Introduction

As the human race advances every day, information technology is now a more important segment than ever for every organization around the globe. IT services aid daily functions and businesses in maximizing their business value and growth. However, excessive integration of IT systems has increased vulnerability to cyberattacks. It is highly pertinent that companies ensure optimum maintenance of such services to reduce this. To do so, companies employ IT Service Management (ITSM).

Definition

As mentioned before, ITSM is implemented to boost business value. It is done by a set of practices followed throughout the production line, be it a service or commodity. It has internal and external counterparts that work in various functions such as coordinating customers and designing the product/service process and production machines.

Setting up IT service management

Setting up an IT service management system requires a set of principles and practices that must be instilled in the labor force to ensure that the service management does not get hindered by human error. This requires proper training with IT systems and management of such frameworks to complete the given aim or task. This brings us to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), one of the best practices or approaches to IT service management.

ITIL is a framework that aligns direct IT services and software with business needs and strategies required to achieve the end goal. Being a library, it offers many IT services that the organization and its employees could implement. The question lies in what services must be used and what should be kept dormant? This is where the IT teams play a core role.

IT teams have a much more defined role in an organization than creating accounts and maintaining cybersecurity. They must also be aware of both long-term and short-term business goals to form a proper ITSM strategy. Setting up ITSM is not a process. It is corporate culture and a step towards integration with the available technology.

Advantages and disadvantages

An obvious and direct benefit of ITSM is that it makes everyone’s life easier at work. ITSM enables organizations to use IT as a service or enabler, not as a substitute for employees. It is a methodology that allows firms to automate the business processes that aid them in cost-cutting and enhances their business value.

In the initial periods, deploying ITSM practices requires proper information sharing and equal training for all employees. Companies that believe in ‘separation of duties’ culture may have difficulty explaining service management. Training could halt business processes for a short period or incur training costs for the firm.