Role of culture to achieve SIAM success in integrated Service Management organisation

#Customersuccess and #Customerexperience requires careful nurture of the Customer and Customer stakeholders. One of the many elements to be on top of the leader board when it comes to Customer satisfaction is ensuring service transparency as it builds trust and inline service improvements without the pressures of performance management

Are you having issues with your NPS (Net Promoter Score) and IT End user experience even after implementing great service catalogues? Are your Supplier and in-house teams struggling even after putting in place robust processes, governance, tools and change management? Is your IT unit failing to achieve your Business OLA and/or IT SLA? Is your SIAM (Service Integration and Management) unable to promote CHANGE in the current continuous Digital Transformation era of Cloud Apps using SaaS, Hybrid cloud, Agile & CI/CD, IoT integration, AIOps, API and Data integration?

Here is a practical approach from my own personal experience. Back in the 90’s, IT Service Management focused on Incident & Major Incidents management, Problem management, Event management, Requests management, Change & Release management, Security management, Configuration & Asset management, Service Level management, Capacity management and IT Service continuity management. Client Services Management had a RUN function bias. We subsequently had incremental additions such as Projects assurance, Service Transition or Introduction management, Service validation, Risks & Compliance management, Standards & Architecture either as part of continuous improvement or instigated by ITIL v3 and COBIT v4. The core focus was always on Processes, People and Technology. The underlying assumption was that you come up with a process, train people and things will automatically fall in place. Does it?

Process refinements and Tools are a great help and we can have all the change communications we want but how does one change the culture. Governance meetings help, but partially. SIAM, seen as an answer, have been part of the IT Operating Models of a number of large organisations imbibing the process orientation of ITIL v3 and the methodology bent of COBIT v5. The bias shifted slightly towards enabling CHANGE only to the extent to coach the Projects & Programme teams to consider avoiding a Production incident. With Agile, Devops, CI/CD and continuous transformation to Digital taking centre stage as IT budgets shift towards CHANGE, SIAM now has to adapt rapidly as enabler of CHANGE to serve as a partner for Digital Transformation. For SIAM function to be successful, Transparency is one magic wand which has constantly helped me to drive culture and behaviours. There are also a number of articles written on how transparency improves customer experience such as:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/01/23/how-transparency-improves-the-customer-experience-2/#1426b21922bb

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246567

I had recently read that Culture, which is essential to Strategy Execution, is about the behaviours towards Daily actions and Results. Rather than just dishing out reports and seeking explanations, Transparency drives competitiveness, high performance and continuous self-improvement culture. Here is an illustrative example:

I have even used Transparency to improve Sales performance as well as Solutioning performance. Underpinning or adjacent to the above, you may choose to have any number of dashboards based on Business OLA/KPI or IT SLA/KPI to instigate behavioural and culture change. Dashboards such as:

Operational performance

Systems Indicators

Business alignment

Programmes & Projects

Security, Risk & Compliance

On its own, Service transparency will only help the Suppliers, Teams and Individuals know where they stand. SIAM is all about cross-functional leadership & collaboration. To achieve SIAM success, a behaviour and culture change is necessary too. So, what are key examples of the culture and behaviour change needed to achieve SIAM success?

Suppliers, In house teams and individuals in the teams must know that their performance is bench-marked. Further to that, the expectations of behavioural and cultural change have to be abundantly clear. These behaviours and cultural aspects must be weighted, measured and included as part of the performance dashboards. Once your Service providers – Traditional or Cloud (SaaS/PaaS/IaaS), In house teams and individuals show signs of thriving amidst competition, you can subsequently throw in gamification similar to how Customer Success leaders are now using it towards driving loyalty for the brand.

Recommendations to SIAM Service Providers

To achieve SIAM success, a networking & collaborative culture is absolutely essential. Leadership by example in terms of demonstrating service transparency and behavioural change will go a long way when a SIAM Service Provider is also responsible for service delivery for one of the functions. You can achieve all-round SIAM success with Cross-functional leadership and a Change management approach that relies on Stewardship with conceptualisation, awareness and listening to ideas from other service providers, and a Design Thinking approach. The term Servant Leadership comes to mind and is most apt for SIAM leadership.

Recommendations to Customers and Sourcing Advisors

Service Transparency with culture and behavioural changes will undoubtedly help you shift your attention from merely keeping the engine room running but help to promote CHANGE for your organisation growth. You must ensure you have robust configuration management & CMDB, Enterprise systems & service management tools and integrated supplier contracts database with robust SLA/KPI. You have to consider systematic Service Introduction even for Automation and AIOps. It is a journey but where you have a number of 3rd parties, you may have to revisit 3rd party contracts however, if you have good relationships and a collaborative SIAM service provider and 3rd parties, you may not have to go through renegotiations. You may find some tips from this article.

In conclusion

Driving culture and behavioural change with Service transparency will also ensure that the SIAM layer is optimal. Similarly, it will naturally pave the way for easy determination of renewal, retention and growth for service providers.

About the Author

This article was first published by Jagadish Rao Raghavendra on November 17, 2017

Jagadish is a Strategic Board adviser, senior Executive leader with specialisation in reimagining business models; who has been successful at building and/or turnaround Practice advisory, Presales, Sales enablement, Solution consulting capabilities for:

- Applications & Enterprise applications

- Modernising and Transformation to a secure hybrid Cloud

- Service Integration and Management in a multi-cloud environment

- Digital workplace solutions

- Digital transformation using IoT, IIoT, Big Data, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Drones and Robots

- IT Infrastructure services

More recently, Jagadish has influenced re-imagining a digitally enabled business model for a leading enterprise

#IoT, #IIoT, #Bigdata, #Analytics, #artificialintelligence, #drones, #robots, #RPA, #cloud, #hybridcloud, #aftermarketservices, #sales, #presales, #salesenablement, #strategy, #managementconsulting, #boardadvisor, #nonexecutivedirector, #applications, #digitaltransformation, #mixedreality, #integration, #collaboration, #API, #microservices, #marketplace, #solutionconsulting, #servicemanagement, #governance, #riskmanagement, #cybersecurity, #saas, #CRM, #ERP, #customerexperience, #customersuccess, #businessdevelopment