The digital transformation has been one of the most important topics for numerous companies in the recent years. With digitization moving forward in almost every sector, so does the operational complexity in the IT departments. While digitization and agility allow for faster and more automated processes, they at the same time require some sort of management strategy in order to ensure that the services as well as the products that the company offers continue to meet the customers expectations. New practices and concepts such as the service value chain, have been introduced by ITIL in the past years to target exactly this issue of supporting companies in managing their internal digitization and agility.
Amongst many other services, we at Cross ALM are specified in guiding our customers the way into digitization and agility. Consequently, we first had to implement certain processes internally ourselves to guarantee that we as a company optimally adapt to and grow with the new agile technologies. In October of last year, each one our employees has therefore undergone a three days ITIL training and everyone has successfully obtained an ITIL v4 certificate at the end of it. We can thus now call our company ITIL-certified!
ITIL Certification
An ITIL certification demonstrates that the person has extensive knowledge about ITSM best practices and possesses over skills to shape and move the business forward. The skills and know-how our employees obtained during this training has made a crucial and very valuable contribution to the internal organization of our company.
Especially in times of an ongoing global pandemic, many companies might be questioning their internal service management. Unfortunately, many organizations had to suffer from disruptions caused by the outbreak of the virus, which has potentially brought certain operational weaknesses within the organization of the company to surface. Not only should companies therefore make sure that they have the fitting technologies to accommodate their business, but also should they be rethinking their methodologies and planning capabilities.
ITIL Service Value Chain *
Service management, which consists of a set of methodologies focusing on how to plan and manage everything around an IT organization has been extremely useful in our own company and we therefore would like to recommend for everyone else to have a look at the following operating model provided by ITIL which they refer to as the service value chain:
- Plan: getting an overview over future ideas, current state and planned improvements regarding all products and services.
- Engage: having a good relationship with the customer by ensuring transparency, awareness of their needs and steady, mutual engagement.
- Design and Transition: making sure that the products and services meet the set criteria for quality, cost, and time according to the market.
- Obtain/Build: guaranteeing that the different services are available to the customer at all times and meet their expectations.
- Deliver and Support: ensuring that the delivered services meet the set specifications and expectations of the customer.
- Improve continuously improving the products, services, and all other practices across all value chain activities.
In order not to get lost in the modern, fast-paced, automated, digital word, companies need to be able to rely on a steady management model that allows them to keep track of all activities while ensuring maximal internal success and external customer satisfaction. Obtaining our ITIL certification has helped us in this process and we are proud to be able to call our company ITIL-certified.
