IT Services Management – Celanese

This case study explores how Celanese, a global leader in the chemical industry, implemented ITIL process framework to improve their IT service management. It discusses the challenges faced by the organization and the benefits of adopting ITIL. The study also highlights two processes and functions in the Service Operation and Service Strategy phases of ITIL.

IT Services Management – Celanese
Case
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Executive Summary
The organization of Celanese has been a global leader in the chemical
industry, had spent a number of years implementing a single instance
ERP solution and integrating the divisional IT functions into a shared
services model. In the year 2007, although the organization has all the
experiences of having dealt with IT management and IT service growth,
many executives having the responsibility of decision making in the
organization of Celanese IT believed that their internal operations were in
desperate need of tighter coordination and process discipline. They
looked to Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to guide
their process integration effort. This case describes the first three years
of the IT organization’s journey with the ITIL process framework.
Keywords: ITIL, Celanese, single instance ERP, Service Operation, Service
Strategy, RACI model, IT Service Management
1. Introduction
The organization of Celanese has been a one of the leading business organizations in
the world dealing with the chemical industry. The organization has been using the
traditional format in business processing for quite some time and lately they have also
been implementing the single instance ERP solutions and also used the integrations for
the divisional IT functions for the shared services models (Jantscher, Schwarz & Zinser,
2015). However, after the year 2007, the organization felt a dire need for the changes in
their IT service growth and wanted to implement newer systems for a much tighter
coordination to attain a well processed disciplinary system. The organization has thus
opted to look into the information technology framework as offered by the Information
Technology Infrastructure Library or ITIL to guide though the integration process that
the organization has been currently looking for.
2. Brief Description of the Case
The company did not believe in attaining the organization practise of reporting to a
centralized and singular CIO for the development of the shared services of the IT
organization. This created a problem of keeping a track of the business operations and
the sharing of the organizational information with the centralized body or the
headquarters (Cronholm & Persson, 2016). Therefore, there was a requirement for the
business organization to have a standardized IT infrastructure since the integrated IT
organization was not smooth enough. This included the case-by-case integration
initiative, the PC standardization effort and the improvement from a single instance ERP
system to one that specifically solved all the problems that the company had started
ITSM Assignment Report – 2806ICT
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facing since 2007 due to the heavy build of the organizational IT infrastructure (Jäntti &
Hotti, 2016).
3. TWO (2) processes and TWO (2) functions that fall into
Service Operation or Service Strategy phases of ITIL
ITIL or the Information Technology Infrastructure Library has a collection of the best
practices that is required for the management of the IT operations in any business and
the management of its operations. It also suggests appropriate service strategies that
can be developed for the seamless and effective implementation for a specific
organization (Galup, Dattero & Quan, 2016). The service process and functions that is
specified by ITIL in the series of the books as the Service Operation and Service
Strategy phases are describes clearly. The Service Strategies are defined as the process
of developing a business driven strategy for the IT service management and the Service
Operations are defined as the process of supporting the operations in the ongoing
fashion. The following would be two of the selected processes and functions that would
fall into the Service Operations and Service Strategy phases of ITIL:
4. Service Operation Phase
Incident management: This phase has been specified in the ITIL as the Service
Operation phase that helps in restoring the normal service operation for the
organization as fast as it is physically possible (Iden & Eikebrokk, 2016).
Change Management: As per ITIL, Change Management can be defined as the
practise that ensures that the changes are configured along with the required items that
the planned and authorized within the organization to handle the daily operations
(Goldberg, Satzger & Fromm, 2016).
5. Service Strategy Phase
The service strategy phase as developed by the ITIL lists two specific phases that
defines the utility of the system and manages the levels of implementation of the service
operations. The service strategy phase is implemented in the service lifecycle phase that
occurs in several levels (Dahm & Mohos, 2018).
Level 1: At the first level, the service strategy implements one. Help.
Level 2: At the second level, the service strategy implements CE operations.
6. Their goals or roles in ITIL
The lifecycle implementation logic that ITIL specifies also specifies the goal for the
service operations to bring about the identified changes within the organization tacking
the IT service management improvement operations (Cots, Casadesús & Marimon,
2016). Although, the other versions of ITIL also specifies that there is not any presence
of a generalized version of the operation that deals with the change management
procedure for an organization. It is dependent on the specifications of the organization,
the size of the organization and how the organization is capable of dealing with the
customers and potential clients. The improvement level is based up on these
specifications only.
7. Underlying theme in ITIL
This underlying theme might not be accepted by all the organizations, especially in this
particular case where the organization of Celanese does not believe that all the
branches it has over US, Germany, China and Mexico does not need to report to a
unified authority (Bayona, Baca & Vela, 2017). They believe that centralization for an
organization is the root cause of all the declinations. However, ITIL changes this idea
and suggests the underlying them that it is better to implement a much better and
disciplined centralized IT implementation system and a multiple instance ERP so that
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information resource from all branches can be unified rather be kept within the system
in a scattered way (Xin et al., 2018).
8. Why these exist in ITIL
These exits in the ITIL since having an integrated approach for the IT service
management system is extremely helpful as there is no delay in the system of the
transferring of information through the entire business operation network and the
collection of data and its analysis becomes much easier (Becker, 2017). Time in
business equals to money, and saving time is equivalent to saving money. Thus, it is
understandable that the ITIL suggests that a business system should be unified in
nature having an integrated IT system and service management (Krishnan & Ravindran,
2017).
9. The RACI model adopted in the OSM
The RACI model that is adopted by OSM is identified to be one of the best practises that
business or the Operations Support Model adopts (Taylor, 2018). This is also known as
the Responsibility Assignment Matrix which is much simple tool and that is often used
as a utility tool for the highlighting of the roles of the people within an organization with
the four key responsibilities, namely, Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and
Informed (Bowers & Morse, 2018). This is applicable mostly because it identifies all the
key responsibilities of the people within an organization and can organize their
professional behaviour based on their responsibilities.
10. Why while the Infrastructure group experienced many
benefits of the OSM, other groups, in particular the
Application group, deemed it overly complex and
unnecessarily ‘bureaucratic’
Celanese did not think twice before consulting ITIL, even if other groups, in particular
the Application group, deemed it overly complex and unnecessarily ‘bureaucratic’. This
is because, Celanese was at one instance absolutely out of control. They were building
their applications and pretending like they were in production when we had done no
formal transition and planning for on-going support (Muhammed, 2015). They also
believed that if the product did not work, it would be more easy to lay it all on the
developer.
It was necessary that to eradicate all these issues, there would be the requirement of an
all-encompassing solution even if it had a bureaucratic approach to control the system
for Celanese which ran through a huge massacre of system management (Eikebrokk &
Iden, 2017).
11. Potential benefits to Celanese with respect to
overcoming some of the key issue
The key issues that occurred with Celanese was the mismanagement of the IT
operations and the lack of discipline in the IT service management system (Melendez,
Dávila & Pessoa, 2016). The key issues are easily avoidable with the consultation of the
ITIL book for IT service management.
12. Conclusion
Therefore, in conclusion it can be said that the Celanese organization had been a
leading organization in the chemical industry, but when it came to the IT service
management issues, it was difficult to attain a certain amount of discipline for the
management of the IT service systems. The organization wanted to acquire a tighter IT
management system that would provide discipline to the pre-existing IT services in the
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organization and the ITIL book has been the most effective one to refer at this point of
time. The descriptive report would include two processes and two functions that fall into
Service Operation or Service Strategy phases of ITIL, their goals or roles in ITIL, the
underlying theme in ITIL, the RACI model adopted in the OSM, the reasons why the
infrastructure group would experience the benefits offered by OSM although other
application groups have deemed in complex and unnecessarily bureaucratic, and the
potential benefits that Celanese would enjoy overcoming the key issues.
13. Reflective Report
Following is the reflection that I had attained while going through the case for
the Celanese organization and its IT services improvement:
14. Week 1
In the first week, I understood that in the year 2008, the organization of
Celanese realized that the organization needs to use a much tightly coordinated IT
system within the company that would bring about more disciplined IT system
management for the operations within the organization. For this reason, Celanese
referred the ITIL for gathering information regarding the service operation
management for the organization in a much better and organized way. The company
reportedly supports 7000 PC users all over the world comprising of a staff of about 300
FTEs. The staff is although geographically distributed across all the sites that the
organization has across US, Germany, Mexico and China. The staff was originally
distributed amongst 6 specific groups amongst which the IT Application group and the
IT infrastructure group were identified to be the biggest. The need of the organization
had led the business executives to consult the ITIL which was the collection of the best
possible practises for managing the IT operations. ITIL comprised of suggesting the
best possible IT solutions following the practical sequence of service strategies, service
design, service transition, service operation and continual service improvement.
15. Week 2
The series of books provided by ITIL specifies the utility of the Service Strategy
and the Service Operations that is depicted in a generalized version for the readers to
easily go through them and them successfully implement them in the operations of the
business management or change implementation they are looking for developing. I
understood that the Service Operations and the Service Strategies are meant to develop
a business driven strategy for the IT service management for an organization the
supporting operation required for implementing the strategies by bringing in some
changes in the operations of the business organization without changing the daily
course of the business process that goes on. This is the primary goal of both the service
strategies and the service operations as specified by ITIL.
16. Week 3
In this week I understood that ITIL is a collection of IT service management
practices consisting of the various practises that needs to be implemented in the
organization. The ITIL shares the idea on how these ideas or practices can be
implemented within an organization without causing any block or halt to the ongoing
business operations in the organization. The underlying theme of ITIL is that there must
be an integrated approach to service management without hampering the daily
activities of an organization. Even if the organization is spread at various places and is
geographically located far from each other, the organization needs to own an approach
of having a centralized system that would be required for information sharing or
reporting to.
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17. Week 4
In this week I learnt about the IT service incident management. Along with that,
I also learnt that this system also helps in maintaining all the issues that occur within
the business operation and helps in handling them to ensure that the business
operations are providing the best service that can be possible with the service quality
including the levels of availability maintained properly. Along with that I learnt that for
change management, these items can include all the possible items comprising of
hardware, software, databases and others. ITIL also specifies the planning of the
organization. ITIL also specifies that the Change Management operation phase aims at
the minimal disruption of the services, ways of reducing the back-out activities and the
economic utilization of the resources which have been involvement within the process of
change.
18. Week 5
In the final week I understood that the IT service management has been identified to
provide service strategies and service operation suggestions to the executive of the
managerial body who have the responsibility of making the decisions that would help
the organisation attain a change management policy without hampering the daily
business operations. This has been understood by integrating the report into two
specific parts, where the first part would define the descriptive report and the second
part would have the personal reflection on the entire process.
19. References
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curriculum: a caricature approach.
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Jäntti, M., & Hotti, V. (2016). Defining the relationships between IT service
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