Have You Heard of ITIL? It's Time You Did

Abstract

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the most widely adopted approach for information technology service management (ITSM) in the world, says the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF). ITIL provides a nononsense, straightforward construct to recognize, plan, implement, and support IT services in a business. ITIL is a public framework that describes best practice in ITSM. For a modern business to provide benefit, it must have an IT service that’s well planned, well delivered, and well managed. That’s the underlying theme of ITSM and ITIL. ITIL also offers a structure for the governance of IT while providing focus on continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service. The key to ITIL is perspective in terms of alignment and integration with the business and customers. (That’s why the service lifecycle, as seen in Figure 1, begins and ends with the business and customers.) This perspective is probably the major factor in ITIL’s prolific usage and worldwide success. Information and IT may be the most important strategic resource of any organization. The quality of IT services significantly affects the overall use and usefulness of information. Therefore, organizations should invest appropriate levels of resources into the support, delivery, and management of critical IT services and infrastructure. It is also important to align and integrate IT service and infrastructure to the business goals. This seems to be overlooked in many organizations, especially as it gets into things such as evaluating total cost of ownership (TCO) and demonstrating the value of IT services. Organizations depend on IT to help them succeed. If IT infrastructure and services are installed, implemented, and managed in the appropriate way, a business will be more successful. Benefits of ITSM adoption include less downtime, which causes less suffering in the form of operational disruptions and loss of productive hours. A robust IT infrastructure will reduce costs, increase revenue, improve public relations, and support the business to achieve all of its objectives.