The rapidly-changing IT world – with cloud computing, shadow IT, increased mobility and rapid consumerisation – is a major cause of headaches for CIOs and IT service managers as they struggle to prove their relevance.
But the very nature of the changing landscape is making IT service management and – critically – IT governance more important than ever.
Pieter Roos, chairman of the IT Service Management Forum in South Africa (itSMFsa) points out that, while the IT department may be disintermediated from what services are delivered to the business, it still has a responsibility to ensure that they comply with a host of requirements including security, availability and reliability.
These are among the challenges that will be addressed at the upcoming SMEXA 2015 conferences, where the itSMFsa aims to put the importance of IT service governance squarely front and centre of the IT transformation conversation.
“The main focus is always going to be IT service management, but the emphasis has shifted from management to governance,” Roos says.  “Most organisations are experiencing the same thing: they are having to shift from the responsibility of delivering many IT services; to accountability for the governance of services delivered via a variety of channels.
“Quite often, control over operations is being taken out of IT’s hands – but they are still accountable for how well IT serves the business.”
In line with the new focus on governance and relevance, the SMEXA conference in 2015 will no longer take the form of a single two-day event as it did in the past. Instead, a one-day conference will take place at 102 Rivonia Road on 23 September, followed by an event in Cape Town on 7 October. Two half-day events are scheduled at Dimension Data’s Johannesburg campus in November and Centurion in February next year to ensure that the SMEXA messaging is made available to the widest possible audience in the most convenient format.
The itSMFsa is also forging a closer relationship with ISACA as COBIT principles become more relevant to the IT service management discussion.
Roos hastens to add that the operational side of IT service management and ITIL are still hugely important, but that the new emphasis now includes governance, and the messaging from SMEXA 2015 will reflect this change.
Attendance at SMEXA 2015 is free. Delegates can register here.