How to manage IT services in your company
IT service management (ITSM) in a company is based on several basic pillars. Firstly, there is the quality of information about IT assets, then the catalog of IT services, and last but not least, the requirements from users. IT service management therefore usually includes the following areas:
- maintaining an IT service catalog
- keeping track of IT assets, contracts, and everything related to them
- managing the process of receiving IT requests from users
- a managed process for reporting incidents and problems
- managing relationships with users
- managing relationships with suppliers of IT services and products
- continuous service improvement and change management
IT service catalog as a source of information for each service
The catalog defines the parameters of services, determines their scope, responsibilities and sets the way of communication between IT department staff, management of the organization and ordinary users. It is a list of what the IT service provider offers to its customers. It contains both live services and services in preparation or already completed.
It therefore contains a list of services that the IT department provides to its customers - typically users, employees within the company. But they can also be people outside the company if the IT services extend beyond the boundaries of the organization.
Its aim and purpose is to standardize the IT services that an organization needs to run smoothly and provide information about them in one place:
- It defines the purpose and description of the service
- Defines the scope and quality of service (using SLAs)
- Defines responsibilities (service owner)
- Defines the customers for each service
- Defines communication channels for ordering or changing the service
- Helps to manage and continuously improve services overall
The ideal form of an IT service catalog is in online form within the company intranet.
Problem reporting - incident management
A controlled process for receiving and handling requests from users (typically employees) is an integral part of managing IT services in a company. Users must be able to report incidents and problems.
Requests for IT services from users
They must also be able to make requests - for installation, etc. They choose from a catalog of IT services.
SLAs and quality management
The IT service catalog is used to describe all the IT services that the IT department provides to the rest of the organization. As an IT manager, this is where you maintain a complete list of IT services and their parameters such as SLA, price and scope. You use the catalog for IT service management (ITSM). This complements your other records that you use for IT management.
IT service parameters in the catalog
- Service type
- Service Description
- SLA
- Quality of service
- Availability
- Owner
- Customer
Continuous improvement of IT service quality
Another use of your business process catalog is for companies that are engaged in improving their business processes and using one of the quality management methods or systems. In this case, you will then use the additional information for each of the processes, assign an owner, and manage and improve your processes in accordance with PDCA principles.