What problems does ITIL solve?

Without deploying a wide range of IT related services possibly no company can sustain in a highly competitive environment. The scopes for growth are also hampered if your company is refraining from using latest IT technologies and services. However, managing the diverse type of IT technologies and services is seldom a cakewalk for the businesses using them. Handling such services and ironing out the snags is a prerequisite in workplace. That is why a lot of companies use ITSM framework and a significant percent of them adhere to ITIL guidelines. Using ITSM tools lets users handle IT services well, resolve conflicts related by IT services, handle assets and evade service/software problems in future. The tried and tested ITIL guidelines enable the companies to use and handle ITSM tools in the most apt way.

Understanding the significance and benefit of using ITIL

For businesses that have not used ITIL or any ITSM tool previously, these may seem a tad overwhelming. The revised ITIL guidelines are huge and for starters understanding the significance may not be easy. However, analyzing the usefulness of ITIL will help you understand why it is so popular in business scenario. Despite its complexity and gargantuan nature, there is no denying the reality that using ITIL methodologies let you utilize any ITSM tool to the max. It helps IT professionals resolve certain problems that are commonplace in present era workplace. It is not without reasons that giants like British airways and Disney are using ITIL principles.

Below listed are the major workplace problems that can be resolved by adhering to ITIL principles and methodologies:

• Aligning IT with business goals- Every organization has specific goals to fulfill. These companies use a lot of IT tools and services to meet their targets- in terms of sales, customer satisfaction and growth etc. However, in most cases, these IT tools including licensed software and cloud services are not designed to align with goals of specific companies. By using the ITIL framework, these companies can ensure the IT services/tools get aligned to business goals and they can extract the most from those tools.

• IT service compatibility issues- In almost all organizations, different types of IT services need to be used. These include different type of web based services, standalone software, networking services and so on. Without an ITSM system in place, interoperability issues may crop up and working such services in sync may become tedious. This hampers workflow and results in loss of productive time too. However, by deploying ITIL methodologies resolving such IT software and service conflicts and compatibility issues can be resolved.

• Syncing issues between departments- In most companies, there are various departments like sales, CRM, HR, support desk and so on. These departments often have to share data, access common resources and work in sync to ensure overall workflow remains on track. However, syncing problems can crop up between these departments sometimes and that can affect productivity adversely. However, such syncing problems between various departments in the organization can be largely evaded by deploying ITIL.

• Issues throttling output and workflow- Despite the best plans and intentions, certain issues can crop up in business setups that affect workflow adversely and impact output. These can be caused by software snags, hardware or networking related problems, web service outage and so on. However, by deploying ITIL methodologies, it becomes easier to prevent occurrence of such issues to a large extent. Organizations can also adopt measures to detect hints that precede occurrence of such events. This way many operational errors and conflicts can be thwarted.

• Unwanted cost escalation- In all organizations, keeping operational costs and other types of costs within limit becomes necessary. However, keeping costs within the limit may prove to be tedious. When ITIL is deployed, managing cost related issues become easier. Besides, using ITIL methodologies it becomes simpler to anticipate factors that can lead to cost escalation and keep them under check.

• Customer experience and engagement issues- Regardless of the niche and type of products/services sold, every company wants to ensure the customers are satisfied. The business put in lots of efforts to offer them better engagement experience and offer more value eventually. The ITIL methodologies are utilized by these companies to analyze customer preferences and they tweak their offerings accordingly. Using these methodologies, they can also understand where the deficits in meeting customer needs exist and these can be rectified.

• Adapting to organization level changes- As the business grows, it becomes necessary to implement changes to cater to changing customer needs and enhance productivity. The changes can be related to many things including shift timings, internet access methods, new software or cloud services for company level use and so on. When the company wants to introduce such changes, it is not always easy for the workforce to adapt to the changes. By deploying tried and tested ITIL methodologies, migrating to the changes becomes easier.

• Support expectation issues- Regardless of services and products sold by your company, the customers have certain expectations when they seek support. This can be for various purposes including enquiry about upcoming or existing products, resolving product quality issues, or addressing other grievances. Problems arise when the customers have a different perception or level of expectation regarding the level of service offered by your company, or its imitations. By using ITIL, making things clear about service level and its limitations to the customers becomes simpler.

• Scalability issues- In a lot of companies, scalability become a pressing issue during expansions. When your company is starting operations in new markets or the employee strength is growing, scaling operations is a must. However, the related IT services and business processes should not suffer owing to this expansion. In companies where lots of hardware devices and web services are used, this can prove to be quite a bottleneck. Deploying ITIL methodologies ensures ITT related scalability does not become hurdle for the company.  

• Efficacy and optimum workflow – Without using an apt ITSM tool, it is difficult to obtain optimum output from the workforce in the company. Obstacles in workflow are commonplace when the company processes are not being run while adhering to ITIL guidelines. However, deployment of ITIL ensures the processes are run as desired, risk of snags are detected before they occur and this leads to overall better productivity.

• Performance assessment and improvement issues-In most companies, it becomes difficult to assess performance of departments as well as individual employees. A lot of operations and processes are often interconnected and when anything goes wrong it can be hard to pinpoint the source. However, in companies adhering to ITIL guidelines, using performance assessment metrics become easier. The management can keep track of performance of specific departments as well as individual employees.

Summing it all up