March, 20208 IN MY V EWService Management is generally seen as a support activity, and IT's focus on service management starts only after a project hands over to the support teams. So, most of the IT department's actions around service management are reactive, technology focussed, and completely detached from the business and the customer priorities, and are very inefficient. The absence of a foundational, effectively running IT service management strategy is loss of opportunity, innovation, and successful outcomes. Most of the projects within a company are being initiated by the business, and IT acts as the driving force of these changes. If IT can see their role broader than just a support function, they can play a more active and driving role in these initiatives, and provide thought leadership. This requires significant mindset and operating model changes as most of the IT department has not been setup to operate at that level. In reality, based on ITIL's definition, service management is a non-stop journey covering Service Strategy, Design, Transition, Operations and Continual Service Improvement. IT should take a leading role in all these steps. In my mind, there are a few key pillars that when embraced fully, can lead to an effective IT service management strategy:Define the services and own themFirstly, you need to define the critical Services and allocate roles in IT as Service Owners. These are the people who will own the service from strategy to delivery, including running these services on an ongoing basis. The business facing roles in IT need to change from managing relationships through to managing services with end-to-end accountability. HOW DO WE CREATE AN EFFECTIVE IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY? BY SAMI YALAVAC, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, BUPA A&NZ Sami Yalavac
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