EMA Survey Finds 89 Percent of Business Service Management Initiatives Meeting or Exceeding Expectations

Key BSM benefits identified include improved visibility into business impact of IT, increased user satisfaction, lower costs

BOULDER, Colo., May 4, 2009 – Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today released its latest research report entitled, “Business Service Management: Strategies for Success in 2009.” The new study found that overall success rates for Business Service Management (BSM) initiatives are high, with 89 percent of respondents indicating that their BSM initiatives met or exceeded expectations. The study also uncovered the top factors that helped these real-world organizations avoid failure and achieve success with their BSM initiatives.

“Solid organizational support and executive commitment, effective communication between business and IT and well-documented requirements are all critical success factors for BSM projects,” stated Paul Burns, EMA research director and study leader. “In addition, it is crucial for IT leaders to set realistic expectations, focusing on the most important benefits rather than promising that all possible benefits will be achieved.”

For this study, EMA surveyed 160 North American and global IT and business professionals involved in selecting and using BSM solutions for their organizations. Key findings include:

* BSM is a strategic initiative for the majority of organizations adopting it, with 57 percent having c-level roles responsible for their BSM mission.
* 77 percent of respondents chose definitions that describe BSM as a process or approach to managing IT, leaving out the role of IT products.
* Yet, products are instrumental in implementing BSM strategies. 71 percent of respondents indicated that associating business metrics with end-to-end IT services is a critical technical capability that must be supported in BSM solutions.
* Organizations need to go beyond IT metrics to gather business and customer metrics when assessing BSM success.
* Respondents identified the top business benefits achieved through BSM as visibility into IT’s impact on the business, increased user satisfaction and ability to prioritize IT activities based on business needs.
* The top IT benefits associated with BSM included better quality of IT services, greater IT management process maturity, IT cost reduction, increased automation and improved productivity.

“BSM represents a strategic approach to managing IT that aligns business and IT goals,” Burns continued. “By managing IT from the business perspective, companies can understand how the performance and availability of IT resources – including both infrastructure and services – affect and power their business processes.”

Burns will share additional study highlights during a free Webinar on May 7. To further support enterprises managing IT from a services perspective, EMA also offers a free SLM/BSM Solutions Center that provides unbiased analyst profiles of 34 top products.

The complete research report is available for purchase online for the discounted price of $395 through May 15, 2009.


About EMA
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that specializes in going “beyond the surface” to provide deep insight across the full spectrum of IT management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services for enterprise IT professionals and IT vendors at www.www.enterprisemanagement.com or follow EMA on Twitter.