Buzz words garner a lot of publicity in a short duration of time. SIAM is one of the chief words that is making a lot of noise around. In this article, I will explain SIAM with a different spin to it.
SIAM and ITIL
ITIL is well known today than what it was ten years back. Back then, it was a buzz word. ITIL is a full-fledged complete framework that provides the good practices towards the service lifecycle.
When ITIL was framed, the practice of customers dealing with multiple service providers was not fashionably in vogue. A single service provider, either internal or external used to take care of everything, so there was never a dire need to manage service provider.
As the competition between the service providers became intense, the customer started to smell cheese and a real benefit to be usurped with keeping multiple service providers on tenterhooks.
While the customer benefited from multiple service providers, the competition to outdo on another, and the value add they brought to the table, a new problem emerged. A management layer to keep tabs on the service providers, especially when they had to work together to achieve certain service related goals.
SIAM was born.
SIAM – Old Wine in New Bottle
Around ten years back, we started to see a situation where maybe a couple of service providers used to provide all the services that were needed for a customer. And one of the service providers, the one who had more business, had an additional role to act as a service role.
The service integrator’s role was simple. Act as a bond between the service providers to deliver services, and act like a customer when you need to.
This role of an integrator which started as a practice and as an experiment in some organizations started to get a definite shape, form and meaning.
The SIAM we hear of today is the service integrator of the yesteryears – old wine in a new bottle.
SIAM – Perspectives
I see SIAM through a lens that refracts the ITIL vision from a varying angle. It is an alter-ego of ITIL. I call it perspectives. SIAM is a perspective of ITIL.
When you design SIAM, you are implementing ITIL from the perspective of integration, collaboration, convergence, communication and synergy.
When multiple service providers are in play, there are new problems. The objective of SIAM is to pre-empt the problems and find a favorable solution.
Reiterating, there is new under the ITIL’s sun that is in SIAM, but the perspective it presents is valuable today, and the methodology is worth investing, for it is the new seed that is bound to grow rich dividends.
