Itil Fraework

IT Service Strategy

Prarthana Shah

Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago

pshah111@hawk.iit.edu[->0]

Damn! The database server is disconnected. This was much unexpected and wasn’t supposed to occur. Such unanticipated incidents force us to think that how one can document the infrastructure so that everyone can be on same page, how to control such sudden changes and how to handle this in the economically. Such questions proved to be the source of forming Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), developed by some gentlemen of British government about some thirty years ago. ITIL is considered as a best practice for IT service management (ITSM). ITIL is a standard non-proprietary approach that consists of service life cycle which provides best practice for IT service management. ITIL service life cycle has 5 stages:

1) Service Strategy

2) Service Design

3) Service Transition

4) Service Operation

5) Continual Service Improvement

The first stage: Service Strategy enables to think in a strategic manner for IT service management such that IT services are able to satisfy and aligns the business demands. It guides us the proper way to design, plan, develop and implement the IT service management. In this stage, an organization will study the market, identify its competitors, set the target and how to achieve that target such that their presence felt in the market and that too in a cost effective way. The ultimate goal of service strategy is to provide the condescending services to customers by differentiating it compare to all other rivals in the market. In order to achieve this service strategy incorporated 4 important process areas:

1) Financial Management for IT services

2) Service Portfolio Management

3) Demand Management

4) Business Relationship Management

Figure 1. Different process areas of Service Strategy in ITIL

In this concept paper, I will discuss and explain ‘Financial Management for IT services’ in detail and...