Organizations are today looking at the ITIL framework as a methodology that streamlines the overall IT process, brings in cost efficiencies, and better alignment between business and IT. This FAQ series will drill down deeper and answer the common question on each of the five ITIL process stages. The current article is part one of this five-part series. You may also wish to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the ITIL FAQ series to know more about ITIL in general.
Service Strategy guides organizations in transforming service management from an organizational capability into a strategic asset. It also guides leadership to think and act in a strategic manner. It helps clarify the relationships between various systems, processes or services, and business models.
Features of ITIL Service Strategy
What is the Purpose of Service Strategy in ITIL v3?
The purpose of the ITIL Service Strategy is to determine which types of services should be offered to which customers in the market. Its ultimate goal is to make the IT organization act and think strategically. It also helps IT organizations use strategic assets to define and achieve goals.
The book covers strategy generation, financial management, service portfolio management, and demand management in detail. What it does is help organizations answer questions:
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- What services to offer and to whom?
- How to differentiate from the competition?
- How to create value for customers?
- How to make a case for strategic asset building
- How do capture value for stakeholders?
What is the Difference Between ITIL v3 Service Strategy and ITIL v2 Service Strategy?
ITIL v3 introduces service portfolio management as a new concept. It further advances this concept and introduces ways in which service portfolios can be strategically developed in the future. Financial management that was a part of Service Delivery in v2 is now introduced under Service Strategy. However, the process and activities are similar to that in v2. ITIL introduced a couple of changes in 2011 for the Service Strategy. Strategy Management for IT Services has been introduced as a new process. It was earlier covered under Service Portfolio Management. A dedicated Demand Management process has been introduced as part of the Service Strategy in the ITIL Process Maps. In addition to this few new roles have been created. These are the Service Strategy Manager and the Business Relationship Manager. Furthermore, two new concepts of Utility and Warranty are also introduced from a customer’s perspective. These define the business value created by the services for a customer. Utility defines the fitness of the purpose of service and a Warranty talks of a promise or guarantee that a product or service will meet its agreed requirement.
What are the Benefits of Moving from V2 to V3?
ITIL v2 was largely process-oriented. It outlined what should be done to improve the process. However, in doing so, most organizations have replaced technology silos and created process silos. Although v2 has further information and process in place, few were given due importance. ITIL v3 takes a more holistic life cycle approach. It encourages thinking and talking about the business part of an organization. It includes understanding how the business creates value and establishing goals and principles. These goals and principles can then be translated into business processes and made live as a live operating process. It adds more value to the entire investment done in the service and creates increased business value. The ITIL v3 process also takes care of feedback from the consumers and in return ensures higher acceptability of the process. Therefore, if you feel that the process set up following v2 is still applicable, meeting the SLA’s defined, adding value to the entire business, and customers, in general, are satisfied, you may wish to wait a while before moving to v3. Still, enterprises should plan to make a move to v3 in the longer run.
What can Candidates who are Planning for a Certification?
For those who are v2 certified, there is not much change. All the processes from V2 remain. However, many are enhanced and moved to a more logical section as mentioned earlier in the article. Some process now covers the entire span of the lifecycle, and some have been made specific to a particular section. Taking a further v3 certification will be an incremental effort with a pronounced jump in your knowledge and capability. For those who are planning to get certified for the first time, this will mean a world of difference. You will find that you are now equipped to understand the requirements of the business more clearly.
What Should Organizations who are Just Starting on ITIL V3 Do?
An organization that is freshly adopting ITIL v3 should first determine which services need to be offered to which user communities. Once the set of services has been determined, organizations should define important attributes for the service. In addition to base functionality, there are many other service attributes that are important to the service’s customers, including availability, cost, security policies, performance, and time to deliver. The service strategy analyst will have to keep organizational size, breadth, and agility in mind before designing a service. The key here is to manage the transition, stabilize the IT function, and slowly introduce new processes by taking the customer into confidence.
We hope that the article helped you answer some basic questions related to Service Strategy. If you have any further questions, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Our next article in this series will answer a few important questions on Service Design.
