Uncovering the Business Value of

IT Service Management
Five Ways HP Service Manager Can Make You a Hero
Introduction
Today, IT departments are facing more demands than
ever before. The world of IT is changing rapidly,
becoming increasingly complex and decentralized
with new advancements such as the move to the
cloud. In addition, IT executives are now expected
to meet the needs of both internal and external
customers with far fewer resources – while also
complying with quality practices and regulatory
requirements.
“We want to reduce pain for our customers,
save dollars and create efficiencies. ITSM
from HP delivers on all three areas.”
Director of Internal Services – U.S. Services
Company
This is why IT organizations need robust, enterprise-
class service management solutions that can
effectively manage the service lifecycle from end to
end. These solutions allow enterprise IT organizations
to achieve much-needed increases in efficiency, to
support business-critical quality improvements and to
comply with mandatory regulatory requirements.
HP commissioned Dimensional Research to
interview customers who have deployed HP IT
Service Management (ITSM) solutions. Dimensional
Research conducted 11 in-depth interviews with
HP customers to answer the question: What specific
ROI and benefits are they getting from HP ITSM
solutions?
Participants generally categorized specific benefits
into two areas:
• Lowered costs and risk instead of “reduced risks
and costs”
• Ensured quality and compliance
This report summarizes the findings from the
Dimensional Research interviews1.
1
All customer quotes were taken from interview transcripts, although quotes have been edited for grammar and readability.
2
As a token of appreciation for their participation (and if allowed by their company), a small donation was made to the
charity of each participant’s choice.
www.DimensionalResearch.com Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management
Project Methodology
HP secured the participation of customers for a
portion of the interviews and provided contact
information to Dimensional Research. HP did not
participate in the interviews and did not offer input
nor influence this report.
Participants were not compensated for participating
in this research project2. Because of the challenges
involved with getting corporate approvals to discuss
IT operations and business benefits publicly, all
participants were assured their feedback would be
presented as part of a summarized report with no
attribution.
During the interviews, participants were asked about
their IT environments and the challenges they faced,
the specific challenges and business objectives they
expected the HP ITSM solutions to address and the
actual value and benefits the solutions delivered.
Participant Profile
The participants were employed at national and
global companies from a wide range of industries,
including:
• Financial services
• Telecommunications
• Technology
• Health care
• Insurance
• Retail and other services
Each of the participants interviewed used HP Service
Manager in their day-to-day business operations. The
time frame during which they had used the HP ITSM
solution ranged from less than a year to more than 6
years. Each of the 11 participants was responsible
for the operation and/or selection of the HP ITSM
solution as well as some firsthand use. This allowed
Dimensional Research to gain insight into the value
achieved from both a strategic business perspective
and an operational point of view.
2
Several of the customers interviewed had integrated
HP Service Manager with other vendor products
and in-house custom applications. Many also
leveraged other HP products such as HP Operations
Orchestration, HP Asset Manager, and HP Discovery
& Dependency Mapping to deliver broader business
solutions.
About HP ITSM
HP IT Service Management (ITSM) is a
scalable enterprise solution that allows
IT executives to manage and report IT
functions in today’s increasingly complex
environment. The HP ITSM solution builds
upon HP Service Manager and includes
the HP Universal CMDB with several key
modules to allow IT organizations to create a
rich, customized, integrated and automated
enterprise solution that enables IT
departments to run more efficiently. Notably
HP Service Manager modules include
the help desk, IT change management,
service catalog, knowledge management,
request management and service level
management. HP ITSM is commonly
integrated with existing in-house systems
and other HP products.
The number of tickets (as defined by the total sum
of incidents, problems and change requests) handled
by the participants’ systems varied widely, ranging
from a few thousand tickets per month to more than
100,000 tickets each month and more than 2 million
in a given year.
Solving the Efficiency, Visibility and
Compliance Challenges Faced by
IT Today
Many of the participants interviewed began by
discussing the increased pressure on IT operations in
today’s world. They noted that a growing dependence
on applications to support critical business processes
often translated into more work for the IT department
in creating and maintaining those applications.
3 Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management
They also noted that ad hoc systems could no longer
be relied on to efficiently handle, document and
prioritize service requests, incidents and problems.
That’s because these manually intensive, often
homegrown systems did not allow participants to
prioritize effectively, track or report on tickets. Nor
did they scale.
“With HP ITSM we can see it all: assets,
system health, software licensing and
utilization, user satisfaction, ticket response
time and hardware performance. It’s IT
mission control.”
Sr Manager of Systems and IT Operations –
National Health Care Institution
They confided that prior to implementing an HP
ITSM solution, their teams worked hard but were
flying blind most of the time, with a growing
disconnect between the tickets generated and the
resolution of problems. Not only were IT customers
dissatisfied with how problems were resolved, there
were also increased reports of problems such as fix
collisions, where the IT department inadvertently
caused a greater problem while trying to fix another.
The lack of a centralized system also required those
who were manning the help desk to repeatedly
“reinvent the wheel,” often with each person solving
the same problem differently.
“HP Service Manager transforms the way
we do things and gives us the ability to
improve. Prior to using it, we didn’t document
what service was affected or the correlation
between changes and incidents. HP ITSM
helps create the process and information
needed to reduce outages and speed
recovery.”
System Architect – Top 10 Insurance
Institution
www.DimensionalResearch.com
In addition to the lack of organization, many respondents said they were lacking in other areas as well, prior
to their implementation of HP Service Manager. Many were required to manage and report on service level
agreement (SLA) compliance and manage regulatory and best practice requirements such as those published
by the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act (Sarbox), the Payment Card Industry (PCI), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
of 1996 (HIPAA), the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and others. But their previous ad hoc systems were
incapable of complying with these regulations, let alone reporting on them.

A few shared that before they implemented their HP ITSM solution, they were out of compliance with
regulations and new laws because they simply did not have the ability to comply. Participants agreed that
these problems will likely get worse as industry leaders turn to new technologies such as cloud computing,
which often require both in-house and outsourced infrastructure. In the future, they said, having one centralized
system that effectively manages decentralized IT resources will become even more critical to success.

Eliminating Cost, Reducing Risk and Delivering a Solid ROI

Of course, the functionality delivered by an enterprise-class ITSM solution is not only needed in the future – it
is also critical for success today. In fact, participants indicated that they expected significant benefits out of
their enterprise-class ITSM solution immediately after implementation.

“In the first couple years of using HP ITSM we saw a savings of around $10 million.”
Executive Director – Top 10 Global Financial Institution

Those interviewed said they expected their ITSM solution to reduce costs through lower hardware and
personnel costs – without increasing risks. In short, participants expected that fewer new equipment purchases
would be required thanks to better use and troubleshooting of existing equipment. They also believed that
increased scalability, improved manageability and better access to accurate information would increase
efficiency and thus reduce personnel costs.

“A key aspect of the HP Service Manager implementation was that we could quickly implement
and deliver value fast.”
Director of IT – US High-Tech Company

www.DimensionalResearch.com Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management 4

The participants indicated that they actually received Ensuring Quality and Compliance
many more benefits than they expected out of the
When asked about service quality, participants
HP ITSM solution. All interviewed stated that their
pointed to fewer service interruptions and the ability
HP solutions delivered very real savings and overall
to achieve service reliability objectives ranging
reduced risk for their business. Some found bottom-
from three nines (99.9%) to five nines (99.999%)
line savings in their operational budget from reduced
reliability. Many of those interviewed said HP ITSM
hardware costs and reduced maintenance costs.
solutions delivered not only improved uptime but also
Some said they could support an increasing number
helped them meet both internal and external service
of IT services with existing resources.
quality metrics, objectives and requirements.
Perhaps even more impressive than the ROI numbers
Many of the participants found that the HP ITSM
was the fact that several of the participants who
solution helped them easily comply with and
had relied on HP ITSM products for many years
report on regulatory requirements, such as those
remarked that doing their jobs without it seemed
outlined by PCI, HIPAA, Sarbox and others. Those
unimaginable now.
interviewed expressed that HP provides key tools,
such as a universal change management database
USE CASE ROI DELIVERED BY HP ITSM and knowledge management, that not only help them
manage and operate to those requirements but also
Better HP’s automated, comprehensive help them automatically produce the reports and keep
Compliance compliance reporting
the IT team abreast of changes and issues.
Reporting capabilities saved a top 10
global financial institution from
hiring at least 10 extra people. “We moved to HP ITSM because our old
legacy and homegrown systems were
Automation of By no longer relying on manual
Tasks spreadsheets to manage its no longer supportable. We couldn’t
engineering tasks, a top 5 global integrate them and there were no reporting
telecommunications company
reduced errors and saved capabilities. While we wanted to do this for
$75,000 per month. a long time, audit and compliance reporting
Elimination One HP Service Manager
really drove this.”
of Other customer said the solution Director of IT – U.S. Technology Company
Applications paid for itself within a year
and continues to save the
organization $22,000 each Several had been using HP Service Manager and
month because it eliminates the key modules for so long that they said it was almost
need for several previously used incomprehensible to consider running IT and meeting
applications.
compliance requirements without the system. Eight
of the participants ran ITIL-compliant shops, and
Incident One company now has several indicated how beneficial it is to have the
Automation 49,000 incidents a month that ITIL v3 standard integrated into the HP Service
are resolved through a fully Manager version 9 product line.
automated response. The
savings in human resources HP ITSM solutions were also critical in helping
alone: at least 10 people. IT departments comply with customer-specific
requirements, such as SLAs. Some of those
interviewed employed automatic alerting and
ticketing on system performance issues and
possible SLA breaches as well as other established

performance expectations for end-user customers.

5 Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management www.DimensionalResearch.com

 USE CASE IMPROVED QUALITY AND COMPLIANCE WITH HP ITSM

Compliance with ITIL v3 “The newer HP Service Manager 9 is directly aligned with ITIL v3, which
helps us achieve our IT quality and operation standards.”

“ITIL is a big driver in our company and HP Service Manager is the only
solution that fully enables you to be version 3 compliant.”

ISO and PCI Compliance “We used the HP ITSM reports for ISO9000 compliance and audits. We
used to burn 20% of our resources on reporting and PCI compliance.”

Overall Compliance “It used to take a week to create a compliance report. Now it takes just a few
minutes with HP ITSM.”

“Without HP ITSM, we would be out of business. The regulatory compliance

and required accuracy of our systems cannot be compromised. Ever.”

Improved Service Quality “Before deploying HP Service Manager, we would make changes that
collided and took the system down. It just doesn’t happen now.”

“We use network diagrams from HP ITSM (knowledge management) to

quickly isolate problems and use the change management module to ensure
consistent network engineering and resolution, which is absolutely critical
when supporting broadcasting companies on your network.”

Maximizing Team Productivity

When asked why they wanted an enterprise service management solution, respondents were most passionate
about enhancing team productivity. Many said that prior to implementing an HP ITSM solution, their teams
were fully extended just keeping the system up and running, leaving little time to create new applications or
replace aging ones.

They said that prior to implementing an HP ITSM solution, top talent would often spend their days reacting to
emergencies and acting as tier two or tier three help-desk support, instead of focusing on strategic initiatives.

“It would take an army to manage our 2,000 tickets a month versus the 2 admins we have today.”
SR Manager of Systems and IT Operations – National Health Care Institution

Several discussed a pre-HP ITSM world where their time was consumed by manual processes and spreadsheet
shuffling. As a result, their teams spent many unnecessary hours trying to manually track and correlate
incidents, recent fixes, scheduled changes, upgrades and customer issues.

“We have one centralized tool now. It has reduced training by 50% and reduced issue
remediation time by the same magnitude.”
Director of IT – U.S. Technology Company

These respondents said that the move to HP Service Manager – which supports issue and incident resolution
all in a single solution – has made their help desks significantly more effective by increasing the number of
tickets resolved by tier one reps. It has also freed up their top talent for more strategic projects. Their teams
could begin to operate in a proactive mode instead of a reactionary one. Some of those interviewed enabled
automated ticket generation and resolution operations, where the system detects issues with monitoring, files

www.DimensionalResearch.com Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management 6

tickets, and in many cases can actually initiate and resolve problems automatically. These efficiencies translate
into increased customer satisfaction, faster resolution times and increased system reliability – making it easy
for the team to handle more incoming tickets without adding headcount.

USE CASE MAXIMIZING TEAM PRODUCTIVITY WITH HP ITSM

Better Efficiency Through “We are upgrading to HP Service Manager 9 and the new UI is fantastic with
Automation key dashboards for each team leader as well as executives. Version 9 now
provides integrated automation so that basic alerts and their routine fix can
be automated and tracked.”

Processing Improvements With HP Service Manager, “some processes, such as change requests, sped
up by 2 to 3 days (from request to completion).”

Accomplishing More with “Our company has grown 10X in the last few years, and we are getting 50%
Existing Personnel more calls than just two years ago. HP ITSM has allowed our team to handle
the growth with better reliability without growing headcount.”

“The HP ITSM solution gives us more people capacity, and with our business
growing we can take on additional work and scale without adding head
count.”

“Now a new person could do in a week what used to take 3 months. HP

ITSM tracks it all and provides the workflow, and we have a fully updated
CMDB by due process.”

Easy Management “With HP ITSM, all the information is in one suite of tools. With the old
system, IT personnel had to access many different screens and if you didn’t
cross reference them correctly, many errors were made – costing us time
and money. Now we can manage the incident, changes and knowledge
base in one solution.”

Improved Strategic “I have been able to reposition some of our best talent from fire drill
Planning responses to strategic planning and deployment.”

7 Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management www.DimensionalResearch.com

Improving the Customer Experience
Most of those interviewed represented their IT team
and organization as a service department. Their
charter is to serve the customer, which often includes
both internal employees and the company’s external
customers.
Many say that the HP ITSM solution improved the
customer experience almost immediately by allowing
faster resolution of issues and prioritization of
customer requests. Before implementing HP ITSM,
they recalled that keeping the basic IT system up
was a constant challenge and problem resolution
was slow, leaving very little time for new customer
requests. Their customers felt the process of creating
a troubleshooting request was arduous and often felt
their requests were lost in an IT “black hole.”
In contrast, the HP ITSM solution allows the IT
help desk to instantly respond with ticket receipt
confirmation and prioritize issues based on business
priorities and SLAs. Many stated that with faster
resolution and an easier process, initially more tickets
were raised by customers. Ironically, the greater
number of tickets actually increased the efficiency
of the department because it allowed for proactive
problem resolution and alerted the IT department to
issues much sooner.
Many participants indicated that the issue and
problem tickets filed by customers waned as the
IT system’s performance and reliability improved,
while the number of change and new project
requests increased. This is a true indicator of good
customer service, as users move from complaining
about applications working properly to requesting
new applications and services that solve other
business problems.

“We love HP ITSM solutions; they are customizable, easy to work with and make our
customers satisfied.”
VP of IT – Top 5 Global Health Care Company

USE CASE IMPROVED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE WITH HP ITSM

Improved Ticket “We reduced the time to log, handle and resolve tickets by 10%. That may
Resolution not seem like a big number but when you get 50,000 tickets a month, it is a
significant improvement.”

Automated Processing “We have 2-3X more tickets now than we used to, but they are almost all
automated. HP ITSM creates visibility and traceability, which is very, very good. It
is now very easy to open and create a ticket, where in the past it would just fester
and then blow up.”

Increased Customer “Today, 70% of all incidents are from automated alerts, 25% from customers and
Satisfaction only 5% internally discovered. It used to be the inverse where most came from
our customers. HP ITSM allows us to be proactive, and we have much happier
customers.”

“HP Service Manager is more efficient, as it automatically routes tickets to the

right people based on topic and severity. This makes both the support team and
the customers happier.”

Enhanced Efficiency of “We heavily use the knowledge base aspect of HP ITSM and 75-80% of our
Tier 1 Help Desk incidents and problems are already documented with solutions resulting in fast
remediation. Now our tier 1 help desk resolves 60% of the problems.”

“With HP ITSM, the right issues go to the right people and then knowledge of a
solution is recycled to create faster problem resolution. First call resolution has
gone up 10x.”

www.DimensionalResearch.com Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management 8

Maximizing IT Value
Several participants noted that IT is a cost center for
their company – and said that they found it difficult
to explain how the IT department directly propels the
company. The biggest challenge was a lack of data –
they had no way to track what IT infrastructure and
software provided value.
Instead, they often found themselves trying to explain
why 90% of their team’s time was spent resolving
problems – a fact that made executive management
question IT’s competence and perceive it as part of
the problem, not the solution.
Participants said that this changed after they
implemented HP Service Manager, in part because
it made their IT operations better, faster and less
costly than before and in part because the HP ITSM
solution allows them to produce reports outlining
their performance and showing exactly where all the
resources are being invested.
IT executives use HP ITSM to explain which systems
support the most users, facilitate revenue, require
the most support, and have the highest or lowest
reliability and why. For many of those interviewed,
this information has allowed them to have a more
business-oriented discussion about what initiatives
are most important to the company and what IT can
do to facilitate them.
HP ITSM helps IT executives have a data-driven
discussion about the resources, hardware and budget
needed to meet and exceed the expectations of
the business. Thanks to HP Service Manager, IT
executives can expand their role from technology
implementers to decision makers. The HP solution
gives them the tools they need to secure a seat at the
table when their company is making decisions about
key business initiatives.

“Every business process and practice uses HP ITSM directly or indirectly. Everyone needs it to
do their job….We can’t go back to spreadsheets. We cannot survive managing it that way.”
Sr Manager of Systems and IT Operations – National Health Care Institution

USE CASE MAXIMIZING IT VALUE WITH HP ITSM

Quantifying Value of IT “We now have a business dashboard that drives fact-based business
discussions. We discuss what delivers value to the company and the next
business priorities. Good data makes great IT.”

Better Linkage of IT to “Utilizing HP ITSM as a global platform enabled our offshore strategy, as well
Business Objectives as our asset management objectives.”

“HP ITSM gives us traceability and visibility back into the business and
conformance to ITIL best practices.”

“HP ITSM makes us a good business partner.”

Improved Reporting “Prior to HP ITSM, the reporting we needed was impossible. We need to
manage to tight SLA targets, and we provide the same ITSM reports we get
for our team to our external customers.”

Faster Product Rollouts “It only took 10 months to rollout and support 6,000 users. We could never
have done that before HP ITSM.”

9 Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management www.DimensionalResearch.com

Why HP?
We asked each participant why they selected
HP, and the overwhelming majority said that HP
products were the only ones that delivered the
required functionality. Participants noted that HP
has a strong history of continuing to invest in and
upgrade its technologies, which is a key benefit to
customers. Many of the customers interviewed were
enthusiastically deploying the latest version of the HP
ITSM solution, version 9.
Several also noted that HP products are adaptable
and easy to integrate with homegrown solutions and
other systems. This gives customers the flexibility
to address the largest problems first while keeping
in place systems that are working – thus helping
customers avoid a huge, expensive “rip and replace”
project.
Participants noted that HP was unique in its delivery
of enterprise-class scalability and its understanding
of their business needs, which has often resulted
in HP creating a solution that actually fits their
company’s specific requirements. Many termed the
relationship with HP as a “partnership” and felt free
to communicate with HP any enhancements they
would like in future upgrades to its solutions.

“We needed the features and the scalability that only HP could deliver…we continue to
compare and they continue to come out on top.”
Executive Director – Top 10 Global Financial Institution

THE HP DIFFERENCE WHAT CUSTOMERS SAY

A True Partner “Vision is what sets HP apart, always looking 10 miles ahead, then
asking the customers what they need. With HP, it is a partnership.”

Product Vision “HP has excellent product vision; this is exactly what is lacking with
IBM.”

Better Technology “The new UCMDB has a new UI showing server orientation and
configuration, and it can be uniquely tailored for the user. It is really
incredible.”

Integration with Legacy Systems “We chose HP ITSM because we could phase in the implementation,
integrate with some legacy systems short term and track everything
in UCMDB. It is easy to see why HP ITSM tops the analysts’ reports
every year.”

www.DimensionalResearch.com Uncovering the Business Value of IT Service Management 10

 About Dimensional
Research
Dimensional Research
provides practical market
research services that help
corporate IT organizations and
technology companies make
smarter business decisions.
Our researchers are experts in
technology but also understand
how corporate IT organizations
operate. Our research services
deliver a clear understanding of
Conclusion customer and market dynamics.
While HP’s customers cited some exceptional and tangible ROI, perhaps most impressive For more information visit
is the comment by many that their businesses could not function without HP ITSM. All www.dimensionalresearch.com.
participants had also taken advantage of the HP ITSM enterprise approach that can scale
and grow with the company. Several of those interviewed had started with HP Service About HP Software
Manager and eventually added on other HP modules or other HP products. Several This paper was commissioned
had also integrated the HP ITSM solution with their existing IT Service Management by HP Software. Our business
components – thus avoiding the expense of a full “rip and replace.” technology solutions help you
make sure that every dollar
The IT executives interviewed overwhelmingly agreed that HP ITSM makes their jobs
invested in IT, every resource
significantly more strategic. Not only can existing staff resolve more incidents, they can
allocated and every application
also easily comply with and report on SLA and regulatory requirements.
in development or production
Those interviewed clearly articulated how their HP ITSM solution allows them to meets your business goals.
deliver excellent customer service while also increasing the overall efficiency of the IT For more information visit
department – thus allowing them to accomplish more with fewer resources. www.hp.com/software.

In the future, participants said that the new capabilities supported by HP Service Manager
9 will become even more critical as industry leaders turn to new technologies such
as cloud computing, which often require the support of both in-house and outsourced
infrastructure and applications.

The bottom line is that HP Service Manager enables IT executives to increase the value
they bring to the business and also to quantify that value – allowing them to make IT
a hero to the business. For many, HP ITSM has become so valuable that they cannot
imagine doing their jobs without it.

© 2011, Dimensional Research. All rights reserved. www.dimensionalresearch.com

HP IT Service Manager is a registered U.S. trademarks of Hewlett-Packard Company. Additional product and
module names are also the property of Hewlett-Packard Company and are hereby acknowledged.