Service integration and management

Service Integration And Management (SIAM) is a framework for managing multiple suppliers of Information Technology Services, and integrating them to provide a single business facing IT organisation.

Background

Bolstering Information technology capabilities and capacity using multiple external suppliers is becoming a dominant operating model for many large enterprise IT organisations. This model is commonly known as multisourcing.

Sourcing from multiple IT suppliers allows an organization to move away from "indispensible" in-house teams or legacy suppliers, and become more agile by taking advantage of competitive market place behaviors which incentivise cost reduction and leverage innovation. The term “suppliers” may refer to both in-house (also known as insourced teams) as well out-sourced external third parties. Whilst this model has its benefits, managing an increasing number of suppliers requires focused attention and effort. SIAM was developed to aid that management challenge.

Like the better known frameworks of ITIL (for IT Service Management) and Prince2 (for Project Management), SIAM was conceived, and initially developed, by the UK Government. It was seen as a way for large governmental IT organisations to better manage and control multi-sourced operations, by compiling (and then sharing between themselves) best practice, and their most successful management methods.

In 2013 the use of SIAM started to spread to private companies and non-governmental organisations and, like ITIL and Prince2, is expected to continue to evolve and mature over time.

The term “SIAM” can refer to both the SIAM framework, or to a specific team or department responsible for coordinating SIAM activities (i.e. the activity of orchestrating all the individual suppliers to create a united business focused IT organisation).

Possible issues and benefits

When services are provided by a myriad of teams or suppliers, ensuring seamless service delivery to the business or organisation being served presents a challenge. To sustain these benefits, strong operational and commercial governance are essential. Some common issues include:

• Individual teams (both in-house and outsourced) can act autonomously and lack coordination.

• Fragmentation can complicate the tasks of integration and governance, both of which are essential to delivering effective services to a business or organisation.

• Individual suppliers can focus on attributing blame rather than identifying and addressing the root cause of service quality issues.

However, some key benefits of moving to a well managed multisourced IT organisation can include:

• Ease of obtaining additional resources “on tap”.

• Increased agility and speed of response to business requirements / demands.

• Competition between suppliers to drive down costs and increase quality.

• Widening the portfolio of services and skills available to the organisation.

• Decreased time to market, with increased innovation and business to IT alignment.

• Having the ability to utilise suppliers who are either best-of-breed or specialists, experts in niche technologies, or who can bring individual strengths to specific service offerings.

SIAM aims to bring the desired governance and control which will ensure organisational policies and standards are not ignored or inconsistently applied; and suppliers act in a cohesive and efficient manner.

Organisational Structure

The creation of a Service Integration and Management (SIAM) team, who act as the single point accountability and orchestrate the multiple suppliers, is seen an effective way of minimising and/or mitigating potential multisourcing issues, and optimising the composite IT organisation.

A SIAM function, department or team will typically:

• Manage the multiple suppliers to give the optimal mix of flexibility, innovation, standard and consistent service.

• Be accountable for the integrated services that are being delivered back to the business.

• Specify IT service management processes and procedures to be deployed across the enterprise and ensure they are followed.
• Act as the central point of control between IT demand and IT supply.
• Play a pivotal coordinating role in all service management processes.

Examples of specific activities that a SIAM team would undertake include: assessing changes to the infrastructure and applications; managing the resolution incidents which affect a service supported by multiple service providers; and coordinating disaster recovery. In addition, a SIAM team would act as the gatekeeper by enforcing change, security accreditation, testing and release processes.

ITIL and SIAM

ITIL should not be confused with SIAM. The two are separate and distinct. ITIL processes provide a strong foundation for implementing SIAM because they cover the lifecycle of IT services, and the terminology is recognized and understood by most IT suppliers. ITIL therefore provides a strong platform and common language with which a SIAM team can manage and work with a full spectrum of suppliers. However, whilst the organization operates ITIL processes (such as Incident Management), the SIAM team would control and manage the suppliers though the structure which SIAM suggests.

References

1. SIAM Framework - Detailed Cross Government Reference Set 2. SIAM Future Model Approach - Government Procurement Service 3. Service Integration and Management in a Multisourced IT Operating Model by Hannah Patterson, Principal Consultant, ISG