OVUM VIEW

Summary

BMC recently unveiled its new ITSM agenda. The announcements were delivered via an “Apple-esque” event that was also streamed as a live webcast that, at the time of writing, can still be viewed on demand. Ovum believes it was impressive that BMC spent the time and resources to communicate its ITSM strategy in this way, and there should be wide exposure of the messages as a result.

BMC offers four different ITSM solutions that have varying appeal according to enterprise size and deployment preferences. Its new ITSM agenda has been developed very much on the basis of one-size-does-not-fit-all when it comes to ITSM tools, and BMC believes its strategy of offering multiple solutions can meet the varying demands of different customers across all market segments. Ultimately, BMC wants to stay at the top of the market-share tree for large enterprises, while increasing traction in the SME market.

BMC gets innovative

At the top of the event, BMC spoke about how the ITSM tools industry has been lacking innovation, which it feels has restricted its potential progression. Ovum does see some good innovations in the ITSM space, with some smaller ITSM vendors innovating in exciting ways. However, as BMC states, the workforce of today continues to change. Mobile and social are no longer only strategic items that should only be discussed and debated, they are also capabilities that should be implemented. BMC’s new focus on the importance of social and mobile is welcome, and their integration (especially in Remedy 8.0) is certainly broadening the tools functionality and should assist the collaboration efforts and productivity of customers that adopt it.

For BMC, there is no one-size-fits-all

Since BMC’s acquisition of Numara, there has been some confusion about which market segments BMC’s product offerings are ideally suited for. BMC has taken steps to remove this confusion, with its new agenda highlighting that it is taking a position of offering different products for all markets, with a unified theme of having a dedicated company in support of them all, and an overarching goal of continuing to lead in the large enterprise space and increase its traction with SMEs. Having a one-size-fits-all solution is not part of BMC’s strategy as a result of its recognition that companies have different needs and varying demands in the way they deliver against strategic business objectives. This approach differentiates BMC from some of its competitors, which have experienced market traction as a result of their more unified, flexible, and adaptable product offerings.

Targeting mid-market enterprises

BMC’s core Remedy ITSM Suite has unquestionable relevance for larger enterprises, but there have been questions about how BMC address the mid-market, which Ovum classifies as companies with between 1,000 and 5,000 employees. BMC is targeting this market with its Remedyforce SaaS and FootPrints on-premise solutions. Track-It! is also in this bracket, but is not as feature-rich as the other two products. While Ovum believes that a single mid-market offering from BMC would be desirable, the practicality is that this is just not plausible given the relative newness of the Numara acquisition. FootPrints is a good and widely adopted tool, and simply removing it from the product portfolio and focusing solely on the Remedyforce offering would not make business sense. Given the strength of the Remedyforce offering, BMC’s acquisition of Numara was probably motivated by the subsequent recruitment of the skills and people that could help it gain a greater market share of the mid-market, as opposed to solely the attraction of the tool itself.

APPENDIX

Author

Adam Holtby, Research Analyst, IT Solutions

adam.holtby@ovum.com@adamholtby

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