Good practice in the public domain

Service Management

Context

IT is a commonly used term that changes meaning with context. From the first perspective, IT system s, application s and infrastructure are components or sub-assemblies of a larger product. They enable or are embedded in processes and services. From the second perspective, IT is an organization with its own set of capabilities and resource s. IT organizations can be of various types such as business functions, shared services units and enterprise-level core units.

From the third perspective, IT is a category of services utilized by business. They are typically IT applications and infrastructure that are packaged and offered as services by internal IT organizations or external service provider s. IT cost s are treated as business expenses. From the fourth perspective, IT is a category of business asset s that provide a stream of benefits for their owners, including, but not limited to, revenue, income and profit. IT costs are treated as investments.

Organizations operate in dynamic environments with the need to learn and adapt. There is a need to improve performance while managing trade-offs. Under similar pressure, customer s seek advantage from service providers. They pursue sourcing strategies that best serve their own business interest. In many countries, government agencies and non-profit-making enterprises have a similar propensity to outsource for the sake of operational effectiveness. This puts additional pressure on service providers to maintain a competitive advantage with regard to the alternatives that customers may have. The increase in outsourcing has particularly exposed internal service provider s to unusual competition.

To cope with the pressure, organizations benchmark themselves against peers and seek to close gaps in capabilities. One way to close such gaps is the adoption of good practice s across the industry. There are several sources for good practices, including public frameworks, standard s and the proprietary knowledge of organizations and individuals (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Source of Service Management Practice

Public frameworks and standards are attractive when compared with proprietary knowledge:

• Proprietary knowledge is deeply embedded in organizations and therefore difficult to adopt, replicate or transfer, even with the cooperation of the owners. Such knowledge is often in the form of tacit knowledge which is inextricable and poorly documented.
• Proprietary knowledge is customized for the local context and specific business needs, to the point of being idiosyncratic. Unless the recipients of such knowledge have matching circumstances, the knowledge may not be as effective in use.
• Owners of proprietary knowledge expect to be rewarded for their long-term investments. They may make such knowledge available only under commercial terms, through purchases and licensing agreement s.
• Publicly available frameworks and standard s such as ITIL, Control Objectives for IT (COBIT), CMMI, eSCM-SP, PRINCE2, ISO 9000, ISO 20000 and ISO 27001 are validated across a diverse set of environment s and situations rather than the limited experience of a single organization. They are subject to broad review across multiple organizations and disciplines. They are vetted by diverse sets of partners, supplier s and competitors.
• The knowledge of public frameworks is more likely to be widely distributed among a large community of professionals through publicly available training and certification. It is easier for organizations to acquire such knowledge through the labour market.

Ignoring public frameworks and standards can needlessly place an organization at a disadvantage. Organizations should cultivate their own proprietary knowledge on top of a body of knowledge based on public frameworks and standards. Collaboration and coordination across organizations are easier on the basis of shared practice s and standards.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23