They are used everyday, from the wonderful grande mocha options at our favourite coffee outlet, to the family variety at the local steakhouse. The menus might look and feel different, but they all serve the same purpose. I am talking about the service catalogue (SC).
The SC has been around since day dot, documented in the annuals of service management literature. Some have fluttered with the concept, others have failed and few have succeeded. The service catalogue has been an elusive goal for many organisations. The reality is that its necessity is only going to get stronger. Resistance is futile.
Why am I saying this? Well, it's not just me, have a look around and see what is happening in the industry. Heard of this thing called cloud? The role of IT is changing to that of an IT broker. No longer will IT deliver all the services required for business, for whatever the reason may be, be it economical, agility or risk - who cares? IT is going to have to make a plan and co-ordinate the fulfilment of services, wherever they may come from. So here is where the SC makes a comeback.
Order to go
Imagine if companies could provide customers (internal or external) with a digitised service catalogue. An online shopping experience where one can freely choose the service or product required; see cost, delivery schedules and any other related service description. An aggregation of services to be consumed by the customer, whether delivered by IT itself via internal cloud platforms, or external providers, for example, in the form of SaaS.
The SC allows IT to stay relevant. Do not underestimate the power of customer interaction. The SC plays a huge role in customer experience, sometimes irrespective of whether the back-end product/service is good or bad. Many SC projects have failed because of a lack of customer savvy the design team might have shown.
The service catalogue has been an elusive goal for many organisations.
Clive Brindley is solution architect and pre-sales manager within the BTO business unit at HP Software + Solutions SA.
The biggest problem with most SCs is that they are designed by IT, no customer input is evident. IT departments know very well how to navigate a complex IT catalogue - I guess that's because they built the thing and complexity comes naturally to them. Merging the back-end product/service offering with how the end-users want to purchase stuff sounds a lot easier than it might be. But things they are a changing...
From what I have seen in the last six months, the service catalogue or service request catalogue (SRC) is getting much attention from senior management. I can get into the difference between the SC and SRC in another discussion; for now, assume I am talking about the same thing.
Out shopping
The place where IT publishes its services online for the subscribers/customers/users to explore is the SC. The interfaces are becoming simple to use, intuitive and service-centric. Hell, they are even now starting to look like real digital shopping malls. Some customers are even employing "usability" engineers to help with the design. Is IT listening to the voice of business? Unequivocally yes. Business and IT alignment, business and IT relevance.
Below, I have listed three basic fundamentals to making that first journey into the realms of a SC a successful one:
1. Transform the SC and create a true service portal. Here is the first important step - creating a service portal. Users are demanding an easy-to-use single place to go to for all of their service-related requests. Speaking the language of their consumers via the SC is a mandatory prerequisite for IT to become perceived as a 21st Century IT organisation.
2. Manage the total service experience. The transformation of the traditional SC into a service portal also means that IT needs to offer knowledge access, service support, collaboration with other consumers, surveys, ratings, etc, via this portal, all in the context of the services that a user has subscribed to. This implies the need for integrated service request management, standardisation on and integration with key IT processes.
3. Service lifecycle automation. Once a service portal has been created, and standardisation on services and key processes has taken place, it's time to go further. At this stage, companies typically automate the provisioning of services, and integrate with processes like service-level management (SLM), service portfolio management and the configuration management system. For example, by linking the SC to SLM processes, IT can track and measure service delivery and fulfilment, govern ongoing service support and availability, and enhance the quality and cost of services. Integration and automation takes a lot of the manual work out of the service lifecycle.
When preparing to order from the service catalogue next time, consider the options carefully. For me, I will have fries with mine...
Share