The Library for Information Technology Infrastructure – ITIL

Not more than five years ago it was a set of practices that was used to carry out and expand IT service management, of which no one knew about outside the United Kingdom. Today ITIL has become a trending buzz that has mentions on almost every trade magazines.

Irrespective of all the hype that it has with the IT pros, there are many to whom the concept is still unclear. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of ace methods used to promote and execute IT service management.

What are the benefits of this model?

ITIL has a proven and worldwide use across the different sector of the industries. They have included best practices and evolved as per the market’s need with continuous improvement. This in result gives out an improved customer satisfaction rate with a design that helps focusing on the needs of the customers, rather than much focus on technology issues.

On the section of organizational benefits, implementation of ITIL has improved the ROI of IT. There is seen a growth on the competency, potential, and growth in the retention of the IT staffs. There is much clear visibility of IT expenses and assets.

Many of the large organizations have implemented ITIL to a result of great success and increased operational cost savings.

“Microsoft uses ITIL both as the basis for Microsoft Operations Framework, which is our structured approach to helping customers achieve IT operational excellence and in how we operate our own systems. We are proud to have contributed as lead authors to the writing of the Application Management and the Planning to Implement Service Management books in the ITIL collection. "

- Rick Devenuti, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Services and IT

Even when the best practices of ITIL are more implemented by large organizations, it doesn’t mean that ITIL cannot benefit small-scale industries. Considering the following points, ITIL can be a followed practice with smaller industries:

· Big companies were taken into consideration when the processes of ITIL were being written, but if the lessons are applied to smaller companies, it will work equally good

· Rather than setting forth for the entire set process, it is a wiser idea to choose the best implementations and prioritize the practices as per the needs of the organization

· Always having a process owner gives the best possible results as a leader in charge is always needed to monitor the flow of the process

· Having an in-charge allows a better result, but it is more vital to have a strong team of resources who understand the needs or conditions from a technical viewpoint.

The standards of ITIL are tested and proven to work and adopting these standards, service providers can assure desired deliverables under a given timeline, effectively and with efficiency.

From studies it has been found that the typical benefits of implementation of ITIL are as follows:

· Reduction of support cost by 27%-30%

· Incidents fixation is increased by at least 20%

· Success rate of change is increased

· The cycle time for projects reduces by 30% to 50%

Who should be ITIL certified?

ITIL Foundation certification is an essential requirement for professionals who needs a basic understanding of ITIL® framework and how it may be used to enhance the quality of IT service management within an organization. This certification is most suited for:

• IT Managers/Support teams

• System Administrators/Analysts

• Operations Managers

• Database Administrators

• Service Delivery Professionals

• Quality Analysts

• Application Management team/Development team

• Process Owners/Practitioners