Service Catalogue - is it worth it?

Lee Healey
Oct 5, 2022
3 min read

Creating a Service Catalogue can be a lot of work - is it worth it?

As any Service Management practitioner will know, the act of creating a Service Catalogue is a lot of work, but is it worth the effort?

Well let’s look at some possible problematic scenarios that can occur without a Service Catalogue in place...

Poor Customer Experience: this is the biggest problem of all. Without a Service Catalogue there is no ability to set expectations relating to each Service provided by the Service Provider.

Misaligned Expectations: closely tied to poor customer experience, a fully defined Service Catalogue will provide a point of reference to what to expect from a given service. When there is no Service Catalogue, well now it’s anyone’s guess. All stakeholders could have a different idea of what to expect from a given service. How can that work realistically?

Request Prioritisation Misalignment: this is another in the misaligned expectations and poor customer experience categories. When stakeholders make requests against a service it is useful to set an expectation when particular aspects of the request will be fulfilled. An obvious example of this is setting the delivery date of goods with a consumer. A consumer may have wildly different expectations of a delivery date that the supply chain cannot fulfil.

Let’s say a consumer has an expectation that everything is on a next day delivery. The Service Catalogue and the associated business rules linked to requests will define these timings and expectations. From this information the consumer can be informed about realistic delivery dates ahead of order confirmation. This gives the consumer choice during the request/ordering process to match goods and delivery times against their needs and desires.

Supply Chain / Fulfilment: Whilst the Service Catalogue does not define the entire service design and supply chain, it does provide a ‘header’ or entry point that all stakeholders within the supply chain can reference. This is important as it provides clarity to all participants in the service supply chain on what they are contributing to or in other words, what customer or consumer expectations and value they are being tasked with fulfilling.

Broken Relationships: this is a common problem resulting from a lack of Service Catalogue. We use the term Broken Relationships to refer to broken relationships between different stakeholders and also related data. Relationship Management (e.g. BRM) is difficult enough without having poorly set expectations between different stakeholders. We use the term ‘nailing jelly to the wall’ to refer to the types of conversations where no one can agree on the subject let alone the specific matter at hand. A clear definition of the Service within a universally available Service Catalogue can help resolve such ‘jelly nailing’ conflicts. The relationships with other data includes links to the CMDB (configuration management database), finances, suppliers and many others.

There are many more problematic scenarios resulting from a lack of Service Catalogue but needless to say, it is a vital component for any provision of service(s).

Let's face it, Service Catalogue is nothing new, it's been around for as long I can remember. Yet time and time again, we meet clients with nothing in place and all of the problems and scenarios called out in this article causing them a huge amount of pain.

However, do not underestimate the time and effort it takes to create a Service Catalogue from scratch. It can be an arduous task, especially on a global scale with multiple stakeholders in different countries and cultures. There are many aspects to be considered ranging from stakeholder views, to catalogue interfaces, as well as collating all the myriad of data sources associated to the service(s).

Most of all, make sure the Service Catalogue is designed with all stakeholder perspectives in mind. The perspective of a senior executive within an organisation working out of Singapore might be very different from a knowledge worker working out of The Netherlands, which could be very different again to a supply chain stakeholder working on fulfilment from a local country supplier within a globally operating company. Seek agreement at the outset of Service Catalogue creation on what stakeholders are being considered within the Service Catalogue, and remember, like all aspects of Service Management, Service Catalogue is subject to Continual Improvement... always.

So is it 'worth it', yes! in fact, it's not really a choice, it's an essential ingredient for any Service dept, IT or otherwise!

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What is ITSM?

Information Technology Service Management processes include a range of activities designed to deliver and support high-quality IT services for your business. These can include incident management, problem management, change management, and service-level management. Additionally, ITSM involves continuous enhancement processes to improve service delivery, increase efficiency and reduce costs. By adopting strong ITSM practices, your business can improve service quality, customer satisfaction and achieve greater alignment between IT and business objectives. This holistic approach ensures that IT services are effective and integrated with your overall business goals. As ITSM focuses on aligning IT services with your business’s needs, you can ensure that IT processes and services support and enhance business operations. This is achieved through a structured approach to managing IT services, guided by best practices and methodologies such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). These models provide guidance on best practices for delivering and supporting technology and other enterprise services and can help companies align their capabilities with their business goals and strategic objectives.
What is ITIL and how does it underpin ITSM?

We adhere to the ITIL Framework in delivering our ITSM consultancy services. ITIL is a globally recognised set of best practices for ITSM that helps businesses provide consistent, high-quality IT services. By implementing ITIL processes and principles, we ensure that your IT operations are standardised, efficient and aligned with industry standards. ITIL4 is the latest version of ITIL, designed to help enterprises navigate the new technological era known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This version introduces a more flexible, modern approach to ITSM, emphasising its integration with other areas of business management.
What are the core practices and processes in ITSM?

Effective ITSM revolves around a number of processes. Whilst there are 34 practice areas in ITIL4, there are often a core set of practices that many of our clients are particularly interested in optimising. As understanding and implementing these processes can significantly enhance the performance and quality of IT services within your organisation. Incident Management Restores all service operations back to normal as soon as possible, minimising to lessen the impact on your operations. This process might involve logging, categorising, prioritising, and resolving incidents, ensuring which can help mitigate disruption to users and the business. Configuration Management Keeps an updated record of IT infrastructure - hardware, software, and network components - in a centralised configuration management database (CMDB). This database provides accurate data on configuration items (CIs) and their relationships. Change Management Ensures any changes to your IT services are controlled and coordinated. This process evaluates the impact of changes, approving them through a structured workflow, and ensuring successful implementation with minimal risk. Service level Management Defines, negotiates, and monitors service level agreements (SLAs) between the service provider and the customer. This process ensures that agreed-upon service quality and performance levels are consistently met. Asset Management Tracks and manages your IT assets throughout their lifecycle to ensure efficient use and cost control. You maintain an accurate inventory of hardware, software, and other IT resources through this. Problem Management Identifies, analyses and resolves the root causes of incidents. Proactively addressing underlying issues can prevent recurring incidents. This, in turn, provides improved system stability and reduced downtime. Request Management Handles the lifecycle of user service requests, such as access to applications, software installations or information enquiries. It ensures requests are managed efficiently to provide a streamlined approach that fulfils user needs and enhances satisfaction. Knowledge Management Captures, organises and shares knowledge to improve efficiency and support decision-making. By leveraging a centralised knowledge base, your IT teams can quickly resolve incidents and problems, and end-users can find the right solutions to common issues.
Why is ITSM important to organisations and their IT (and Enterprise) teams?

Implementing the right ITSM strategy and optimising your tooling can provide a range of benefits for your company, including: Improved Efficiency and Cost Savings By streamlining processes and automating routine tasks, ITSM can help your enterprise work more efficiently and reduce the time and resources required to deliver and support IT services. Good ITSM is a silent enabler of success across a range of organisational goals. Improved Compliance and Risk Management ITSM can help you ensure that your IT systems and processes comply with industry regulations and standards. It also ensures that you are effectively managing risks associated with your IT operations. This can help you avoid costly disruptions and legal consequences. Increased Productivity Effective ITSM practices can help your business prevent problems and fix them quickly if they do occur. This can help you lower costs—outages cost money—and increase productivity and employee satisfaction. Better Customer Satisfaction You can improve customer satisfaction and build stronger relationships by delivering high-quality IT services that meet customers' needs. Improved Service Quality ITSM ensures that IT services are delivered consistently and meet agreed-upon service levels, leading to higher customer satisfaction and better overall service quality. Business Continuity ITSM processes like incident and problem management ensure that disruptions are minimised and services are quickly restored to ensure business continuity. Strategic Alignment ITSM aligns IT services with business objectives, ensuring that technology initiatives support and drive business growth. This alignment helps you make informed decisions and prioritise projects that add the most value. Enhanced Collaboration ITSM promotes a collaborative environment where IT teams can work together more effectively, sharing knowledge and best practices to improve your delivery of services. Proactive problem-solving Through problem management and a proactive approach, ITSM helps your IT teams identify and address the root causes of incidents to prevent future issues and reduce downtime. Continuous Improvement ITSM encourages continuous monitoring and improvement of IT processes, allowing your IT teams to refine and enhance their service delivery regularly. Better Resource Management With ITSM, IT teams can manage resources more effectively, ensuring that personnel, technology, and budget are allocated optimally to support business requirements.
Do you provide ITSM tooling support and what tools do you specialise in?

The ITSM People are completely agnostic with ITSM tools and not tied to any vendors. Given the close relationship between ITSM related processes and ITSM tools, we often get involved in tool selection projects, or making recommendations on how to improve tools and get the best value from them. We work with tools such as ServiceNow, BMC, Jira, ManageEngine, Fresh, Halo and Xurrent.