Spotlight

Linking IT components

BMC Software offers enterprise management solutions for companies to align their IT infrastructure with business goals. Vinita Gupta profiles the company’s activities and the direction it is poised to take

Mostly, we identify a company by the product or solution that it sells. BMC Software is a pioneer in providing business service management (BSM) solutions. BSM is a strategy and an approach for linking key IT components to align them with business goals. It enables one to understand and predict the impact that technology and business have on each other. This concept and approach is fast gaining ground in the country.

"According to Forrester Research, in the long term BSM will save IT departments money and help them move budget dollars from operational maintenance to strategic IT projects" - Tom Schodorf VP, BMC Software Asia-Pacific

The company set up an Indian subsidiary in Pune in August 2001. When it commenced operations, BMC had just two employees. Today it boasts of over 750. On a recent visit to India, CEO and President Robert E Beauchamp, spoke to Express Computer, “We are serious about India, so we are expanding our operations. We have a new office in Pune. It houses our largest centre here, next only to the corporate HQ in the US. The office has the capacity to have up to 1,500 employees.”

The Pune facility will help the company expand its current R&D capabilities and customer support services for several of its solutions, and meet the growing demand for its products and services in the country. It also supports some back-office functions in areas such as HR, accounting, marketing and customer support. From a sales perspective, BMC is experiencing a strong, triple digit growth year-on-year.

Tom Schodorf, Vice-president, BMC Software Asia-Pacific explains, “India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with an incredible talent pool, which is why it has a key role to play in our strategy.”

BMC employs over 6,000 people worldwide. It wants to achieve greater efficiencies and to this end it is identifying ways to simplify, standardise, innovate and adapt.

Focussing on BSM

Since its entry in India the company has been focussing on BSM. Schodorf says, “According to Forrester Research, in the long term BSM will save IT departments money and help them move budget dollars from operational maintenance to strategic IT projects.”

This focus is based on customer feedback. In 2003, after discussions with customers, it became clear to Beauchamp that organisations wanted a single, consolidated view of their IT infrastructure. In response, he implemented his vision of how the problem should be solved and called it BSM.

Schodorf adds, “BMC’s success has been the result of a firm focus on delivering business value to customers around the world through the strategy known as BSM.”

He states further, “Two-and-a-half years ago, Indian customers were largely unreceptive to the BSM approach to managing IT. Today, it is a different story. BSM has become one of the important drivers for Indian companies as CIOs are now looking to better align their IT operations with the business, particularly among telecommunications, banking and outsourcing organisations.

Its client list in the country includes the likes of Reliance Industries, Videsh Sanchar Nigam, Bidesh Sanchar Nigam, Reliance Communications, Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and HCL Comnet.

The other trend that Schodorf has witnessed among Indian organisations is growth and the adoption of Information Technology Infrastructure Library. According to him, this trend has correlated with more BSM implementations.

Channelling markets

For any MNC, having a strong sales and marketing set-up is crucial for making its presence felt. BMC’s products are sold through direct sales and indirect channels including resellers, system integrators and original equipment manufacturers.

The company has invested heavily in building strong partnerships with about 600 partners worldwide that enable the delivery of BSM solutions to customers.

Schodorf elaborates, “The geographic size of the Indian market makes it a difficult territory to cover with a direct sales force, which is why we have invested in establishing a robust partner infrastructure in India.”

He adds, “We will support our global and India-based partners such as Infosys, Wipro, HCL Comnet, Datacraft and IBM Global.”

BMC’s partners consists of global technology players such as EMC, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle; systems integrators such as EDS, IBM, Accenture; technology alliances partners such as Citrix, Dell, BEA and solution providers like TCS, Wipro, Planwell.

BMC selects, trains, and supports partners to provide the highest standards of implementation, integration, consulting and support services. “Our training programme is extensive and ongoing. As we have been training partners in India for the last four years, it is difficult to put a figure on how many people have been trained,” says Schodorf.

In this regard, BMC has developed a formal management programme—Key Performance Indicator Programme—to evaluate its partners on an ongoing basis and ensure that they are able to meet the quality requirements of its customers.

For technology partners such as EMC and others, BMC has a programme called the Technology Alliance Programme. This is designed to support and promote both leading and emerging technology companies who offer tools and technologies that complement BMC Software solutions.

Offering for everyone

BMC’s product and solution portfolio is extensive and is tied directly to the company’s core BSM strategy, cutting across both mainframe and distributed systems.

Their products fall under four categories; service impact management, IT service management, application management, IT operations, and database and infrastructure management.

Some of the products that BMC Software delivers are Service Impact Manager, Remedy’s leading service support solutions including Remedy Help Desk, Event Manager, Enterprise Performance Assurance, BMC Performance Manager (previously known as Patrol), Mainview, Control-M, Control-D, Smart Recover, Software’s Database Management, Security Management and Infrastructure Management.

The versatility in the offerings also comes from the fact that BMC has been acquiring technology companies in the past. It has integrated several key acquisitions including Remedy, Marimba, and Identify Software—to speed up the delivery of a complete portfolio of BSM products, solutions and services. The company’s acquisition strategy is designed to deliver value to customers and shareholders.

Over time the company has also realised that it needs to focus on the SMB segment. “The SMB sector is important to BMC’s business globally as these organisations face issues just as larger enterprises do, but they work with tighter budgets and fewer resources. As a result, many operate in a reactive mode and consequently fail to provide as much value as they could by operating proactively,” comments Schodorf.

He believes due to these restraints, SMBs need easy-to-use and implement solutions that increase efficiency, transform from reactive to proactive and improve customer satisfaction levels. BMC meets these needs with solutions such as BMC Service Desk Express Suite. This enables users to easily customise workflow to meet the needs of the organisation.