The Trivialities of IT Customer Service: Time to Think Again

It is prevalent that within the evolution of business models, many IT departments within companies are beginning to be treated as separate business entities, with growing internal expectations to perform as a holistic self-sustaining business unit.

A recent article in Computer World Australia magazine reveals that IT is beginning to function as “a business within the business”, as mentioned by Dennis Drogseth, vice president of enterprise management associates, and IT management consultancy. The article continues to state that treating IT as a service is not as trivial as it may seem to those still adapting to the modern day business model.

The fact is that in a dawn of technological advancement within the workplace, and the concentrated amount of companies looking to take their presence online, there is a growing demand for highly project management oriented individuals with a strong backbone of IT qualifications. When larger organizations struggle to keep up with the fast pace of IT, there needs to be proactive ratification of workflow and leadership provided in order to ensure shapely results and timely delivered projects.

Like anything in IT, project management is also not very foreseeable and may involve a copious amount of work process restructure and process improvement. This is where the ITIL framework comes in.

A brief history of the ITIL structure

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework surfaced in Britain in the 1980s as a result of the growing dependence of IT within the British and government workforce as solution to cleaning up the messiness of internal information technology projects. The British government recognized that without a standard practices for managing projects, agencies were subsequently created independent IT management practices.

To date, there have been 3 volumes of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, with the latest version comprehensively outlining twenty six processes and functions, grouped into five project management life cycles. The five process life cycles of the ITIL v3 library are officially listed as follows:

1. Service Strategy
2. Service Design
3. Service Transition
4. Service Operation
5. Continual Service Improvement

What effect is ITIL having on businesses?

As a result of ITIL integration into information technology for project management, organizations are traveling down a path of vivid realization in discovering that the way to attaining the status of a customer centralized service organization is included within the 5 tier structure of the information technology infrastructure library framework for project management. What are the known benefits of this? Organizations can make better use of their help desks to manage service requests, changes and IT assets. Downtime is avoided because unauthorized changes are screened, and the end result is higher efficiency and a better delivery of service to their customers.

The notion of ITIL is almost god-like in theory, but simply having this certification does not automatically mean that project managers will transcend the module in their business practice. Project managers need an extensive knowledge of the ITIL structure before it is implemented, where the different ITIL processes can be slotted into their current business model and foresee the cause and effect of each process – which at times can involve a lot of scoping. The onus also lies on the project manager to thoroughly educate the IT department who are directly affected by the project restructure, after all, the staff members are the cogs of the greater machine that will complete the desired project goal. Within the articles referenced earlier in this paper, in an Interview with Computer World magazine, Dennis Drogseth – IT project management professional – speaks objectively of the business-IT model. He continues on in relation to ITIL in his assertion that “The biggest misconception is that all you need to do is become ITIL certified … That’s a sure recipe for failure. You have to figure out what you’re trying to enable. The end has to transcend ITIL.”

The theory of embracing the information technology infrastructure library is fairly elaborate, but in shifting your IT department towards a more customer-centric focus, your company can look to reap the benefits of increasing your project hit rates, and creating a higher profile for the use of technology within your organization.  It can backfire, though, so implementation of an ITIL structure must be done meticulously especially if you’re organization is larger. As an IT project manager, the last thing you want is to have your new customer focused business model to yield under the unrelenting vice of your company’s structural mini-bureau. The primary flaw of IT departments who crumble in their implementation of ITIL is that in amongst the increased service queue stemming from the hierarchy of the company, the pressure turns these IT departments into order takers, rather than business advisers. The notion of ITIL is to instill leadership within the IT department to develop higher levels of customer service. Failure to adhere to a strict following of ITIL will lead you back to the role of a subservient tech-entity within the organizational structure.

Project managers should look to develop their IT departments as a separate internal business entity through ITIL implementation. In adopting ITIL into your business model, and adhering stringently to its processes, your department can reap the dividends of maximized project efficiency and higher levels of customer service. Trust me when I tell you, the end results will show for your dedication!