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figurations designed specifically to meet each business more variables than traditional pricing models? For in-
unit’s needs and the demands of each application or stance, price too low and IT has a budget deficit; price
workload. Instead of working in bureaucratic silos and too high and business units will find external providers
reacting—often slowly—to various projects on an ad hoc that are more cost-effective.
basis, the IT staff is flexible, fast, and focused on the Culture/people: Moving to IT as a service can ruffle
needs of their internal customers. the feathers of IT specialists. Deeply technical, hands-on
The premise behind the concept of ITaaS is simple: Of- types may not have the skills or temperament to move
fer your internal clients the power of choice, allow them to a cross-functional, service-oriented culture focused
to pay only for what they use, and deliver it speedily. In on managing IT rather than delivering it. Training helps,
this model, IT functions less as a tightly controlled func- but in some cases, even the right training will not equip
tion or cost-centre and more as a business. It becomes some employees with the skills needed for a service-
a broker for its internal clients, finding the best technol- oriented culture. Be open to hiring people with different
ogy or service at the best price and negotiating service- skills or outsourcing some functions.
level agreements (SLAs) and orchestrating IT from the Process: Business users see IT as an enabler, not as
initial request to support of the final outcome. With the an end goal. To better serve business clients, IT lead-
advent of cloud computing, most companies now func- ers will need to make internal processes more consistent
tion under the hybrid IT model. They use a combination and agile. Determining how they will handle, say, unfore-
of legacy systems, cloud computing, and internal and seen incidents such as outages or how they measure
external IT. The new role of IT is to act as a broker for all success will play a role in customer satisfaction.
these different choices. Service management: Most IT departments are
good at managing systems, figuring out, for example,
7 ThINGS TO CONSIdEr WhEN MOvING TO IT aS a SErvICE how many servers are required at what run rate. Be-
Or “ITaaS” cause IT professionals will now be acting on behalf of
Moving to an ITaaS model is no small task, however. It their business clients when negotiating SLAs, they will
involves more external partners and moving parts and need to become well versed in the language and logic
therefore a very different mind-set. As your organisa- of business. The technical knowledge is still necessary,
tion moves to a service-oriented model, you will need but IT professionals now need to add business savvy
a roadmap. to their skillset.
Having helped hundreds of such companies, HPE of- application management: Business units own the
fers a few suggestions as you begin your journey. We’ve applications, but IT tends to have control over them.
identified seven key areas companies should address in Getting business units to buy into pricing models and
their overall strategic plan if they want to see genuine support agreements is key—otherwise, SLAs, no mat-
transformation and become a true digital enterprise and ter how well negotiated, will become a point of con-
get the most out of ITaaS: tention. IT employees need to clearly understand the
Technical infrastructure and architecture: Moving business user’s end goal and day-to-day requirements
to an IT-as-a-service model means looking at enterprise in order to successfully manage the company’s appli-
infrastructure architecture differently. Rather than cation landscape.
organising your architecture around projects, you need
to organise it around relevant business services. It ThE NEW MOdEl
requires a shift from thinking in terms of hardware assets IT as a service takes companies from the old model of
to thinking instead of the business needs of customers. IT —siloed and slow—to a much more customer-centric
IT management framework: IT leadership should one. With internal clients now able to access a multitude
move the focus away from assets and projects to serv- of external options and service providers, IT depart-
ice architectures. Along with that shift, leaders need to ments need to continue to up their game. IT is on a jour-
rethink security, network, and risk management policies, ney which we expect will keep morphing as the business
because of the increased number of interactions with landscape does. We expect companies with the most
third parties. flexible, service-oriented IT will emerge the winners.
finance: The as-a-service model completely flips IT’s
finance model on its head. How do you price on a pay- ( The author is Senior Director, Pointnext,
as-you-go consumption basis, which comes with far Hewlett Packard Enterprise India)

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