| www.sas.com > SAS UK > In the Know Homepage | Search | Contact Us |
|
|
|
|
In an information-driven business world, IT is responsible for an increasing proportion of corporate
expenditure. That means IT not only has to do a highly professional job, but also needs to show this in
terms that make business sense.
For example, a bank's business leaders do not want to know how many megabytes of information are carried over its ATM network. Nor do they want to know the mean time between failures on a network link. However they are interested to know that customers can get cash when they want it and that the bank is not losing interest by having too much cash stored in the ATMs. IT departments can demonstrate their effectiveness in business terms, but this depends on manipulating information with advanced analytical technology. The good news is that you can typically do this by leveraging existing investments. A Service Level Management system must pull together data from myriad platforms and applications and convert this into easily understood information that is aligned to corporate goals. SAS is widely used for Computer Performance and Capacity Management and the same data, viewed in terms of Services, is necessary for Service Level Management. The new SAS Service Level Management Solution enables organisations to build on their existing investment in SAS, automating what for many can become a very manual process. With such a system, IT management can shift the focus away from measuring inputs and costs to measuring outputs and benefits such as Quality of Service. It can also cover external suppliers of IT services, to ensure that they are delivering value for money. Such a system enables IT management to negotiate sensible Service Level Agreements with internal customers and to monitor their fulfilment. And because it is automated, managers focus on improving services rather than spending time writing manual reports and investigating the root causes of problems. In short, Service Level Management systems provide the link between IT and business, by providing reports focused on business needs. Service Level Management in action FöreningsSparbanken (Swedbank) is Sweden's biggest retail bank. Swedbank's offerings are complemented by Internet and telephone services together with instore banks and post offices. Consequently, FöreningsSparbanken styles itself as "Sweden's most accessible bank": a key aspect of its market proposition and one that's highly dependent on effective IT services. In this environment, SAS® IT Management Solutions are enabling the bank to track and report on its various IT systems, in particular to underpin service level agreements (SLAs) valued at US$120 million (€105 million). "SAS helps to smooth relationships between the business units and the IT department in terms of the production and maintenance of the IT services we provide." - Fredrik Runnquist, senior vice president and head of IT. For the full version of the FöreningsSparbank success story, please visit http://www.sas.com/success/swedbank.html
For further information on SAS IT Management Solutions,
please visit: http://www.sas.com/solutions/itsysmgmt/index.html
|