding analysis is that with this required involvement of business management in the delivery of many services, the IT organisation is primarily the organisation, and not a separate function.

Section snippets

Services in and around the Processing, Provisioning and Stewardship of Information

Before exploring the management of services involved in the processing, provisioning and stewardship of information, it is important to understand what a ‘service’ actually is. The few definitions of the concept of service that one can find in the literature are imprecise at best. Even in the writings of service operations management, service quality and service marketing, few scholars actually define what a service is, portraying it as something that is not manufacturing (see, for example,

Assessing the Value of IST Services

It seems reasonable to assume that investments are made in IST services in order to deliver some value to the organisation. As already noted, despite the large sums of money involved, the majority of organisations treat IST services as an administrative expense or cost and not as an investment, and manage them as such. This situation is partly due to the intangible nature of services, making it difficult to appraise the value the business derives from any spend. Consequently, most organisations

IST Service Management

As a concept, service management has come into widespread use in the management domain although it is generally not clearly defined what exactly service management means or actually entails. Indeed, service management is not a well-defined area or single theory of management. Rather, it is a management perspective. From an IT viewpoint, service management is a total organisational approach that makes utility of service, as perceived by the user, and the value of the service to the organisation,

Managing the IST Service Categories

If organisations do attempt to manage IST services they usually choose to manage them all in a homogeneous way. Our research suggests that each of the service categories should be managed in a different way. In our work with organisations we have developed a number of frameworks which have proved to be useful in guiding the management of the different categories of services. Given that infrastructure services are about providing capabilities, we have omitted them from the remainder of the

IST Service Quality

A central aspect of the management of all IST services is attending to their quality dimensions. However, it is important not to mistake ‘quality of work’ for ‘quality of service’. For example, the help desk may solve the printing problems of a user but it might take a week to do so. For some employees, this might be sufficient; for others it can result in invoices not being printed off and sent out to customers or outgoing correspondence being delayed and therefore resulting in a serious

The Service Encounter

In considering IST services, we must also address the service encounter, that is, where users and staff from the IS function come into contact and interact with each other. This may be face-to-face, as in a meeting or undertaking an interview as part as a fact-finding exercise for a systems analysis assignment. An encounter can also take place over the phone or perhaps through a corporate Intranet or by using an application. More passive primary encounters occur when the user observes the

Gaps in IST Service Delivery

Much work has been done in identifying the source of ‘gaps’ between the user and provider that can occur in service delivery. It is perhaps easy to recognise the gap between user expectations and their perception of what is actually received. But there is research that has identified other possible reasons why gaps can occur in service delivery (Parasuraman et al., 1988) and recently some attempt has been made to extend this work into the domain of IS management (Pitt et al., 1995, Pitt et al.,

The Dimensions of IST Services

We noted earlier the need to understand the criteria or dimensions that users utilise in determining service quality. Outside of the service task, which provides a high-level description of what the user can expect of the service, our research indicates that IST services can be ‘unpacked’ into a number of dimensions. This has been previously done for product quality (Garvan, 1984) and service quality (Sylvestro et al., 1992). What is important about these dimensions is that they are used by

Conclusions

The role of the IS function has undergone a significant metamorphosis since the first computers found their way into organisations. It is no longer concerned with merely providing and maintaining the technologies to support the operations of the business. This wider remit means that the traditional notion of an IS function and its role and purpose are obsolete. The increasing dependence of organisations on their IT systems, the growing trend towards outsourcing and the increasing sophistication

JOE PEPPARD, Information Systems Research Centre, Cranfield University School of Management, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 OAL. E-mail: [email protected]

Joe Peppard is Senior Research Fellow at the Information Systems Research Centre at Cranfield School of Management, and Director of Finlos Corporation, a software solutions provider to the financial services sector. His current work focuses on supporting organisations in the creation of value through IT investments and how hi-tech companies

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JOE PEPPARD, Information Systems Research Centre, Cranfield University School of Management, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 OAL. E-mail: [email protected]

Joe Peppard is Senior Research Fellow at the Information Systems Research Centre at Cranfield School of Management, and Director of Finlos Corporation, a software solutions provider to the financial services sector. His current work focuses on supporting organisations in the creation of value through IT investments and how hi-tech companies harness knowledge.

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