Burton Group: The Business Value of ITIL

  • Article

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is supposed to “add value” to the business. When IT “does all the right things” but fails to add value, one or more of the following is most often the root cause:

  • Attempting to align IT with the business
  • Trying to standardize processes
  • Demonstrating that IT provides value
  • Establishing a catalog of all services IT offers

While these are essential activities, IT departments often retreat to their comfort zones, do what they’ve been doing, and focus on technology.

Properly implemented, ITIL changes the view of IT from a group that provides technology to one that manages and provides services that address business-process issues. This is a critical transformation because business owners just want IT to work and do not really care how it works. In essence, IT becomes an information service provider (ISP).

ITIL helps show value provided for the investments made by the organization by providing the following:

  • Right services: The necessary services are delivered.
  • Right quality: The right quality level is delivered (not every application needs premium service).
  • Right price: IT becomes the negotiator to keep service costs down by outsourcing what can be economically outsourced and insourcing those services that must stay inside the organization.

All this helps position IT as an investment with short- and long-term organizational results.

Full article: https://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=2065