Strategic Service Performance Management
Service Catalog, Service Portfolio, and IT Financial Management Experts
 
Lontra September 2007 Newsletter
    "The Business of IT"  
 
Highlights
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September Featured Event - Webinar: "CIO Case Study: Shaping IT Service Demand Through the Service Portfolio"
Barry Carter
Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm Eastern / 9:00am - 10:00am Pacific
 

Join Barry Carter, CIO of Alliance Data, as he tells the story of his implementation of a Service Catalog and Service Portfolio throughout his organization.

Join Barry to hear real world examples of how IT Financial Management and Demand Planning around the Service Portfolio can transform the way IT does business with its customers.

Boris Pevzner, Founder & CEO of Lontra, will host this educational webinar and facilitate an interactive question and answer session following the presentation.

Register Here

Lontra's "Accelerate Your Service Catalog Design " Workshop, Coming Soon to a City Near You!
Workshop Icon

Lontra and Third Sky have teamed up to bring a 2-day "Accelerate Your Service Catalog Design" workshop to a city near you. This workshop is grounded in the industry best-practice guidelines of the ITIL framework and expanded through our extensive, practical experience in developing Service Portfolios and Service Catalogs for our customers.

This workshop will highlight the importance of an effective Service Catalog to the overall success of IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Financial Management (ITFM) initiatives, and will guide the participants through the process of creating a representative Service Catalog for their IT organization through the facilitation of an experienced ITSM consultant.

Join us in a city near you to kick start your Service Portfolio project in just 2 days!
  • Washington, DC - October 9 - 10
  • San Francisco, CA - November 6 - 7
  • Chicago, IL - November 13 - 14
  • Dallas, TX - December 4 - 5
  • New York, NY - December 10 - 11

 For more information and to sign up click here.

 Letter from Lontra's Founder & CEO
Boris PevznerDear Sarah
 

I hope that you had a great Labor Day weekend and that you are feeling re-energized after the summer break. There will be lots of excitement in IT Service Management land this Fall!

 

To close out last month, I sat down for an interview with Mike Vizard from eWeek for a podcast on the topic of "Governance, Compliance and ITIL Convergence."  (To listen in on this podcast please click here.)

 
Mike points out at the beginning of the conversation that ITIL v3 has a growing following but hasn't gained a groundswell of support from the IT community; but with compliance requirements looming and IT Governance becoming a standard for the management of IT, standardization around a customer-centric service portfolio is now a must-have for any modern IT organization.
 

As my team and I further developed this topic, we summarized our thoughts in a white paper, which you can download below, "Addressing Compliance Issues with IT Service Portfolios".  I look forward to your feedback on this topic and ideas for future podcasts and white papers.

 

It's an exciting time for IT Service Management, we look forward to seeing you at our events this month, and hope you'll continue to send your suggestions for the October issue of The Business of IT.

 
Best,
 
Boris Pevzner

Founder & CEO, Lontra, Inc.

New White Paper - "Addressing Compliance Issues with IT Service Portfolios"
ComplianceGrowing compliance and governance needs make it critical for business to better understand and control IT. IT service catalogs can help companies align IT and business, and control the aspects of IT that compliance laws focus on.
 

Compliance regulations, because they universally require better process control, are driving an interest in service-oriented delivery models for IT. A service-oriented model focuses not on the hardware or software IT controls, or the projects it provides, but instead on the services IT provides to its users. In doing so, service-oriented IT delivery models give corporations clear, useful tools for better controlling service delivery processes.

 

With IT solidly at the core of business today, industry analysts and IT leaders are concluding that service-oriented delivery can act as a key component in building better relationships with business. With its emphasis on the specifics of what IT provides, it can also help link IT spending back to business value.
 
For the full PDF of this white paper, click here.
Join Lontra at itSMF Fusion 2007 in Charlotte, NC
Come Meet Service Catalog Experts, and Win a Full Set of ITIL v3 Publications

Visit Lontra in Booth 209 on Sunday, September 16th through Tuesday, September 18th, to learn about the only Service Portfolio solution representing ITIL v3 best practices. Join us in the exhibit hall to:

  • Meet ITIL v3 Service Strategy author Majid Iqbal on Monday at 1:00 PM.  Ask him your questions about this new and integral book to the ITIL v3 framework
  • Get a free expert assessment of your current Service Portfolio
  • Learn about Lontra's educational offerings and Service Catalog Workshop Roadshow
  • See Lontra's Service Portfolio Solution v6.0 in action

To schedule your time in advance, click here.

Win ITIL v3 PublicationsWin a complete set of ITIL v3 Publications when you fill out an entry form at the Lontra booth or give a business card to a Lontra team member.
September Survey - "What is Your Customer's Wish List for IT?"
Survey

With the IT Budgeting season in full swing, now is the time to make the case for next year's strategic IT initiatives and goals.

 

Take this month's survey,"What is Your Customer's Wish List for IT" and let us know where your organization stands as it looks forward to 2008.

 

Look for an article on the results in next month's newsletter and find out where you stack up against other organizations.

About Lontra
Lontra is the only complete Service Portfolio Solution that represents ITIL v3 best practices.  Our workshops and education enable some of the world's largest IT organizations to define services, determine true unit cost, forecast future demand, optimize the IT budget, and improve service delivery.  Our industry leading software supports these capabilities, and provides IT and its customers with an intuitive web-based interface to manage, request, and track services - the face of IT.  For more information on Lontra, contact us at info@lontra.com or visit www.lontra.com.
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