IT Services

IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization to plan, design, deliver, operate and control information technology (IT) services offered to customers. It is thus concerned with the implementation of IT services that meet customers' needs, and it is performed by the IT service provider through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology.

Differing from more technology-oriented IT management approaches like network management and IT systems management, IT service management is characterized by adopting a process approach towards management, focusing on customer needs and IT services for customers rather than IT systems, and stressing continual improvement.

As a discipline, ITSM has ties and common interests with other IT and general management approaches, e.g., quality management, information security management and software engineering. Consequently, IT service management frameworks have been influenced by other standards and adopted concepts from them, e.g. CMMI, ISO 9000 or ISO/IEC 27000.

There is an international, chapter-based professional association, the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF). The main goal of the itSMF is to foster the exchange of experiences and ideas between users of ITSM frameworks. To this end, national itSMF chapters organize conferences and workshops. Some of them also contribute to the translations of ITSM framework documents into their respective languages or publish own ITSM guides. There are several certifications for service management like ITIL foundation 2011.

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