When speaking to prospective customers, I need to express the value of RightStar beyond the ten-second elevator pitch: "RightStar is an IT consultancy and BMC Solution Provider focused exclusively in the Business Service Management Space…." I try to convey what I feel, at least, are three important points that truly differentiate RightStar:

At RightStar every customer is a reference. My favorite example is DJO, a manufacturer of orthopedic devices and supplier to all thirty-two National Football League teams. We recently sold DJO MagicWand for an asset management project. Once we began the project, we discovered that their scanners were not compatible with MagicWand. This was surprising since we make it a point to ensure that all MagicWand customers receive our list of certified scanners. Rather than argue about who was right, we rushed five new scanners to DJO overnight at no cost. This guaranteed an on-time delivery and a very satisfied customer.

Let us tell you what is best. Customers tell us what they want, and we in turn try to give it to them. However, in many cases giving a customer exactly what they want means we would end up with an unhappy customer. We’ve learned through experience:

I was encouraged to see that eighty percent of our customers surveyed agreed with the following statement: “When I get something different from what I request, I’m confident that I’m getting the best possible solution.”

We’re committed to your success. Our customers must trust that our intent is compatible with their best interest and that we have the experience to design and deliver a solution that meets their needs. RightStar’s mission statement is to be our customers’ trusted advisor in the service management space. Stated simply, RightStar’s goal is to truly drive our customers’ success—whether it’s in terms of reducing the cost of service management, improving overall efficiency, or whatever else is important to the customer.

Smartphones have replaced desktops and laptops as the communication platform of choice. Improved bandwidth and usability on these devices have opened up new markets for interesting enterprise applications, particularly those that can improve business productivity. A few years ago, mobility in IT meant giving users laptops and maybe a BlackBerry so they could get access to email where and when they wanted. BlackBerry and Windows Mobile were the only games in town for business mobility.

Today Apple, Symbian, Palm, and Google are joining the fray. Android devices and iPhones are hot with consumers, and more and more workers are bringing these smartphones into the enterprise and connecting them to business systems. However, when it comes to smartphones that do deeper integration with business processes and the devices that companies deploy to their workers, BlackBerry remains the runaway leader. In fact, BlackBerry is actually growing stronger in the enterprise because its former archrival, Windows Mobile, has been floundering for the last couple of years and Microsoft has recently decided to focus most of its attention on the consumer market with Windows Phone 7.

Smartphone enterprise market share

Companies are recognizing that mobility is core to IT infrastructure and imperative for strategic differentiation. The mobile workforce is growing. That’s why many organizations are looking to companies like RightStar with process-oriented mobile applications to help them work and communicate more effectively.

Mobile Applications

Email has been a great first step for many IT departments to make use of mobility. The next step is to mobilize applications that create a true competitive advantage. Mobile applications leverage inherent advantages of a mobile device such as reducing the data transferred, being able to operate disconnected from the corporate network or storing critical business data.

We see the greatest opportunities for our customers to benefit from the use of smart devices lie with Asset Management and Service Management. The demand for “anywhere access” to BMC’s service management applications is increasing dramatically.

Service Management: RightStar developed MagicMobile to provide instant access to the Service Desk using a device’s wireless capability. It was designed as a web application that specifically supports mobile requirements (small screen size, lower bandwidth, etc.). MagicMobile is completely browser-based in order to leverage the widest possible array of mobile devices, most all of which have an internet browser. Popular uses for this application include:

Asset Management: RightStar’s MagicWand was created as a native application primarily used on Motorola’s MC series of barcode scanners, which are based on the Windows Mobile OS. These devices provide a robust processor and ample memory to keep a snapshot of the enterprise’s physical assets locally and close at hand even when wireless access to the enterprise is not an option. Barcoding offers many advantages, including speed, accuracy, and data integrity. Popular uses for this application include:

By waiting to implement mobile solutions like these and others, companies run the risk of failing to keep pace and being outmaneuvered by competitors that become more agile and profitable through mobility.

The Future of Mobility at RightStar

RightStar Systems continues to enhance existing products and develop new ones to further enable the growing mobile workforce. We’re giving our flagship product, MagicWand, an overhaul which will allow the user greater flexibility to customize the application to their needs. The barcode application will also provide connectors to other popular Service Management systems such as Remedy ARS and Microsoft Service Manager. MagicMobile is slated for a facelift and usability upgrades to take advantage of the latest devices and operating systems.

In the area of process consulting for RightStar customers, we focus on ITIL as the industry standard best practice framework for IT service management. This framework is central to our work because it is the standard by which BMC’s products are measured and the guideline that most of our customers trust when developing processes for IT support. There are, of course, a number of other guiding frameworks for IT to consider. Most complement or otherwise support our focus on ITIL and include:

ISO 20000 has been of interest to me lately because it most closely reflects the ITIL framework, but goes beyond guidance and provides specific requirements for a standard of organizational certification.

All of these other considerations and practice areas were set aside, however, when a recent project opportunity required Help Desk Institute certification. Their certification standards cover HDI Support Center Analysts just starting out in the field all the way up to HDI Support Center Director level and HDI Support Center certifications for the entire organization.

For RightStar’s new project, I was tasked to pursue the HDI Support Center Manager certification and therefore to attend a recent certification class in Arlington, Virginia. Although many of the course topics were a review of familiar material, there were still opportunities for me to apply the lessons learned in performing my own role at RightStar.

Many of the units covered related to general management theory and good practices including the definition of a leader, effective communication practices, building a team, and managing stress, time, and organizational change. We also studied team strategy including vision and mission statements and workforce management, which are all applicable to my role at RightStar.

There were many worksheets and methodology concepts that will be useful guides in refining RightStar’s own assessment toolset. Many of these resources are standard and familiar, but it was helpful to review them and to confirm their continued usefulness in directing a course of action for the support center.

It was also interesting for me to analyze and discuss many of these topics from essentially our customers’ position. We reviewed IT service management system selection and, sometimes, frustration from the buyer’s perspective. My classmates often had questions, which the instructor would sometimes direct to me, about how to apply the ITIL process concepts taught in the course to their real life situations.

This story has a happy ending, of course. I passed my HDI Support Center Manager certification, which means I can sign this…

…Nikki Haase, HDI SCM

It looks like Microsoft has done it again. Yes, the software giant just introduced a new product to its list of service applications. This latest application, System Center Service Manager (SCSM), is a single-tenancy application that’s modeled from ITIL and other best practice frameworks.

The platform that SCSM sits on top of is the same as for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). It provides a layer to plug in applications, allowing for tight integration between SCSM, SCOM, and SCCM, as well as other applications that may be built on top of this platform. It also provides a common look and feel across all applications.

The core SCSM product can be installed in about ten minutes, although additional time will be needed for importing management packs. Basic Incident, Problem, and Change Management modules are part of the out-of-the-box installation. Asset, Request, and Service Level Management are not included at this time. However, there is a third-party management pack that handles Asset Management. Service Level Management is scheduled to be included in a future release.

There are separate configurations for each of the modules within SCSM. Likewise, there are separate configurations for categorizations. An authoring tool will be released soon to allow developers to customize workflows and forms without having to write a single line of code.

SCSM is a brand new product. Right now, it doesn’t have the support tools needed for tasks like bulk load data imports. It would also be nearly impossible to implement this release as a multi-tenancy application.

With its initial release, SCSM would be best suited for organizations that are implementing a new tracking system and want to start with a clean slate instead of bringing in old data. Organizations that want to switch from an existing service management application will have to go through the pain of designing several scripts to crunch their data into this new model. They would also need to determine how to handle data that doesn’t exist in the SCSM model.

It certainly appears that Microsoft is seizing the opportunity to provide this additional layer of software services, not only to clients that are already using SCOM and/or SCCM, but to prospects looking for an application that’s easy to use, has a consistent look and feel throughout, and is designed with the future in mind.

While it is easy to auto-discover assets on a network and capture their related attributes, it is important to realize where the value is in the data. The IT Service Asset and Configuration Management (ITSACM) process as outlined in IT service management best practices asks what level of component data needs to be managed in order to more effectively facilitate and inform Incident, Release, Change and Problem Management in the business environment. The ITIL framework provides the guidelines for organizations that want to define their service management processes, but it does not provide the processes themselves. ITIL also does not take into account tool-specific capabilities that can be used to increase process efficiency.

Creating the process to define the importance of the information stored in the configuration management database (CMDB) as part of a configuration management system (CMS) adds value to the overall service knowledge management system. The CMDB should support effective and efficient service management processes by providing accurate configuration information to enable people to make accurate decisions. For example, is it appropriate to authorize a change during business hours on a particular system? The combination of the CMDB and Service Catalog would allow a Change Advisory Board (CAB) to determine if this is an appropriate action to take, assuming it is a non-emergency change.

Remember—a configuration item (CI) is any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver a service. CIs are tracked and controlled in the CMS. CIs are also more than just PCs, laptops, switches, and routers. CIs can also include (but are not limited to):

Most of us have stories where there has been a catastrophic breakdown in communication because the service maintenance processes were not clearly defined. It is important to involve internal stakeholders and external partners to help organizations achieve defined goals, improve processes, and align with the ITIL framework. At the end of the day, it is important that the entire organization focuses together to ensure that the effort involved in building a CMDB will drive efficiency and effectiveness in achieving established goals and will deliver value to the bottom line of the business.