ITIL and COBIT never claimed to reduce the upfront costs - from the literature, it is quite clear that that add a layer of burden before you can start a project. Their aim is to pull in the hidden costs of badly managed projects and ease support. In the end, it is not cheaper but you can do more.
Latest management headlines from Network World:
IT hiring to rise, but only slightly, study says
What are Cisco's top network-management challenges?
IBM aims to boost BPM skills pipeline
Surgient upgrades flagship software to automate virtual resource provisioning - Network ...
|
Does Verizon's Voyager stack up to the iPhone? |
|
|
5 IT skills that won't boost your salary 
[1,407]
Women 4 times more likely than men to cough up personal info [589]
Japan's 10 funniest tech-related commercials [Videos] [407]
Throwing away a promo CD is "unauthorized distribution"? [1,265]
Adults too quick to dismiss educational video games [682]
Attack of the iPhone clones [Slideshow] [578]
10 things IT needs to know about AJAX [1,258]
This Year's 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries [Slideshow] [409]
|
|
Title is Misleading
Not having read Murray's article, I should note that the article title is misleading in that presenting a case to a CEO to implement a framework that would "...significantly improve structure and quality across areas..." presents a compelling case all on it's own. Also, if you look at the ITIL v2 library - and not just the ITSM volumes - you will find the "Planning to Implement Service Management" book, that provides some guidance and samples in presenting a compelling case for ITSM.
As to whether ITIL reduces costs: no studies have been provided in the article that support this statement. The classic case of Johnson & Johnson, where - in 2005 - they saw "cost savings and avoidance" of more than $30 million from it's service improvement program expresses a counterpoint to the title of the article.
Cost of ITIL - or any other framework
There is obviously cost in implementing ANY framework that involves standardization, measurements, etc. However, their IS ROI - it's just difficult to measure. If you are increasing quality of operations, then you are decreasing down time, and decreasing costs that are hidden in your current inefficient, or possibly even non-existent, practices. How much time is wasted in IT operations due to a lack of a framework? You get the point..