Information Technology Infrastructure Library Service Lifecycle: Aligning IT Services to Business Needs

Introduction

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is one of the most important detailed set of information technology service management practices that are focused on the alignment of information technology services in accordance to the business needs (Lema et al., 2015). On the other hand, the service life cycle refers to the process or the specific stages that service encounters to realize its identity at a specific current time. ITIL service lifecycle usually has a definite structure. More so, value service strategy, which aids in building strategic features that add value to business and organizations are fundamental to corporations.

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ITIL plays major roles in information technology. It ensures stronger alignment between businesses and information technology, facilitates effective utilization of resources by ensuring there are reduced costs, enhances improved service delivery and satisfaction to customers and greater visibility of information technology costs and assets (Lema et al., 2015). ITIL entails procedures, tasks, and processes that are based neither on the specifications of the technology nor a specific company. However, these procedures, tasks, and processes can be put into application by a company towards strategies as well as to ensure value delivery and maintenance of competency. The main brick of ITIL and which is considered the main framework for information technology service management is the ITIL service lifecycle. The structure of the ITIL service lifecycle constitutes four main service life cycle stages when are service strategy, service design, service transition, and service operation (Raflesia, Surendro, & Passarella, 2017). The service strategy stage is considered as the heart of the structure of ITIL since information technology service provider organization's services, and processes are initiated with organization's strategies (Cronholm, & Gobel, 2016). After the determination of service strategies, regarding services are designed at the Service Design stage of the service lifecycle. Because services enhance the provision of value to customers, different specifications, and technical prerequisites of services that should be created and provided are planned and designated in the service design stage in depending on the service strategies. The service transition stage of the ITIL service lifecycle stages framework offers room for the transition process for the designed services provided these services after evaluation and testing can meet the targeted levels. This stage depicts the livelihood of the business strategy after the customers have been served with the created services. The final stage of the ITIL service lifecycle framework is service operation. This stage entails the operations of the services after they have been served to customers. This stage is based on the management of arising issues after service provision to the customers, for instance, problems, events, or requests about a service from the customers (Cronholm, & Gobel, 2016). It is also vital to renew the services provided to the customers, a process of continual service improvement to make sure that the service provided is not defeated by the completion.

A value service strategy is an important strategy for corporations. Every corporation seeks to induce different strategies to enhance value service to customers. Value service strategy provides corporations with numerous benefits. For instance, it enables corporations to have a clear understanding of the different types and levels of service to be provided to customers successfully and then can be able to organize itself optimally to deliver those services to customers. It also enables corporations to link their activities with the outcomes of both internal and external customers as well as enhancing the immediate and effective corporations' response to business environment changes (Raflesia, Surendro, & Passarella, 2017). Also, value service strategy facilitates effective and transparent communication between corporations and their customers. This enhances the corporations to have larger market shares, reduced errors, and increased efficiency in service delivery. This leads to the realization of higher profits, effective customer relationships, as well as building customer loyalty. On the other hand, value Service, transition enables the corporations' services to be transitioned to "live" after these services are determined to have met the target levels.

References

Lema, L., CalvoManzano, J. A., ColomoPalacios, R., & Arcilla, M. (2015). ITIL in small to mediumsized enterprises software companies: towards an implementation sequence. Journal of software: evolution and process, 27(8), 528-538.

Cronholm, S., & Gobel, H. (2016). ITIL Compliance with a Service Perspective: a Review Based on Service-Dominant Logic.

Raflesia, S. P., Surendro, K., & Passarella, R. (2017, August). The user engagement impact along with information technology of infrastructure library (ITIL) adoption. In 2017 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (ICECOS) (pp. 184-187). IEEE.