Published: August 19 2010, 09:58 AM | no comments
by Robert Stroud

The airline industry just keeps on giving!  Last night flying back from Los Angeles I checked in online to be presented with a message that "the flight was oversold and if my travel plans were flexible, could I consider taking a later flight." I wasn't initially thinking about a travel voucher, sleeping in a hotel room and taking the flight tomorrow and working on my multiple outstanding blog entries. But weighing this against catching the flight and fighting for some overhead space with absolutely no chance of a free seat next to me? Tempting! 

Then I thought about my schedule for the next day, back-to-back meetings and of course, a client visit to the corporate HQ. Oh well back to reality and catching the packed flight.

As I walked though the airport, I saw the eager group who had already volunteered waiting for the news on if they had been accepted for a later flight or were they to get on anyway. After boarding I looked up to see the disappointed looks on their faces as they had all been accommodated.  Interesting set of emotions, I thought as I watched them board.  Shouldn't they be happy that they made the flight?  In fact they were not. If anything they were despondent. 

Now airlines oversell flights as some people book and simply don't show. It's a business imperative for them to oversell flights in order to operate successfully. I have experienced it globally.  If you think about it, we should be selling IT capacity or the service and not assets to our business community. The perceived ownership of IT resources has led to many organizations not stressing their assets and subsequently incurring costs that would not be borne if consumption was from the general pool.

This is one of the advantages of chargeback or "show me" billing where you can communicate to the business the implications of their decisions. This allows the business to consume the quality of service they desire and IT can rationalize the assets and sources to maximize value. If the business requires the service to be available 24*7*365 then they need to meet the cost of this or if they can tolerate a lower service level there can be a lower price.  There are steps on the way to this maturity and the first is by providing a Service Catalog from which the consumer can select their service, with the appropriate service level.  Once standard services are available with defined parameters then IT can automate the process and drive down delivery time, delivery consistency of the service delivery experience, reduced costs and be more agile.  

These requirements are going to be fundamental to IT organizations with Cloud Computing and Virtualization, and explains the exceptionally high interest I have experienced with organizations not only talking about the Service Catalog but who are implementing. In my opinion the Service Catalog is not only a great automation vehicle for IT, the communication capabilities make it a driver of cultural change.

PS You can read more on the CA Service Catalog 12.5 at http://www.ca.com/us/press/release.aspx?cid=242888