This chapter discusses the Service basics of ITIL in detail.
Service
Service is a means of delivering value to customers by achieving customer’s desired results while working within given constraints.
Services vs. Products
The following table shows the comparison for services and products −
| Services | Products |
|---|---|
| Services are not tangible. | Products are tangible. |
| Services are produced and consumed at same time. | Products are not produced and consumed at same time. |
| Services are inconsistent. | Products are consistent. |
| The user participates in the production of services. | The user doesn’t participate in the production of products. |
Service Management
Service Management refers to all aspects of the management of IT service provision. According to ITIL, Service management contains all organizational capabilities for the generation of added value to the customers as service.
Goals of Service Management
The main goals of Service management are −
- Make IT services adaptable towards the present and future requirements of an organization and its customers.
- Develop and maintain good and responsive relationship with the business.
- Make effective and efficient use of all IT resources.
- Optimizing the quality of delivered services.
- Reduction of long term cost of service delivery.
Achieving Service Management
The key activities needed to be performed in order to achieve business and customer’s satisfaction are given hereunder −
- Documenting, negotiating and agreeing to customer and business quality targets and responsibilities in Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
- Regular assessment of customer opinion in customer feedback and customer satisfaction surveys.
- IT personnel taking the customer and business perspective and always trying to keep customer interactions as simple as possible.
- Understanding the ICT infrastructure.
- IT personnel regularly taking the customer journey and sampling the customer experience.