Isn’t ITIL
about all about fixing broken things and data centre policies?
Well, the first version of ITIL that was launched in 1989
grew to 40 publications; these were somewhat focussed on IT operations.
However the ITIL v3 2011 update is a far cry from this. It provides a best
practice framework for managing the complete lifecycle of services across 5
stages; these are:
I.
Service Strategy
II.
Service Design
III.
Service Transition
IV.
Service Operation
V.
Continual Service
Improvement
In order to comprehend the breadth of ITIL, it helps to consider the questions which ITIL helps answer; these include:
- What business services do I offer as a service provider?
- If my business expands by 10% next year, how much more will IT cost?
- If there was a disaster, how long would it take to resume normal service operation and what would that cost?
- Are my customers/users satisfied with the services and support they’re getting and if not, where do I need to improve?
- If there is a failure of my network, how will it affect the services we’re delivering today?
- What roles are involved in root cause analysis?
- How will we define and measure service quality?
What is the benefit and what needs to be invested
to get this?
There are a number of interesting case studies that
demonstrate tangible gains achieved from ITIL; following are some examples
(source: the Pink Elephant ‘Benefits of ITIL’ paper):
- P&G saved $500 million over 4 years by improving processes
- Nationwide estimated a 40% reduction in system outages and $4.3 million ROI over 3 years
- MeadWestvaco claimed a $100, 000 reduction in annual maintenance costs.
These are some of the tangible benefits; what about the
intangible? Consider the following as examples:
- The ability to learn from past errors through Problem Management
- Reduce and manage one of the primary causes of failure today; that of unauthorised change
- Enhance customer satisfaction due to the improvement in service quality
- Increased staff motivation due to cognisance of roles and responsibilities of all parties.
What are some of the costs associated with ITIL?
ITIL does involve some up-front investment, but as case studies consistently
demonstrate, where you have good processes that are implemented well, the value gained from this far outweighs these initial
cost outlays. The main costs are in developing the processes and automating these on a
system, producing the required documentation and their dissemination and implementation across the organisation.
Regards,
Musab Qureshi
