Customer Reviews

Service Strategy Book (Itil)

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ITIL version 3 is a qantum step forward for the IT professional. The lifecycle approach represents a totally cohesive picture regarding the conception to grave of an IT Service.

The Service Strategy text sets the scene for the journey and it fills in a lot of the missing elements that many may have missed by not reading the other lessor known volumes from ITIL v2 (e.g. Business Perspective and Planning to Implement Service Manaegment).

Don't leave this one out of your library.

The starting pages of the book cover some generic issues that are covered in the same way in the other lifecycle volumes (e.g. definition of service management and services). However, the text alse defines a business process, along with an overview on the concept of the Service Lifecycle.

The principles of Service Strategy are introduced, and should be read by the serious student of ITIL v3, as it's here that a lot of concepts are introduced and discussed.

Then comes over 20 pages focussing on Service Strategy as a 4 step activity. These four steps in a training environment are defined as the Strategy Generation process.

What follows is more discussion on areas that have been defined as processes, but are perhaps more accurately described as fundamentals. These include Financial Management,Return on Investment, Service Portfolio, and Demand Management.

Next are two major sections on strategy and organization, followed by the integration of strategy with other lifecycle elements.

The text wraps up with technology considerations, followed by the challenges, risks and required crticial success factors of this core element.

The ITSM community can be a parochial and insular lot. Much of what prior versions of ITIL offered as wisdom were either obvious or as thin as tissue paper.

This volume is a welcome departure from this impoverished tradition. Whilst the prose is challenging (it appears to strive more for precision than ease) the ideas are noteworthy and current. If Service Strategy is intended to provide a strong strategic foundation to ITIL, then it has succeeded.

The template offered by Service Strategy for companies that want to use ITIL for value is as follows. First, determine the customer's desired outcomes, and pick one or more that enable it to be unique and inimitable. Then, work backwards to develop the internal outcomes that are essential to the delivery of these external outcomes, and aim for efficiency in them. And, finally, use these choices to pick relevant resources and competencies.

Camouflaged in the common-sense--which also links the goal of process reengineering with that of strategy--is a major piece of heresy for those who accept the value-chain as the best analytical tool for understanding the activities of a company and seeking a source of competitive advantage. Its smaller component is the contention that Porter's advocacy of either cost or differentiation--but, usually, not both--as a generic strategy is anachronistic. As industry gurus from Hamel and Prahalad to Philip Kotler have pointed out, success belongs to those companies that can provide highest value at low costs, without attempting to enter into a trade-off. SS's principle of the value of desired outcomes as the source of advantage dovetails neatly into modern management praxis.

More important, however, is its argument that the value which a company seeks to capture resides not in its internal abilities and processes but in its marketplace, in the customer's perception. Everything else must flow backwards from that. And IT's differentiation is a matter of identifying the outcomes that matter to the customer and making them visible whilst making those that are irrelevant either invisible or extinct. The proof--and the profits--of the competitiveness pudding is squarely in the eating.

Out the window, accordingly, goes the notion that merely optimizing processes is a source of advantage. Only by leveraging it for a value offering that, crucially, competitors cannot imitate even with other resources will a company extract a competitive advantage. Why should the customer care that its IT uses processes to ensure speedy repair when alternative providers offer services that never break down?

The SS volume should be mandatory study for senior IT leaders. Those seeking the illusion of pragmatism ("12 easy steps to a service strategy") may find themselves treading water but those willing to embark on careful study might find this the most pragmatic ITIL book of all.

Some books are informative while others are enlightening. This is the latter without neglecting the former.

I've been in the IT community long enough to recognize the theme of the management framework described in Version 2 of ITIL as, "Quit thinking like a geek." In contrast, the theme of Version 3, especially Service Strategy, might be described as, "Think like a broad-minded senior executive." That's a tall order for some of us, yet now within our reach.

Perhaps for the first time in our otherwise introspective, techno-centric support organizations, we find in Service Strategy a breath of fresh air and insight into everything from the complexity of value exchanges to practical approaches to reorganization. It provides fundamental principles that are essential for anyone who was too busy studying system architecture to get an MBA, as well as for anyone who simply wants to stay up-to-date with global thought leadership.

Service Strategy is in concentrated form, certainly, and you'll need to reform your technical mind to think in business terms to fully grasp the nuances, yet that's the beauty of it and what makes it well worth the effort, and the price. Nowhere else, in my experience, will you find so much knowledge on business management in so tight a package. Enjoy.

A lot of work has gone in developing ITIL v3 's Life cycle management - and it shows. This title is one of 5 in the core set and the one that is least accessible and practical. - Everything that's in this volume mentioned makes good sense, but it lacks a coherent approach, a voice, a vision and depth in many cases.

LCM for IT Services is great, and the 5 ITIL v3 volumes clarify the approach, but this volume should have been the brightest star of the 5.