ITIL

What is ITIL – An Overview?

In recent times, managers have come to realize that information is the most important strategic resource that needs to be managed in their organizations. The quality of information technology services within an organization is crucial to the accumulation, analysis and distribution of information within the firm. Hence, any organization that wishes to stay relevant in the marketplace must invest in resources that support the IT systems and services. The most common approach used in managing IT services worldwide is ITIL, which stands for Information Technology Infrastructure library.

Practical Framework

ITIL mainly focuses on aligning the needs of the business with the IT services by through provision of a practical framework for planning, identifying, and supporting the organization’s IT services. It guides managers in utilizing IT to facilitate business transformation, change and growth. ITIL is based around five core practices which are service design, service strategy, service operation, service transition and continuous service improvement. These practices chart out the whole ITIL Service Lifecycle, starting with identifying customer requirements and factors that drive IT requirements, through to the implementation and design of the service. It also extends on to the improvement and monitoring phase of the service.

Five Core ITIL Guides

1.Service strategy focuses on partnership between IT and business strategists to create information technology service strategies that prop up the organization’s strategy. 2.Service Design focuses on the design of a comprehensive IT system and each aspect of IT to ready it to be able to satisfy customer demands by being fit for both use and its purpose. 3.Service Operation focuses of implementing and maintaining operational IT services in a manner that ensures that they satisfy the expectations and needs of the organization and attain the forecasted goals of the business. 4.Service Transition involves administering and managing changes into the existent IT environment, including the creation and transition of changed or new IT services. 5.Continual Service Improvement means that the organization should strive to learn from experience and have a philosophy that values continuous improvement of existing IT services.

Benefits of ITIL

The adoption of ITIL can provide the adopting organization with the following benefits; 1.ITIL provides the baseline for the implementation of improved IT services by offering services that align with the corporate goals and meeting customer needs in an excellent way. 2.It ensures continuous improvement in IT services by highlighting weaknesses in the existing IT system and operations and ensures permanent solutions are implemented. 3.ITIL also enables decisions to be made faster, that IT services are more reliable and generally ensures better managerial control of the operations of the business. It also results in increased organizational efficiency, productivity and effectiveness due to reliable IT services. 4.ITIL also facilitates cost reduction and cost control. Managers know what the costs of managing the IT system are, enabling them to plan the organization’s finances. 5.Efficient management of resources and low rework rates also result in substantial savings.ITIL also prevents loss of information, inaccurate data, incidents and customer complaints due to loss of data.