BOULDER, Colo., Jan. 15, 2008 – While Service Level Management (SLM) solutions are not going away, IT organizations are increasingly turning to Business Service Management (BSM) solutions in their quest to play a more critical business role.
BSM revenue grew 50 percent on average over the last two years, and user spending plans show the market for BSM beginning to surpass the market for Service Level Management (SLM) software and services. The findings come from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, and its new market-sizing research report titled, “The SLM and BSM Market Forecast for 2008 to 2012.”
EMA views BSM as a way for IT to get a seat at the corporate strategy table by demonstrating an understanding of real business needs. SLM supports this vision by cutting across technology silos to provide the data required to manage technology as a service to the enterprise. Since 1998, EMA has been recognized as the leading authority on service management because of the firm’s in-depth research and analysis of the SLM and BSM market segments, its role advising leading SLM and BSM solution providers, its regular articles and quotes in the media, and the publishing of the industry-acclaimed “Foundations of Service Level Management” and “SLM Buyer’s Guide.”
“BSM solutions really are coming into their own as the market continues to mature through consolidation, adoption of proven best practices increases and a better understanding of the value of the direct link between business operations and IT becomes clear,” explained Lisa Erickson-Harris, the EMA™ research director in charge of the study. “SLM will remain vital to successful IT management, but we see BSM being elevated in importance as it hits the mark with CIOs who understand the need to manage IT in business terms.”
For this new study, Erickson-Harris evaluated more than 45 SLM and BSM vendors and their respective market positioning and revenue performance. EMA also surveyed more than 165 IT professionals at companies that manage or plan to manage IT from a services perspective to gain insight into budget allocation and implementation plans for SLM and BSM technologies.
According to the research, SLM and BSM revenues continue to grow at an astounding rate for some solution providers. The IT user community now is grasping the difference between SLM and BSM, and how to apply both technologies within the enterprise. As such, the report includes separate forecasts for both SLM and BSM. In March 2006, EMA published a market-sizing report that combined SLM and BSM offerings into a single category, with a total market size of nearly $1.4 billion. In the 2008 findings, EMA expects the SLM market to grow by at least 30 percent during the coming year, with BSM solutions growing by as much as 50 percent.
Other key findings from this research include:
- BMC Software, CA, HP and IBM continue to lead the charge in both SLM and BSM.
- Digital Fuel, Oblicore and Managed Objects have all demonstrated staying power and delivered innovative SLM/BSM functionality with a top-down, business perspective.
- BSM enables IT to manage directly to business objectives and provides executives with visibility into IT’s value to the business. SLM supports this value by measuring individual technology silos to committed quality levels.
- Many enterprises view best-practice frameworks as critical to operations, and ITIL clearly leads the pack for SLM and BSM.
- The SLM and BSM market has experienced significant consolidation since the firm’s 2006 market-sizing report, resulting in more robust solutions for enterprise IT.
EMA research director Erickson-Harris will share highlights from this new research study during a free Webinar titled “SLM/BSM Market Sizing 2007 Research” to be held on Thurs., Jan. 17, 2008 at 2 p.m. EST.
In addition, EMA offers a free online SLM and BSM Solutions Center where IT professionals can research and compare unbiased analyst profiles of dozens of leading SLM and BSM solutions. Register for free access at: http://itsolutions.slm.emausa.com
Complete revenue projections for SLM and BSM markets are detailed in full within the report, which will be available for purchase in late January 2008. To learn more, contact Kevin Hecht at 303.543.9500 x124 or khecht@enterprisemanagment.com.
About Enterprise Management Associates
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm’s extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.www.enterprisemanagement.com.