IT service management systems
Service management system (Service Management System) (SMS, SMIS) – supports the management of the service life cycle, from planning to delivery and improvement, offering better conditions for both customers and service providers. This provides constant visibility, enabling continuous improvement in efficiency and effectiveness.
Developed by ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the flagship standard of the ISO/IEC 20000 series helps organizations implement a service lifecycle strategy by providing best practices for managing their service portfolio to keep them relevant.
The ISO/IEC 20000 series is the only one available for measuring compliance, supporting certification, and ensuring customer confidence that their services are effectively managed.
The ISO/IEC 20000 series can be useful for anyone who provides services to customers, whether it is an entire company or a separate department, not only improving their service, but also ensuring that service management activities meet business needs and goals.
The availability of an IT services management system in accordance with ISO/IEC 20000-1 will help the organization determine the main directions for providing quality services, taking into account interested parties.
The ISO/IEC 20000-1 standard contains requirements for an organization that provides IT services of any type, regardless of its size, field of activity and geographical location. The requirements specified in this document include the planning, design, transfer, delivery and improvement of services to meet service requirements and delivery value.
The term “service” used in the standard refers to a service or services under the SMIs. The term “organization” used in this document refers to an organization in the SMIs industry that manages and provides services to customers. An organization that falls within the scope of SMIs may be part of a larger organization, such as a Department of a large corporation. An organization or part of an organization that manages and provides services or services to internal or external customers can also be referred to as a service provider. Any use of the terms “Service” or “organization” for other purposes is clearly distinguished in this document.
This standard is recommended for high–tech organizations ‐ system integrators, banks, insurance companies, Internet service providers, software developers and many others.
The standard defines the service management processes that help the organization:
- establish that there is a relationship between the processes and that this relationship depends on the application of the processes within the organization;
- ensure that control objectives and methods enable the organization to provide the required services;
- improve efficiency and provide opportunities for improvement;
- ensure that IT services meet business needs and requirements;
- increase system reliability and availability;
- provide a basis for a service level agreement;
- ensure the ability to measure the quality of IT services.
Integration with other standards
The information services management system can be integrated with another management system, for example, with the quality management system in accordance with ISO 9001, the environmental management system in accordance with ISO 14001, the information security management system in accordance with ISO 27001 and others.
Benefits of implementation and certification:
- increase the trust of customers, partners, and other interested parties
- gaining international recognition and strengthening the company’s image in the domestic and foreign markets;
- improving the efficiency and reliability of providing IT services;
- reducing the risks, level of consequences and losses from IT and information security incidents;
- reduction of support costs and systematic development of information technologies in general;
- expanding the company’s participation opportunities in major government contracts.
The ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018 Standard has been modified to adapt to the new general structure that applies to all Management System Standards. This simplifies its integration with other management systems and helps organizations that want to implement more than one management system at a time, as they can implement integrated policies and procedures, while reducing financial costs and implementation time.
The use of the new version of the ISO/IEC 20000-1 standard is not problematic and very useful, as it provides for a step-by-step program and integration with continuous improvement measures and planned supervisory audits.
The standard has become more universal, with more recommendations than regulations, for example, strict documentation requirements have decreased. The process model has become more similar to what is described in ITIL (current version). The previously combined processes «incident management» (incident management) and «Service request Management» (service Request management), «Continuity Management» (Service continuity management) and «availability management» (service availability management), «service level management» (service level management) and «service catalog management» (service catalog management), «capacity management» (capacity management) and «demand management» (demand management) are separated.