5 minutes with... Don Page, CEO, Marval

What was your first job in the industry, how old were you and what did it teach you?

My first job in service management (from 10 to 16 years' old) was working on the market. My first boss Neville, a seasoned market trader, although hard taskmaster, prepared me for what lay ahead. If we don't deliver what the customer needs, no job. If we don't look after them, no job. If we don't.....you get the point.

Who have been your big influences in the industry/life?

Apart from Neville, it's my wife and son Jordan. When he came along, I had to learn new skills, be more responsible and adaptable, control my money better. I wanted a new car, but ended up purchasing the very latest pushchair, which was nearly the same price! I also had to work more as part of a team, rather than just thinking of myself. Time management was a new skill to learn (still working on it). I couldn't just go to the pub or away for a weekend break as before. Thinking of it now, what we do in service management is pretty easy really.

My biggest industry influence is being a member of the IT Service Management Forum (ITSMF). Here, I have had the opportunity to network, share and debate with my peers.

How do you think the industry has changed in the last 10 years?

Not that much. Yes, technology has advanced at an unprecedented rate. We have more bull***t, three-letter acronyms and hype than ever. From the perspective of managing customers, service and IT infrastructures, we have the same challenges. We still have people, communication and technology issues. We continually believe and expect technology to be our saviour, and it has consistently let us down. Are we communicating with customers and colleagues better? Are we controlling risks better? Are our jobs more secure? Probably not. If anything, the industry has taken a few steps backwards. Maybe more people understand what they should be doing, but the adoption of best practices is not where it needs to be.

What will service desks look like in 10 years' time (if at all)?

I believe that, although the delivery mechanisms and technology used to facilitate and deploy them will constantly change, the need for humans to interact with a single point of customer contact, whether virtual or physical, will not - even when the patented 'Marval multi-lingual psychic support module' becomes available in 2014.

What do you think the service desk industry's biggest challenges in the next year will be?

Keeping up with new technologies and approaches. Currently, it's 'SaaS' and the 'cloud'. Both are new deployment methods, which will bring their own challenges, rewards and failures. We won't get away with just adding the word 'cloud' or 'SaaS' to our marketing materials or products. Organisations looking to adopt new technologies are wising up and will spend more effort on their due diligence. Some organisations may simply choose to do nothing, until the real risks are better understood.

What direction should service desks take to modernise even further?

Modernisation is not just about having the latest technology or toys. It's about having the right culture, skills, people, process and technology in place to support the needs of the business at all times. For the service desk, it's about understanding its own value proposition and positioning itself so that the business would not consider looking for
alternatives. Ask yourself: "If I started my own similar business today, with my own money - would I hire my own service desk?"

If you could give one piece of advice to a service desk manager, what would it be?

Invest in your team; they are your most important asset, even if you think they are better than you in some areas. It's having the right team around you that will contribute to your personal success or failure.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever had?

"Buy shares in Lehman Brothers."

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The day, hosted by Marval's Tom West-Robinson, started with the ever popular 'magic wand session'. This encourages customers to meet and network, share ideas, discuss and openly present which aspects of the Marval ITSM solution they like and where they believe improvements and new features would benefit the wider Marval user community.

The workshop continued with a presentation from The Godfather of ITIL - Marval CEO Don Page. Don presented what's new in MSM v8. The session was followed by Don's views on why ICT departments need to re-focus in order for ICT to "sell" to the organisation, stakeholders and customers - what a great job they do, citing some practical approaches, pitfalls and examples along the way.

Straight after lunch saw a lively session from Paul Smith who provided an overview of what Marval Group have been up to in various countries and a short Youtube video on the recent ITSMF UK conference in London - where both Don and Allan Stear of Marval were presenting.

This was followed by Marval's Simon Lawrence presenting the very latest web-based management dashboard and reporting tool from Marval - 'MSM Xtraction' which is available for both the MSM client and web based versions. Like any great demo, it started off with a minor technical hitch ("Damn computers"). Simon went on to impress the audience with what this exciting new tool offers Marval users for the future.

Next up was Jackie Earl from Halcrow. A Marval customer who recently migrated from the client server MSM v8 version to the ASP.NET,MSM v12 version. This is an outspoken and straight talking lady who lives and breathes Service Management. Jackie presented on how the Halcrow HR team are now using MSM v12 to deliver HR services across the group. She presented their journey, successes and challenges faced, deploying a Service Management solution into a non-IT user environment.

As a global organisation, many other Halcrow business units are now showing interest in the work the ICT department has done with MSM v12. A previous advocate of MSM v8, Jackie confessed to loving MSM v12, its overall functionality, flexibility and general "sexiness".

The last session of day was left to Paul Smith who provided the audience with a short but informative overview of the latest asp.net MSM v12 functionality.

The customer feedback survey showed that a great day had been had by all.

• Magic wand and customer feedback session
• Advanced web based management information, dashboards & reporting
• Whats new in MSM 8.2 (client server)
• Whats new in MSM v12 (100% web)
• Guest customer speaker session

Start: 10:00 - 16:00

Location: Marval UK HQ Kettering

Guest customer speaker

Jackie Earl, from the Halcrow Group, will be giving a frank and open view about their experience and exploitation of MSM v12.

About Halcrow:
Halcrow delivers planning, design and management services for developing infrastructure and buildings worldwide. Halcrow operates through a network of over 98 offices around the world with around 6,000 employees.

The session will include a round up of this year's successful itSMF conference in London and the Dutch Tooling event.

Don Page, CEO of Marval - this year's sponsors of the ITSMF UK "Service Management Project of the Year"   presented the award to the winners:

HM Revenue & Customs - Enterprise Release and CSI Project

930 delegates, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors packed the Novotel London West on 7^th-8^th November for this year's itSMF UK Conference and Exhibition, the biggest and most influential gathering of ITSM professionals in the calendar.

"There was a real buzz in the air this year, as attendees made new contacts and caught up with friends and colleagues," said CEO Ben Clacy. "In addition to the huge turn-out from the UK membership, we attracted delegates from many of our partner chapters around the world, offering an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences."

Technology played an even larger role than usual, with rolling displays recording the numerous tweets on the #itsmfuk11 hash-tag, interactive voting keypads for plenary discussion sessions, hosted by Marval CEO Don Page, plus a special edition of the ITSM PodCast featuring some of the industry's leading pundits. "Social media tools now instrumental to the success of service management in many organisations," said Clacy, "and it was great to be able to demonstrate these new ways of communicating as well as discussing them during the presentations."

The opening keynote presenter, Paralympic legend and government campaigner Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, set the scene with an inspiring account of the challenges and prejudices she faced on the way to achieving eleven gold medals in the Paralympic Games and winning six London Wheelchair Marathons. With wry humour and touching modesty, she explained how she turned some of her most bitter disappointments into triumphs, spurred on by her personal mantra to 'be as good as you can be'.

Closing the programme was Mark Hall, Deputy CIO at HM Revenue & Customs and a former Chair of itSMF UK. Mark highlighted the sheer scale of the IT challenges facing government departments and outlined some of the innovative thinking that needs to take place in large organisations in order to make savings and service improvements simultaneously. He also focused on the new wave of radical technology changes that are giving the upcoming generation a very different perspective of business priorities and communications.

Sandwiched between these plenary sessions were some 50 presentations, case-studies, discussions, and workshops, covering a broad range of themes from traditional service management topics to priSM credentialing, people skills, ITSM in the Cloud, security, the ITIL Master qualification, and ISO/IEC 20000. Running alongside this programme was the ever-popular ITSM exhibition featuring 42 sponsors and exhibitors, and of course the itSMF UK IT Service Management Awards.

Annual Awards

This year's awards were hosted by the inimitable Lenny Henry. As hotly contested as always, they celebrated the achievements of those who have shown real leadership, imagination and skill in addressing service management challenges within their organisations.

MSM v12 embodies the functionality and experience gained over Marval's 21 year history. Developed using the .NET technology platform, innovative programming approaches have enabled Marval to develop an intelligent, 100% web based solution that is not only 'super fast' but also has the flexibility to handle complex processes and high volumes, combined with advanced functionality and ease of use.

Key developments within MSM v.12 include:

• Architecture optimised for very low bandwidth WAN connections
• User configurable screen layouts and mandatory field definition
• Enhancements to the Service Portfolio including additional user configurable service portfolio and service catalogue views
• Extended configuration item (CI) search options to include service, CI and organisational relationships
• Dynamic knowledge management
• Enhancements to Customer Self-Service including; extended web services and 3rd party product integration for customer self-service and user configurable self-service screens

Marval's fully integrated ITSM solutions are designed to improve service quality, productivity and customer satisfaction; reduce costs and achieve operational excellence.

As a 'one-stop shop', Marval can provide ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 enabled ITSM and service desk software, ITSM consultancy, skills training and accredited ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 education.

Marval is an ISO/IEC 20000 registered company, supporting internal and external customers to international standards.

After a comprehensive two-day audit undertaken by DNV, Allan Stear, Marval's lead ITSM consultant, states; "MSM, Marval's ITSM tool collects over 85% of the audit evidence required, so all we have to do is our normal job, follow processes and focus on analysing and improving our service - business as usual really."

Greg Pritchett, Marval development director proudly added, "It is a testament to the team at Marval that irrespective of any ICT personnel changes or workload increases, we can continue to deliver a world class service."  He continues, "Our challenge remains constant - to continually improve the service and value we provide to the business and our customers, control our costs and optimise our resources."

MSM is a 100% ASP .NET web-based, ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 compatible, ITSM software solution.

MSM is certified under PinkVERIFY toolsets for compatibility against the maximum 15 ITIL processes.

One of the highlights of the conference was a presentation on managing customer expectation through pragmatic Service Level Management, delivered by Don Page, Marval CEO and Allan Stear, Marval lead ITSM Consultant.

Marval is committed to the ongoing development of integrated IT Service Management (ITSM) software, consultancy, education and accredited training. A 'One-Stop Shop' for all your ITSM needs, designed to help organisations drive down costs, do more with the same or less  and still improve service quality, productivity and customer satisfaction.

MSM - ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000 compatible software - independently certified under PinkVERIFY toolsets for 15 ITIL processes - ensures a reliable IT and service infrastructure, increased productivity and adaptability in service provision. It has been implemented by organisations across many diverse sectors worldwide and is used by internal and external support and providers of outsourced and managed services.

Marval is a major practitioner, innovator, thought leader and contributor to Best Practice and standards in ITSM and is co-author of ITIL and ISO/IEC 20000. It has been helping customers deliver service excellence since 1989 and understands what it takes to become a world-class service team.

Marval is an ISO/IEC 20000 registered company supporting internal and external customers to international standards.

This is the second year running that a Marval customer has won this award. Last year it went to the Swedish Red Cross.

The award is presented to the project that the judges agree to have been most challenging, with clear objectives that were delivered on time, on budget and to high standard of quality.