For immediate release

Contacts: Doug Tedder, President-Elect, itSMF USA, 626-963-1900, doug.tedder@itsmfusa.org and Debbie Ingram, Communications and Media Relations, 732-616-5001, media@itsmfusa.org

GLENDORA, CALIFORNIA, November 22, 2011 - itSMF USA, the premier organization leading the advancement of the service management profession, is pleased to announce the results of a new, IT service management study. The study was conducted this year in partnership with Forrester Research. Inc., an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Started in April, 2011, the independent IT service management research was created to help guide infrastructure and operations professionals through a better understanding of people, process and technology trends and best practices. It focused on current and future adoption of IT service management principles, including effective ITIL® practices in use amongst itSMF USA's member base. The resulting report, The State Of IT Service Management In 2011, was just published by Forrester Research, Inc. Details are below on how to get the full report.

The study addressed a range of current topics for IT today, including the role of IT service management in bridging the gap between application and infrastructure teams, the level of ITIL process adoption and their relationship to benefits realized, the role of training and certification in adoption, the effect of executive sponsorship level on both adoption and benefits realized, the adoption and impact of ITIL v3 and the impact of tools on ITSM adoption. The joint research study by itSMF USA and Forrester Research will be conducted on an annual basis to allow for deeper trending and analysis in future years.

"Our goal, along with Forrester's, was to provide a fresh view on the state of the ITSM market and its impact on IT and we believe we have achieved that. Data was collected from 491 qualified ITSM professionals who are heavily involved in ITSM efforts. The results clearly offer empirical evidence that ITSM offers significant benefits to the organizations and to themselves", said Doug Tedder, President-Elect of itSMF USA.

Glenn O'Donnell, Senior Analyst for Forrester Research wrote in his September 2011 blog post, New Study Yields Eye-Opening IT Service Management Benefits, "The news is certainly good for ITSM professionals and their employers, but there were also a few areas still in need of improvement.  The most notable of these is how change management execution still causes too many incidents."

Some eye opening insights from the research are listed below.

• The adoption of IT infrastructure library (ITIL)-based programs and certifications are mainstream, with IT service quality, productivity, and reputation with business leaders significantly enhanced because of it.
• More work needs to be done on certain execution elements, most notably change management.  Execution still causes too many incidents. About 70% of all incidents are the result of a change. 58% of the subjects say over 10% of their incidents are caused by change. 25% are excessive (over 40% of incidents) and a beleaguered 22% don't know. SaaS is viewed very favorably as a service desk software delivery option. 96% were satisfied or very satisfied with SaaS, whereas the numbers for traditional software models and homebrewed tools all hovered around 70%.
• Despite some dissatisfaction with service desk, buyers are unlikely to switch vendors. 57% said they would not switch and 21% said they would. 22% did not know.
• The anchor-boutique "shopping mall" model for management tools seems popular. Major vendors are well entrenched, but 37% will fill gaps in their portfolios with smaller boutique vendors.
• 51% of ITSM efforts are driven primarily by IT or business executives.
• ITIL has had an overwhelming positive impact on organizational productivity:

• 70% received a positive salary increase in the past year with 31% over 5% (The general US population fell and general IT salaries were flat.)
• 77% indicated a positive relationship between their Application Development and Operations teams. This indicates DevOps success is far stronger in ITSM-focused organizations than in the general enterprise.

How to Get the New Report, The State of IT Service Management in 2011:

All itSMF USA members and survey participants will be able to access the results of the study at no charge. The report, The State of IT Service Management In 2011, is also available to Forrester Research clients, and it is available for purchase for $499 at www.forrester.com.

To learn more about itSMF USA and to stay informed on IT service management:

• Follow itSMF USA on Twitter at itsmf_usa or
• Subscribe for itSMF USA and Service Management news at www.itsmfusa.org

About itSMF USA

Founded in 1997, the itSMF USA is the premier organization leading the advancement of the service management profession (www.itsmfusa.org). We are dedicated to building a community of professionals at all levels for the purpose of networking, knowledge sharing, and education to advance the service management profession and promote its positive impact within IT organizations. Serving over 18,000 members and other IT Service Management professionals, itSMF USA supports a network of Local Interest Groups in over 40 cities and regions nationwide. itSMF USA is a chapter of itSMF International, a worldwide network of IT Service Management professionals formed in 1991.

Download the press release here.

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The research partnership has continued to bare fruit since Fusion09, where Forrester analysts not only presented, but engaged in one-on-one meetings with several of you at the conference. We will also be more active in the LIGs across the country, so hopefully we can get to meet many of you at an upcoming LIG event.

Our research studies continue annually. We want to understand the realities facing all of you and where we stand in the ITSM journey. Many questions need to be answered in a rigorous manner so we can have confidence in the answers. For example, we would like to know if 80% of all service impacting incidents are indeed caused by change. Our gut says this is not too far off the mark, but the empirical data to support this assertion is a mystery. It is time to get the supporting data.

However, rather than develop the research studies in a vacuum, we wish to make this a democratic effort. After all, this is designed to benefit you, the itSMF member, so it is best to tailor it to your desires. What is keeping you awake at night? What questions continue to puzzle you? What would you like to learn that can make your life easier and would make you and your organization more valuable to the business?  

We invite you to participate in a new, groundbreaking 2012 research study on IT Service Management.  Click here to Start the Survey Now.

Send any ideas, questions, or other observations to itSMF@forrester.com.  Better yet, join the social media revolution on LinkedIn.  We encourage you to join the itSMF USA group on LinkedIn. Instructions on how to join the LinkedIn group are below.

Once we have a good base of research questions, we will then launch the survey to all itSMF USA members. Very soon after you read this, we hope to expand the research partnership worldwide, so your peers in the International itSMF community will also participate.

We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership between itSMF and Forrester. Nobody has yet tried such collaboration for ITSM research. The charter we are all responsible to pursue is innovation. We consider this to be an innovative vehicle to accelerate a better understanding for every one of us. Our collective intelligence will prove incredible. We embark upon this adventure with

 excitement  and we hope you will all join us.

Warmest regards,