What is Information Technology Service Management (ITSM)?
ITSM is a
discipline for managing information technology (IT) systems. It is
based on the philosophically centered on the customer's perspective of IT's
contribution to the business. This is in contrast to the
traditional technology or product centered on
the IT departments perspective.
ITSM enables
quality information technology (IT) services that provides the outcomes that the business wants to achieve.
It
enables regulatory
compliance for SOX (COSO), HIPAA, etc. ITSM establishes tangible deliverables,
quality management and control systems
for IT governance.
Business Challenges
IT
service providers must provide value to the business by providing capabilities and
resources to manage services as well as provide manage the
technology and products that supports these services. ITSM creates a quality
management system that assures alignment of IT services to business
objectives.
The business uses and/or buys IT services and not Technology
and therefore focus on Services to ensure alignment with the business. However, IT organizations traditionally focuse on
Technology and not Services.
Services are very complex and are composed of various types of Technologies. IT's focus on technology has lead to the following challenges:
Limited management information - decisions based on 'I
think' rather than 'I know'
Limited structure in the customer support mechanism
Low customer confidence/perception
Out of date customer support system
Under managed support resources
Continual fire-fighting and break-fix
Recurring problems being resolved repeatedly rather than
eliminated
Interrupt-driven
Over dependency on key technical staff
Uncoordinated and unrecorded change takes place that
impact service
Unaware of changes in the business
Unclear staff resource/cost requirements
Inconsistent quality of call response and response times
Continual Service
and Service Management Improvement
ITSM promotes a service oriented approach that addresses
these challenges and improves the delivery of services that align with
business objectives. The Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a public domain ITSM framework. In
contrast, the method for delivering ITSM in the past has traditionally been
applied by major vendors using their proprietary frameworks such as Microsoft
Operations Framework (MOF), HP ITSM Reference Model, IBM IT Process Model (ITPM),
Deloitte CIO Framework, and many others.
The term ITSM and "IT Service Management" is generic.
No one author, organization, or vendor owns the term "IT Service
Management".
ITIL ® is a Registered Trade Mark,
and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government
Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
The Swirl logo™ is a Trade Mark of
the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
PMP and PMBoK are a Registered Trade
Marks of the Project Management Institute (PMI)
COBIT is a Registered Trade Mark of
the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
itSMF is a Registered Trade Mark of
the IT Service Management Forum
