IT Services: Costs, Metrics, Benchmarking and Marketing [Hardcover]

Anthony Tardugno (Author), Thomas DiPasquale (Author), Robert Matthews (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0130191957 | ISBN-13: 978-0130191953

This is the first 100% customer-focused guide to satisfying the consumers of your company's IT services -- and building the loyalty your IT organization desperately needs. IT Services presents every element of a comprehensive approach to service delivery in global, distributed environments. Learn how to establish a vision, processes, service and cost models, performance measurements and "stretch" goals that achieve real business benefits. Applicable to both in-house and outsourced operations, IT Services serves as a roadmap for executives building enterprise-wide operations centers; a practical guide for managers seeking to developer stable and cost-effective support infrastructures; and an invaluable educational guide for IT consumers who want to know what they can and should expect.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

1919E-7

Unleashing the Power of Integrated Service Delivery

Harris Kern's Enterprise Computing Institute Solutions for IT Professionals

Delighting IT customers: the real-world, start-to-finish guide

IT Services is the first 100% customer-focused guide to satisfying the consumers of your company's IT services — and building the loyalty your IT organization needs. In this book, three leading IT professionals present a fully integrated, comprehensive approach to service delivery in today's global, distributed environments.

You'll discover how to establish processes, service and cost models, performance measurements, and "stretch" goals that achieve clear business benefits-and then transform those goals into reality.

• Proven results, benchmarks, and case studies — not just theory!
• Linking goal-setting, process development, and metrics to the goals of the enterprise — step-by-step
• Gaining buy-in from management, internal customers, and external suppliers
• Building stable, predictable and cost-effective application support infrastructures
• Structuring support services for maximum effectiveness

Applicable to both in-house and outsourced operations, IT Services offers a total roadmap for executives building enterprise-wide operations centers; practical help for managers seeking to deliver cost-effective support; and invaluable insight for IT "customers" who need to know what they can expect from their technology professionals.

About the Author

Anthony F. Tardugno has over 15 years of IT and product development experience, ranging from software engineering to IT management. He is now Manager, Site Manufacturing Information Technology for the Corporate Strategic Services Division at Xerox.

Thomas R. Dipasquale has, since 1995, served as an IT consultant for Sun Microsystems' Professional Services Organization. He has specialized in operations processes, server consolidation, total cost of ownership issues, and electronic commerce.

Robert E. Matthews has served as IT consultant for Sun Microsystems' Professional Services Organization since 1995, specializing in operations, server consolidation, total cost of ownership, and E-commerce.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (March 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130191957
• ISBN-13: 978-0130191953
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,001,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Focus is on the critical production support processes, December 29, 2000

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: IT Services: Costs, Metrics, Benchmarking and Marketing (Hardcover)

This book is one of, if not the, best guides to developing, implementing and managing a mature production support organization.

The value of this book is that it takes a business-centric approach to service delivery, and augments material on service level management (such as Foundations of Service Level Management - another excellent book).

Specifically, this book contains sorely needed body of knowledge in a profession that has lost its way. What I mean by this bold statement is the production support function in many IS/IT departments has devolved from service delivery to infrastructure management. IT Services brings the focus back to where it belongs: supporting the business.

What I like most about this book is it not only shows what is wrong with most production support organizations, but it provides a clear roadmap to how to restructure production support from an infrastructure management focus to a service delivery paradigm.

I highly recommend this book to anyone in production support, consultants and IT/IS executive management. It would also be useful to ISPs and ASPs because most of the material can be applied to internal or external customers.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reading if you deal with IT data centers., September 28, 2001

By 

Ashraf A. Osman "The Sad Egyptian" (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: IT Services: Costs, Metrics, Benchmarking and Marketing (Hardcover)

This is a book that many IT managers have to read, it's a quick meal though, no details but a balanced dose of good ideas and a window on Service delivery where IT data centers is no longer a "cost center". The only thing I did not like is to center the data center around SUN and Oracle or a brand in general, although it is clear the book reflects the authors experience in SUN/Oracle environment.
I advise anyone who has anything with today's data centers (no matter his or her technical level) to read this book.

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm recommending that all my managers buy a copy..., May 15, 2000

By 

Michael J Muha - See all my reviews

This review is from: IT Services: Costs, Metrics, Benchmarking and Marketing (Hardcover)

The size of our IT organization has exploded over the past five years as we've deployed new systems and products. The focus was always on delivering projects on time.

Well, we've grown up and now have to support those products. Oh, what to do: we've been technology driven, not service driven.

Along comes "IT Services" to provide a blueprint of how to go about implementing a services organization. There's practical advice on determining what "customers" want, what IT can offer, and what to do about the gap. It gives good examples of how to determine service costs. The sample "Service Level Agreement" in Appendix B and discussions of SLAs in the text is probably worth the price of the book alone.

Minor nitpicks - Sometimes the authors could spend a little more time explaining figures and tables: I'm still trying to figure out what authors are trying to convey in the first two rows of Table 5-4 (p. 51).

Overall, I had a hard time putting down the book. The more I read, the more ideas I had. I won't loan out this book for a while - I want to keep it close at hand. My staff will have to get their own copies...