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March 13 IT Services 2.0Here's a bold prediction: In 5 years time, IT Services will be almost completely unrecognisable to how they are now.
Where does this prediction come from? Well, there's not a single source of this, but many areas are coming together, to offer new questions and big new challenges to IT Services and these can only be met via major changes to both the way IT Services work, and those currently served by them.
Let's take the average user of the last 5 years - they come into their office, log onto the machine at their desk, get their managed set of applications and services and if they have any issues, phone Support with their issue. All services directly provided by IT Services.
However, all areas I have just described are changing. Massively.
Increasingly, for the average employee, the computer is not on their desk, but in their laptop bag, with far less enforcable management than a fixed desktop. Hell, they might not even be coming into the office. The applications and services, especially with the advent of Web 2.0, are increasingly unmanaged and web-based. What's worse, is that users expect far more services to be provided than are now. If they have issues, they tend to ask a neighbour or be e-literate enough to be able to figure it out, often moreso in specific applications so than IT Support. Who hasn't come across the secretary or administrator who has effectively coded a small application inside their Excel spreadsheet or the like?
In this new world, the role that IT Services can be described as either one of two things - redundant, or to be reinvented.
Maybe its because I am an IT Professional myself, but I see a great opportunity with this new world, this "IT Services 2.0". Why 2.0? This is not an iterative change, but a massive change that effectively completely changes the relationship between IT Services, the users and the business/organisation as a whole, more so than has been seen before. IT Services will need to be increasingly seen as producing value-added product, new services which aid the user in their work, and not just as supporting existing services. In essence, IT Services will become more of a proactive service provider (a provider of service to end users) than a reactive service provider (a provider of services to when the use needs support). On top of that, there is more and more of a move to formalise IT practises with ITIL, PRINCE2, MOF and the ilk. With these, comes more judgement on value for money, more judgment in what an IT Services department gives to the organisation as a whole.
The real challenge therefore, will be for IT Services to adapt, to provide services to help end users collaborate or communicate and help each other, and to offer more value to the organisation. Of course, there will be casualties such as support staff who can't learn to develop new services will be increasingly marginalised, will be increasingly redundant, but in many ways, it is exciting - the chance to move from an environment of being reactive to providing increasingly rich new services is much more interesting (to me, at least). Comments (2)
Mark Sammons
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