Bimodal IT: The best of both?
IT Specialists' Matt Kingswood says bimodal IT service management allows IT teams to simultaneously focus on reliability and agility
Innovation plays a key role in advancing business and staying ahead of the game. However, IT departments must also ensure that existing systems are kept running smoothly at the same time. Bimodal IT service management provides a way for businesses to do both at once.
A bimodal IT strategy is a method of service delivery that provides IT teams with the option of splitting their focus between two separate, coherent modes. One mode is stability, where the IT team focuses on the safety and reliability of an organisation's IT environment. The other is agility, where the team is free to experiment and identify new ways of using technology to meet the business' needs as they change.
The number of organisations recognising the importance of and implementing bimodal IT strategies is growing. This is mainly due to the advantages offered by the new approach to IT service delivery in separating IT functions. Not only can businesses continually adapt to their rapid business growth and develop products and services driven by new technologies, they can also identify different applications of current technologies to stay ahead of competitors.
Ensuring that technology keeps pace with a business by simply maintaining the current IT infrastructure absorbs quite a bit of time and money, leaving little room for new research and development projects. If IT staff are too consumed with troubleshooting and helpdesk issues to spend any time accommodating new developments, users may resort to shadow IT. Ironically, as other business units take it upon themselves to implement IT solutions that meet their needs, the IT team's role of maintaining the organisation's infrastructure is threatened, as they are unable to support new technologies they're unaware are being used internally.
To adopt a bimodal IT service delivery strategy that allows IT to take a more holistic role in the business, some organisations are choosing to outsource basic IT functions such as the helpdesk. Gartner believes that with the changes in the nature of IT sourcing, smaller IT suppliers will be able to respond rapidly to requirements, while also scaling quicker solutions by utilising cloud capabilities, making them a threat to larger players.
By outsourcing IT functions to a managed service provider (MSP), internal staff are then free to invest more time in IT innovation, perhaps even developing their own skunkworks that allows the business to remain agile in a competitive market.
Successfully outsourcing operational IT functions means ensuring the MSP to which you have outsourced is equipped to quickly and efficiently troubleshoot issues as you risk your organisation's ability to continue business as usual if their service delivery is inhibited. Businesses that have successfully outsourced IT functions to support a bimodal IT strategy typically partner with an MSP that meets their needs in the following areas:
1. Ability to accommodate current and future IT needs It is important for the MSP to have experience supporting the functions that will be outsourced. Returning to the example of outsourcing the helpdesk, any IT vendor that will be working on hardware should have engineers who are fully qualified to repair equipment from an array of manufacturers to prevent voiding warranties. To fully support the business' helpdesk needs, there should be a variety of skills among the engineers. In addition, the MSP will need to be equipped to support any new technologies the business plans to implement in the future.
2. Service-level agreements Examining service-level agreements is key to assessing the level of service the MSP is prepared to offer. If possible, the business should evaluate the MSP's service quality by having the provider demonstrate typical response times. The MSP should be able to provide quantifiable metrics of success to show that it will help with daily troubleshooting enough to allow the IT team to maintain their focus on innovation.
3. Degrees of support MSPs typically offer varying degrees of support, such as 24/7, remote or on-site support. To effectively outsource the operational mode of IT, the business needs to contract the amount of coverage that guarantees IT issues will be resolved satisfactorily without distracting the internal IT team from new projects. For the MSP to meet the organisation's needs in terms of budget and support coverage, the business might need to request that the MSP create a customised solution.
Outsourcing even basic maintenance functions, such as helpdesk, can help your organisation grow by giving your IT team time to innovate rather than just maintaining your business systems.
Matt Kingswood is head of managed services at IT Specialists (ITS) UK