What Is ITIL? Is It the Best ITSM Tool?

IT services play a vital role in every organisation in today’s world where everything is dominated by technology. In such a situation, the enhanced management and delivery of IT services, along with their integration with other organisational processes has become crucial. These processes are covered under ITSM, that is, Information Technology Service Management.

ITSM aims to improve the efficiency of the business, as well as ensure the alignment of various IT services with a view to meet the business and customer needs. ITSM improves the operational efficiency of the daily processes of the organization through various ways. These ways include improving the user satisfaction rate, identifying solutions for problems, making the business cost-efficient, and stabilizing the availability of IT services among many others. ITSM can be carried out using various frameworks or tools. Some of these frameworks are Microsoft Operations Framework, COBIT, ISO 20000, Six Sigma, and USMBOK. One of the most commonly used ITSM frameworks is ITIL.

What is ITIL?

Itil stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, and is a framework which comprises a set of best practices for the delivery of IT services that are efficient. ITIL aims to deliver cost-effective ITSM and help in the transformation and growth of businesses. It was originally published by the UK Cabinet, but is currently owned by Axelos, a public private joint venture between Capita, and the UK Cabinet. The concept of ITIL emerged in the 1980’s when the British government stated that the level of IT services provided to them was inadequate. The first version of ITIL was published in 1989-96, followed by the second version in 2006, and the third version in 2007. The most recent update to the third version was published in 2011. The fourth version of ITIL is being worked on by Axelos and is set to be released in early 2019. Axelos has stated that ITIL is "the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world."

ITIL is an innovative practice which allows for the alignment of business goals with IT services, and to improve the productivity and competitive position of the business. It is a collection of five core guidance books, and a few other associated books as well. The five volumes represent the five stages of service lifecycle. The five volumes of ITIL are: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement.

What are the stages of the ITIL service lifecycle?

The five stages of the ITIL service lifecycle are:

• Service strategy: The first stage of the ITIL service lifecycle, the service strategy stage, has the purpose of providing a strategy which ensures that the services are suitable for use. The strategy should be designed in a way that it is in sync with goals of the business as well as the needs of the customers. The service strategy stage defines the services to be used and the capabilities to be developed. It includes financial management, demand management, business relationship management, service portfolio management, and strategy management for IT services.

• Service design: The service design stage has the goal of designing new services, and modifying and improving the existing ones. The designing is done based on the outcome of the service strategy phase, that is, ensuring that the services meet the business objectives. The service design stage comprises the functions of supplier management, availability management, risk management, design coordination, and service level management among many others.

• Service transition: The service transition phase aims to build and implement new services. It also targets to define and reduce risk through the change in services. It includes change management, project management, release and deployment management, knowledge management, and application development among many other processes.

• Service operation: The fourth phase of service lifecycle, this stage ensures that the IT services are employed efficiently and effectively. It also manages the disruption of services, oversees the restoration of services after outages, and seeks to find out the root cause of problems. It includes functions such as incident management, application management, request fulfillment, access management, IT operations control, and closure among many others.

• Continuous service improvement: The continuous service improvement (CSI) phase is the last stage of the service lifecycle, and it seeks to review the overall lifecycle of the service. It makes use of metrics to analyze and learn from past successes and failures in order to improve the overall quality and performance of the existing service. It includes the definition of CSI initiatives, monitoring of CSI initiatives, service review, and process evaluation.

All these stages and processes make ITIL one of the most popular IT frameworks, and also the best one.

Why is ITIL the best ITSM tool?

ITIL is possibly the best ITSM tool when compared to its counterparts due to the following reasons:

• Non-proprietary/vendor-neutral: ITIL can be adopted in any IT organization because its service management practices are not based on any particular type of industry or technology platform. ITIL is not attached to any commercial proprietary solution. These factors enhance its feasibility in any organization.

• Best practices: ITIL practices are drawn from the learning experiences of numerous IT experts and professionals. It helps in providing organizations with practices that help in delivering benefits, enhance their success, and gain returns on investments. ITIL enables organizations in minimizing service disruption, managing IT budget and investment, improving the relationship with customers, and boosting cost-efficiency. The benefits of ITIL also include managing risk and knowledge, optimizing the utilization of resources, and delivering valuable services to the customers among many others.

• Basis of other frameworks: ITIL forms the basis for frameworks such as the Microsoft Operations Framework. ITIL can also be used in combination with other frameworks such as COBIT, and DevOps to enhance the functioning of the organization.

• Non-prescriptive: The practices of ITIL are time-tested that can be applied in any type of service organization. ITIL can be used in numerous areas such as external and internal service providers; private and public sectors; small, medium, and large enterprises; and in any technical environment.

• Common sense approach: ITIL offers an approach which is based on doing what works for the organization. It comprises a common framework of practices which integrates all the areas of IT services.

ITIL is, therefore, the best Itsm tool which enables organizations to choose the processes they want to implement, while continuing to maintain their goals, vision, and mission. Implementation of ITIL can prove to add value to any business, irrespective of the services offered. Businesses should seek to implement ITIL based on their needs, in order to improve their performance.

Vaishali Gopi is an enthusiastic Digital Marketer who has keen interest towards customer support management and related stuff and voices about it frequently.