A service catalog has traditionally been defined as : “ A database or structured document with information about all live IT services , including those available for deployment . The service catalogue is part of the service portfolio and contains information about two types of IT service : customer-facing services that are visible to the business ; and supporting services required by the service provider to deliver customer-facing services .” More recently though , the term has also been used to describe the capability to provide an employee portal and / or self-service capabilities to end users . This is sometimes also referred to as a service request catalog .
� Better management of changes – with improved insight and visibility , control , and potentially speed of change
� Better cross-team collaboration – resulting in improved change risk and impact assessment , and better change prioritization and scheduling
You can find out more about change management by reading What Is Change Management For ? and ITSM Wars , Episode VII : The Standard Change Awakens .
The potential benefits of service catalog management include :
� An improved customer self-service capability for request fulfillment
� More efficient workflow for , and management of , request fulfillment
� The ability to link to automation capabilities for both increased speed of provisioning and the
Problem management – “ The process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all problems . Problem management proactively prevents incidents from happening and minimizes the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented .”
A problem is defined as : “ A cause of one or more incidents .”
Problem management identifies permanent solutions and reduces the number of , and resolution time for , repeat incidents .
The potential benefits of problem management include : �
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Less downtime and disruption to business-critical IT services and business operations , and a reduction in the opportunity cost of such disruptions A reduction in the cost of , and the effort invested in , fire-fighting or resolving repeat incidents Better use of scarce IT people resource , with reduced expenditure on workarounds or fixes that don ’ t work
You can find out more about problem management by reading Problem Management : no problemo & Defining Metrics for Problem Management .
Service catalog management – “ The process responsible for providing and maintaining the service catalog and for ensuring that it is available to those who are authorized to access it .” associated cost savings
� Lightening the service desk ’ s service request-based workload , allowing greater focus on business-impacting incidents over potentially routine service requests
You can find out more about service catalog management by reading 5 Tips for Creating a Successful Service Catalogue and Self-Service : The Benefits and 5 Tips for Success .
Service asset and configuration management – “ The process responsible for ensuring that the assets required to deliver services are properly controlled , and that accurate and reliable information about those assets is available when and where it is needed . This information includes details of how the assets have been configured and the relationships between assets .”
11 itSMFI Forum Focus — September 2016