An organization must be able to clearly define what business and information technology related services it can perform. A service catalog, which captures the commitments and investments of the suppliers of services offered by an organization, is an excellent way to define these services.
How to easily verbalize a filtered service catalog
Even organizations with complex systems and comprehensive software for managing services might be unclear on exactly what services they offer. The process of developing a service catalog brings simplicity and transparency to an organization’s processes, and becomes a key part of both its IT service management solution and its service desk.
At its highest level the process brings many benefits including: an increase in both user satisfaction and executional efficiency; the automation of support processes; the rationalization of resources and operating costs; and greater flexibility in service delivery.
The fact that many organizations have not verbalized their services in a service catalog is no reflection on the importance of the process. By and large these organizations know how important the process is to their business as it is a great opportunity to comprehensively define what they do and what they offer.
Service catalogs make it easier for enterprise employees and consultants to route requests around services to the individual or individuals who own and operate them. Service catalogs also give management that all-important ability to get a cleaner view of the company — as a grouping of structured and efficient operational units.
Service catalogs are excellent knowledge management tools. They are only part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Service Portfolio published to customers, and are used to support the sale and delivery of IT services. As a general rule service catalogs contain information about deliverables, pricing, points of contact, ordering and request processes.
C2 Innovations has produced an ebook, “How to easily verbalize a filtered service catalog.” This handy six-step guide contains a step-by-step walkthrough of the process of verbalizing an organization’s service offerings, including: identifying managers; identifying requests; grouping service requests; grouping services into categories; creating workflows; and creating personalized fields.
To download a copy of this ebook, click here.
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