IDL research and draft sales collateral written as a Thought Leadership Point-of-View that demonstrates the business issues, the IT solution set and initial offerings. This material is used for 3 purposes - to provide a consistent reason of call by the sales team, a formalised proposition for vendor co-funding and the foundation for explaining the business case for solution investment to the prospect. To maintain the Thought Leadership, IDL will provide an Expert Forum on the Internet to offer prospects the opportunity to pose questions to the IT solution provider in an "invitation only" closed community of target customers.

Thought Leadership Point-of-View Example 2.1 Business Issues The Cost & Risk of Inefficient Service Delivery All corporations are increasingly dependent upon efficient IT service delivery to support their businesses, be this locally, nationally or internationally. As increasing numbers of organizations move towards making their products and services available 24x7, they must balance the increasing pressure on IT service delivery this 24x7 availability requires, whilst meeting internal demand for improved efficiency and reduced operating costs. Unsurprisingly, these potentially conflicting needs are top of mind for many CIOs at present. The IT Information Library [ITIL] provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT management. These recommendations are divided into the areas of service delivery and service support, promoting a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems. ITIL is used by IT organizations to verify that they can deliver IT services to end-users in a controlled and disciplined way, thereby meeting or exceeding SLAs. ITIL incorporates principles and guidelines that are applicable to all IT organizations, no matter the size of the corporation or the specific technology it deploys. The rapidly growing popularity of ITIL is testament to its valuable role in creating and delivering service management processes, supported by the use of process-enabling tools and technologies. Indeed, the US market adoption of an integrated application of ITIL grew significantly in 2006. The year saw a 200 times increase in end-user ITIL certification of IT professionals, and a similar picture is present for the US IT Service Management Forum [www.itsmfusa.org], which has now over 3,000 members across more than 30 Local Interest Groups. Part of the reason for the continuing growth of US IT Service Management Forum membership is the increasing adoption of an integrated model for risk management policy using COSO Enterprise Risk Management Integrated Framework for corporate governance. This integrated approach to risk management creates a need for a similarly integrated IT foundation: ISO 20000 and ITIL is now globally accepted as that foundation. "Many of the risks that could result in substantial losses to an organization are within operational areas. The CAE can ensure that the agreed upon audit plan includes those areas and is well balanced and effective. The Institute of Internal Auditors [IIA] advocates for an enterprise risk management [ERM] process that takes into account all aspects of an organization, rather than one that focuses only on the financial issues. For more about ERM, refer to COSO – http://www.coso.org." An integrated approach to IT Governance and service delivery has significant financial benefit, as highlighted by independent analysts who note that fragmented IT for governance, risk and compliance is "10 times more costly." For the financial services sector, analysts have observed that "30% of the IT has been wasted due to silo or legacy systems rather than a proactive integrated model". In addition, another analyst study indicated a potential 48% TCO reduction by applying an integrated IT service delivery best practice model. Fundamentally, therefore, to reduce IT costs and similarly to reduce risk when compared to manual or non-integrated IT systems, it is necessary to achieve efficiencies through an integrated and automated approach to the IT system. For many corporations, integration will have had minimal attention in the original design or evolution of applications or infrastructure. The ISO 20000 standard and ITIL are means to address these challenges, and to enable an integrated technology platform to be developed. Building Efficient IT Governance Within ITIL and ISO 20000, there are mission critical subjects, including information security and business continuity, along with the inter-related topics of incident, problem and change management. These issues are often identified as areas in need of immediate improvement. As these areas are addressed, a corporation can set priorities, and steadily scale into IT service delivery best practice. This may be through a blended on and offsite delivery model, which allows the customer to maximize the use of internal resources and yet cover the comprehensive needs of internal SLAs at optimum cost and lowest risk. The ISO 20000 standard – and its’ benefit of scalability – provides an integrated and secure IT foundation for multiple risk management policies or regulations across business lines or departments. These regulations may include Federal Information Security Management Act, Sarbanes Oxley #404, State Bill 1386 [California], Gramm Leach Blilley Act [GLBA], Payment Card Industry security standards [PCI] and HIPAA security in healthcare. Similarly, ISO 20000 is the basis for additional best practice standards, including ISO 27001 for information security and ISO 22000 for HACCP, thereby developing the vision of deep, integrated and sustainable value to the organization as well as lower IT cost. By adopting an integrated IT service delivery model, within an ISO best practice framework, both the cost and risk associated with fragmented or silo based systems will be avoided. In addition, the customer has even the opportunity to gain independent ISO certification to demonstrate that the standard has been successfully implemented. “Integration and automation of IT processes is the only way that IT departments can satisfy the demands to reduce expenses, deliver higher levels of service and meet the legal and security requirements for consistent, documented processes” – Enterprize Management Associates. 2.2 Solution Set ABCInc. IT Governance Solution Set ITIL and ISO 20000 are therefore very compelling for the CIO, and for business executives as well, including Chief Risk Officers [CRO] and Chief Compliance Officers [CCO]. ISO standards proactively demonstrate best practice and value in IT service delivery to key stakeholders inside and outside a corporation. These will include business line fund holders and the board; as well as demonstrating to the auditor that IT assessments as part of a Sarbanes Oxley internal controls attestation are being delivered to the highest standards and at low risk. So integration offers not only significant improvements in efficiency and reduced TCO, but simultaneously reduces risk versus non-integrated silo or legacy systems. In the example opposite, the relationship between incident, problem and change management highlights that the ITIL processes need an integrated and largely automated application to provide the necessary rapid response to critical events. ABCInc. supports companies in reducing IT costs, improving IT service availability and staff productivity by optimizing infrastructure components using best practice, thereby aligning IT proactively with the business demands. In particular, ABCInc. support systems data availability and continuity within an ISO 20000 service level management framework at the operating system level, including data protection, data recovery and capacity management. To support customers in understanding and developing best practice in IT service management, ABCInc. offers a series of support services: OFFERING #1: IT Service Best Practice Workshop ABCInc. facilitated IT Governance Plan workshop to align the ABCInc. view of best practice – using ISO standards – to the customer’s priorities This leads to initial recommendations mapped to the customer’s objectives and vision. OFFERING #2: IT Infrastructure Risk Assessment ABCInc. best practice IT risk assessment on-site, in line with ISO standard recommendations, to identify the gaps between IT policy and the supporting IT processes and controls. This leads to recommendations for remediation. OFFERING #3: IT Infrastructure Documentation & Scope ABCInc. documentation of IT processes and controls in support of the customer’s IT governance policies, with an emphasis on integrating areas that are new to policy and have not previously required documentation. “ABCInc. recommends the vendor server family which has multiple related efficiency benefits to further reduce cost and risk.” About Vendor Servers for ITSM High Security An integrated ITSMS to meet new standards and compliance requires a solid foundation, and ABCInc. recommends the Vendor server family which has multiple related efficiency benefits to further reduce cost and risk. Vendor AIX has advanced protection through robust authentication, and built-in best-of-breed security mechanisms in the operating system, which includes assurance from independent validation through evaluation, leading to simpler management on a standards-based strategy. Lower Risk And Ownership Cost Today’s technology incorporates lower ownership cost features that support lower risk through consolidation of multiple server and storage devices into one Vendor virtual system. At the operating system level this also includes data protection, data recovery and capacity management. ABCInc. ISO 20000 IT Service Management Description The integration of IT service delivery is critical for the value and performance intended by adoption of IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and potentially certification to the ISO 20000 standard for IT Service Management, as demanded by many government contracts. A link is clearly being established between ISO 20000 ITSM ITIL adoption and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) real business value, now supported by an integrated IBM ITSM solution set which is fully SOA capable by being consistent, flexible and re-usable. Integrated Solution IT Operational Management • Integrated business application management, server network and device management, storage management and security management. IT Service Management • Integrated configuration management database, workflow engine and automated process workflow. IT Process Management • Integrated IT CRM & business management, service delivery and support, service deployment, information management, and business resilience. Next Steps ABCInc. offers a free initial meeting to discuss the corporation’s IT policy objectives and to indicate potential areas where efficiencies can be realized. These will be aligned to the ISO 20000 integrated IT service management framework with the objective of highlighting areas for immediate cost savings and risk reduction. For a comprehensive overview of the ABCInc. solution go to www.abcinc.com.