ITIL

1. An overview image of ITIL.






The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world. ITIL describes how IT resources should be organized to deliver business value, documenting the processes, functions and roles of IT Service Management (ITSM).ITIL is supported by accredited training organizations, implementation and assessment tools.

2. A more detailed summary of ITIL Service Desk



The ITIL Service Desk is the very first contact the organization's users have with IT Services. The Service Desk is a single point of contact for end users who need anything from IT. The Service Desk handles day-to-day customer issues, end-user calls, and other issues. Not only can a Service Desk handle incidents, problems and questions, but a Service Desk can also provide an interface for other activities such as customer change requests, billing and availability management. The Service Desk has great strategic importance. It represents the interests of the customer to the rest of the IT organization, and is the most important function in an organization for many customers.

Here are a few benefits of a service desk:

• Provides a single point of contact for customers and users
• Deals with many customer queries without needing to contact specialist personnel
• Handles all incoming calls and only escalates them to the second or third tier support when necessary
• Informs users about the supported products and services to which they are entitled
• Ensures that users do not have to search endlessly for a solution
• Ensures accessibility of the IT organization
• Is consistent and efficient in all customer contacts
• Assists in defining the response and solution times that will come into effect in the event of a service interruption

And the list goes on….



3. A profile of an ITIL consulting company - ECS



I came across a company names ECS- Enterprise Consulting services. Basically ECS converts ITIL theory into practice and implements strategies that create solid benefits that can be measured. Consulting services have been fine tuned as a result of hands on implementation engagements at enterprise level companies. As their website states “ … ECS brings proven methodologies, templates, and best practice to the table - eliminating weeks of costly project start up and discovery effort. Our PMO approach drives clear consensus on strategy and operational improvement solutions, reinforced by clearly articulated due diligence and project deliverables. Vendor neutrality assures unbiased recommendations, tool selection and contract/SOW preparation.”
Here is a Flowchart showing the ITIL framework ECS follows:

Some reference clients from their website:

• Bausch & Lomb
• Constellation Brands
• EnergyEast
• Excellus BlueCross
• Ontario County Government
• Wegmans Food Markets


4. NUMARA-->ITIL software tool

The ITIL Software tool I looked into was called Numara Footprints. Numara Footprints is cheap and implantation is fast.

• Numara has a "multi-project" design, and this enables managing service desk processes from a single integrated platform – minimizing overhead and increasing service delivery quality.
• Numara FootPrints puts instant changes to service management team, not costly programmers or consultants without interrupting the business.