The rise of digital transformation in industries has made organizations realize the importance of building a relationship between the company’s IT department and its rest. IT service management (ITSM) plays a crucial role in ensuring all company operations go on smoothly and efficiently. One of the most popular frameworks organizations uses to practice IT service management is ITIL. The ITIL framework is a set of tools, techniques, and best practices incorporated by enterprises to sustain their ITSM network.
ITIL course and certification train employees and IT professionals in the framework to adopt the best practices of ITSM and implement them in the organization. This article discusses the ITIL framework, how it works, and why so many organizations opt for the same.
What is ITIL?
ITIL, or Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a framework built with the best practices and guidelines organizations can follow to implement IT service management in their company. ITIL builds a stable IT environment for organizations so that all their organizational tools and processes can function securely and efficiently. IT optimizes the relationship between the IT department and services with the other departments in the organization to operate together as a whole.
ITIL also refines the overall IT service life cycle and continuously improves upon it. This way, organizations can increase their productivity levels and deliver optimal results with their projects. ITIL also ensures that organizations stay current on the newest trends in technology and business practices to stay ahead of their peers and competitors.
The ITIL framework and best practices can be adapted to any business model and scaled to any size. The framework is also not industry-specific because most industries have adopted IT in their operations in some form or another.
Why ITIL?
In today’s world, data is everything. Organizations need to collect, segregate, organize, analyze, and use the data they need to help them deliver better products and services to their end-users. The IT department plays a critical role in this scenario. This is the reason why ITSM has become so crucial for organization-wide operations. It takes a holistic approach that assists with providing IT services across the company.
ITIL is the most recognized framework to adopt ITSM practices because of multiple reasons. Some of the many reasons why companies often choose to implement ITIL as their framework of choice are:
- ITIL improves the decision-making process of business leaders and project managers
- ITIL also enables high-quality deliveries
- ITIL increases the overall productivity levels in an organization
- ITIL reduces costs and resources for the company
- ITIL also helps increase the level of customer satisfaction
- It drives business value and helps increase the overall revenue generated by the company
- All the resources of an organization get optimized and used to their full potential when the company implements the ITIL framework correctly
- ITIL increases the ROI of the organization
- ITIL also enhances the readability of organizations
- ITIL processes help improve the data management processes in the company
- ITIL also improves the overall quality of IT services provided within the company
- ITIL helps the organization work as a whole instead of different departments working alongside each other
The ITIL Framework
There have been four versions of ITIL released so far to help organizations stay current with the latest changes in technology. The first version of ITIL, ITIL v1, was released in 1989 to help companies simplify and standardize IT service management in their organization. The first version was released mainly for IT organizations themselves, and throughout the years that passed, more and more industries have started to adopt ITSM practices in their daily work.
The latest version of ITIL is ITIL 4, which was released in 2019. This framework was released to help organizations stay future-proof. The ITIL 4 framework is scalable and can adapt to technological changes and advancements. Since the final upgrade release of ITIL v3 in 2011, companies observed rapid changes and developments in technology, making the third version more obsolete with time. When ITIL 4 was released, it aimed to solve this problem. The ITIL 4 framework comes with an updated version of the concepts from ITIL v3 and significant changes to the way ITSM can be implemented in organizations.
The different elements that ITIL 4 consists of to help improve organizational efficiency are listed below.
Strategy for implementing ITSM
ITIL 4 aids organizations implement a strategy to align IT processes with the other central business processes in the enterprise. Some of the areas of the enterprise that become aligned with IT processes in the company are:
- Customer relationship management
- Finance management
- Portfolio management
- Knowledge and data management
ITIL also helps secure businesses against any future disruptions by defining organizational requirements and creating thorough analyses to predict future changes that could impact the organization.
Service design solutions with ITIL
ITIL helps create a sound infrastructure, processes, documents, and policies that organizations can implement to evaluate their existing services. This way, companies can see if their services are aligned with the organizational goals. Companies can also come up with strategies to adapt their processes and policies in case of any disruptions.
Service transition using ITIL
The transition between development and deployment has various stages, such as testing and evaluating changes in the service. The transition phase starts when the development is complete and goes on until the service goes live. It aids decision making in teams so that the entire life cycle of the product can go as smoothly as possible.
Service operations with ITIL
ITIL helps manage the organizations’ daily operations as well so that teams can focus on creating products and services with a higher value. The ITIL framework works with the company to ensure all its services are aligned with its business goals. There are many principles and processes implemented in the organization to meet its requirements and achieve its goals.
Continuous improvement of services with ITIL
ITIL helps companies continuously evolve and improve their existing processes with their services. Once the development cycles are complete, it does not mean that the project is complete. ITIL takes all the repetitive tasks and refines them with the help of various tools and guidelines. This creates higher customer satisfaction as well. Companies can improve their organization’s reputation and hold by providing services that continuously improve and deliver high value.
Conclusion
The ITIL framework has been designed to help companies improve the services they provide to their clients and improve overall organizational processes. ITIL certifications give IT professionals the expertise they need to execute these changes across the company successfully. A certified ITIL professional will have the knowledge and experience to drive organizational change and increase operations efficiency.