ITIL Service Strategy - The First Stage of ITIL Service Lifecycle

ITIL Service Strategy

That is what Service strategy is all about: making plans ready for action.

ITIL comprises of five stages, it takes a lifecycle approach in order to provide best practice guidance for IT Service Management.

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Five stages in the ITIL service life cycle are:

Service Strategy

Service Design

Service Transition

Service Operation

Continual Service Improvement.

In this section we will talk about the very first stage “Service Strategy’.

Service strategy phase guides us on designing, developing and then implementing IT Service management. This will make trainees understand how strategies can be developed to give the business a stand out advantage in the market. During the Service Strategy phase an organization identifies its market: where they need to target and how to make their presence better in the market than its competitors. The management team of the organization makes its first attempt to understand the costs and risks associated with their Service portfolio, and use of this information helps a lot in operational decision-making. Having proper strategies in place definitely gives the company a productive and proactive approach to their business operations.

One important factor of Service strategy is demand management.

Managing demand for service is very important. Surplus subscription for services can be a sure source of risk. Many examples are out there where supply has been knocked off by demand. If demand is not catered properly it represents a risk for service providers because it represents uncertainty.

Demand management is basically about estimation and forecasting. Demand management helps us in planning which is to be shaped with the business and total cost of ownership needs to be understood completely. For many organizations it is still an upcoming area, the benefits in terms of cost savings to the business and strengthening the ever-important relationship between the business and IT are clear.

“Business Relationship management” is another futuristic process.

Business Relationship Management (BRM) is one of the latest processes in the Service Strategy lifecycle. One of the key purposes of ITIL is to establish a lasting and healthy relationship between the service provider and customer about meeting and understanding the business requirements. Customer satisfaction is the primary concern.

BRM process overall, gives a good focus and distinction between managing business outcomes and the strategic requirements. Establishing and glorifying the business and strategy continues to be the only or we can say primary direction of the ITIL framework in which the BRM process gives us a clear way to reach our goals.

Financial management is a very important aspect of Service Strategy, business always means capital and capital needs management so this is where financial management comes into play.

In the strategizing part of ITIL that is the Service strategy; financial management holds a very important place. Significance of financial management can hardly be overemphasized; it is a very crucial aspect of management.

Financial management is an area wherein the management of finances of a business organization is to achieve different and difficult financial objectives. It is the process through which we put our numbers to work so that our business and money both touch the stone of success. Good financial management always helps the system to know how and why the business is doing great financially.

The Outcome:

To sum up whatever we discussed above, in Service strategy we get our plans ready, how to manage the demand, the Business relations and the very important management of finances all these aspects and much more are planned for action in this stage of ITIL. So without any doubts with the very first stage “Service strategy”, ITIL shows us the way to success.
 

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