The application economy is all about customers interacting with your brand through apps instead of passively experiencing traditional messaging and venues. One early lesson of the application economy is that app users rightly expect accurate, useful information.
Brian Johnson, Nora Osman, @RobZuurdeeg and I have co-authored a new IT service management book, ITIL and the Information Lifecycle. The book discusses information as the lifeblood of the application economy, explores ITIL’s impact on the app economy, and examines how the app economy has changed ITIL and the information lifecycle.
This is the first of several blogs that will give you a taste of information’s digital transformation across agile management, DevOps and security in the application economy.
A Reintroduction to Information Management
Consumers like apps that are simple to download, install, use and update—no training necessary. Information—an app’s engine—is processed through a lifecycle adapted to the needs of application economy companies. Information management governs lifecycle activities: planning, harvesting, organizing, retrieving, using, securing, distributing, changing and disposing of information.What we sometimes forget is that the lifecycle is the reason information management technology was created—not the other way around.Without reliable, consistent information, transactions would be inefficient. Performing standardized, repeatable actions with inconsistent or unreliable information results in untrustworthy outcomes and ill-informed decision-making. That’s why information management is so crucial in the app economy.
Enter the IT Service Management ITIL version 2011 lifecycle. ITIL is a framework that provides guidance on delivering IT services by walking practitioners through several stages.
Why Is Information Management So Important?
In IT service management, we consider information in the form of business processes (banking, manufacturing, government) and IT services (the actual apps): The process is what a company does, and services are what the company delivers.
A Reintroduction to Information Management
- Strategize (the information’s business purpose, demand, cost, value)
- Design (performance, security, availability)
- Transition (deployment, testing, change management)
- Operate (security access, event management, incident management)
- Continuously improve (reporting, monitoring)
Because information management is important, it’s crucial to understand the impact of the information lifecycle and ITIL on the app economy and vice-versa. As we’ll discover together, lessons of the past don’t always apply. Companies that leverage the differences will be industry leaders.
Next Steps
Next up, we’ll talk about how information flow affects business strategies. Until then, we welcome comments on how you’ve adapted the information lifecycle to meet your app economy needs.