Melbourne based IT Specialist, Maxxam Computer Systems is the first company in Australia to be awarded BS15000/AS8018 certification for IT Service Management, further evidence of the surging popularity of the certification scheme. This comes just nine months after the launch of the Australian copy of BS15000.

Maxxam CEO, Brad Krauskopf said, -For our customers the bottom line is simple. An improved, more accountable service at a reduced cost and risk, delivered by a partner committed to continuous improvement and industry best practice.-

Maxxam was coached through AS8018 by Itilics, a service management organization servicing the Asia Pacific region. Itilics coach Ed Broome explained: -AS8018 isn-t something someone else can do for you, it-s your challenge. Itilics can guide and coach, but you have to put the work in and Maxxam did just that and got their reward. -Maxxam fully deserve this notable first.-

-What Itilics did for us is adjust and align our current practice against an acknowledged world-wide standard and then finally coached us through rigorous auditing to prove our adherence to AS8018,- Brad explained.

-Without a doubt, AS8018 has been the best investment we have ever made-.

The AS8018 audit was carried out by Lloyds Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), who conducted the equivalent British Standard BS15000 audit in other countries. Lloyds brought their extensive experience to bear on the first Australian audit. The LRQA certificate has been issued under the UK itSMF accreditation scheme and is endorsed for AS 8018 and BS 15000.

Don Page of the Marval Group, co-author of the standard and ITIL evangelist said of the achievement, -This is fantastic news out of Australia, not only for Maxxam, but for the whole industry. The fact is - large, small, private or public sector - organisations now rely on having a cost effective, accountable and well managed IT infrastructure in order to remain competitive and effective-.

-I strongly urge all Australasian organisations to adopt AS8018 and have it as a requirement to achieve for their own internal operations, management and competitive benchmarking of their suppliers. Government should make it a mandatory goal to achieve within three years. AS8018 will make an important contribution to the amalgamation of IT governance and streamlining of IT services within the Australian & New Zealand governments and the industry in general,-

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-As a specialist IT service provider, we saw the obvious business benefits and competitive advantage of attaining AS8018. However the real benefits of AS8018 have been realised within our own organisation. Maxxam-s vision and team has been re-aligned by AS8018 and ITIL to become more service focused, customer centric and process orientated.- Brad said.

-AS8018 has raised the bar. Many CEO-s, IT managers and service providers welcome the challenge to demonstrate to business what a great job they do and their contribution to its success. At the end of the day, AS8018 is adherence to documented common sense.-

Date Posted: 30 June