ITIL Best Practices: What it is and why it’s important
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the global gold standard for IT Service Management and has been for the past 25 years. For IT companies who are customer focused, it provides a framework from which to deliver the best possible results, no matter how complex the requirements may be.
ITIL maintains the concept that IT services should support a business’ fundamental processes and be aligned to its needs. It offers direction on how to use IT to enable change within the organization in order to foster transformation and scale.
ITIL’s service management best practices (ITSM) are sustained by a certification system that IT companies and individuals can use to establish proof of their abilities in leveraging the ITIL framework.
ISO 20000 certification depends on the effective governance of ITIL practices, as outlined in ISO 20000 Part 11. The fact that ISO has allowed ITIL to be such an important part of their standards illustrates how inter-reliant ISO and ITIL are.
There are five core publications that outline ITIL best practices. Between them, they summarize the complete ITIL service lifecycle from the initial identification of the customer’s needs, right through to monitoring and improvement.
1. ITIL service strategy
A guide to best practices with regard to service strategy that is directly tied to delivering results in business goals.
2. ITIL service design
The service design portion of ITIL highlights quality, efficiency, and will support IT professionals in developing solutions that provide specific benefits to the company.
3. ITIL service transition
Managing service transition efficiently is critical to growth and business continuity as operations, users, customers, and the business as a whole are all affected during the process. The ITIL service transition guideline assures success throughout each critical stage of transformation.
4. ITIL service operation
ITIL’s service operation manual includes processes for daily management of IT operations as well as providing a framework for all IT activities that need to happen in order to deliver services.
5. ITIL continual service improvement
To stay abreast of changing business needs, it is important to be able to identify opportunities to improve services and processes. This guideline addresses best practices in identifying ways to continually improve service delivery at each phase of the ITIL lifecycle.
ITIL is a framework that has supported a profound change in the IT management space and continues to add value today. In light of the cloud, BYOD, and current needs for business agility, ITIL’s concepts are just as valid today than they ever have been.
Meeting the needs of businesses around the globe, ITIL has been adopted by some of the world’s most recognizable organizations including NASA, Microsoft, the Ministry of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.
If you are an Apple-centric company and have been wondering what managed services and ITIL best practices can do for you, we invite you to jump on a call with Interlaced today.
