ITIL Service Lifecycle: A Comprehensive Guide for Organizations

This comprehensive guide explores the ITIL service lifecycle, a framework for managing IT services. It delves into the five key stages: service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation, and continual service improvement. Each stage is examined in detail, outlining its objectives, benefits, and processes. The guide also provides practical examples of how ITIL can be applied in various organizational contexts, including student enrollment services. By understanding the ITIL service lifecycle, organizations can optimize their IT service delivery, enhance customer satisfaction, and achieve their business goals.

ITIL Assessment

Table of Contents
ITIL service lifecycle for development of an Organization............................................................2
Service strategy:...............................................................................................................................4
Service design:.................................................................................................................................5
Service transition:............................................................................................................................6
Service operation:............................................................................................................................7
Process carried in ITIL operation:...................................................................................................8
Continual service improvement:......................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................11
1

ITIL service lifecycle for development of an Organization
The sector which is growing at a very high speed is the IT sector. In last 25-20 years, the IT
sector has emerged as one of the most preferred sector and a developed one. Before IT sector the
services which were provided by any organization were not so efficient, that is why there was a
need of a sector which can fulfill the requirement of customer in less time and more efficiency.
That gave rise to the IT services provided by the IT organizations. IT services refer to those
services like the application of technical and business expertise for an organization to improve
the business of that organization. The idea is to use some guidance of experts such as technical
and business ones who can improve the business graph of that organization (Cannon, et.
al.,2011). IT services help in three phases such as designing, developing and testing and
implementation of an organization. Most of the organizations use their services which in turn
results in higher performance and higher reliability of that organization. If these are to be
outsourced then they can be termed as BPO (business process outsourcing), infrastructure
outsourcing (IO), AO (application outsourcing). Some of the services include data scanning,
hardware support, etc.
IT services are controlled and operated with help of various activities named as IT service
management (ITSM). ITSM can be said as a collection of various activities like policies,
procedures, and processes which help in delivering IT services to the organization in a
combination. There are various management techniques used in an organization such as network
management, system management and many more. ITSM differs from these techniques as it
purely focuses on customer needs and IT services provided to them while approaching through
management. ITSM divides its work according to the need of customer which helps in resulting a
nice output and relation with the customer. ITSM is performed by a team of officials where the
work of each official is divided accordingly (Salle, et. al., 2004). The team firstly discusses full
and proper needs of the customer so that nothing remains at the time of designing and
development. After discussing the needs of customer a proper design is made so that nothing
more nor less is required for doing that particular work. After designing the IT services are made
available to the organization for use. ITSM helps in providing real benefits such as adaptiveness,
flexibility, cost-effective to the organization. ITSM changes the working of operation of the
organization as it manages its processes, technology assets, guides how the IT staff view their
2

roles in the organization. It assures that an organization should not only depend upon IT services
but also the quality of service to the customer provided should also be of high rank. There are
various IT services possible for an organization to use but to manage them concurrently is a
difficult task so to operate various services concurrently ITSM uses the framework named ITIL
(Information technology infrastructure library). ITIL is a practical framework of ITSM which
helps in managing IT services (Schuetze, et. al., 2017).
ITIL is one of the best frameworks available to ITSM and has emerges as a superior and mostly
used framework by ITSM. ITSM provides a certificate to an organization related to IITL which
certifies that the organization is using ITIL framework for developing or managing its IT
services. This certificate has become more common these days as most of the organizations use
this framework for their purpose of work. Due to this the requirement of the IITL officials has
been increased. An ITIL official is the one who knows how to use and operate the framework on
integration with ITSM. Due to their huge requirement the scope in the IT services is quite high
in areas such as service management, design, development, and implementation. ITSM with help
of ITIL framework has now become the focus of attention around the world as ITSMf (ITSM
foundation) has currently over 1,00,000 members (Pushkala, et. al., 2015). Due to this there are
various conferences such as IBM's semiannual PULSE conference, Pink elephant's annual
International conference which are getting attention with high record of attendance. ITIL
framework is updating day by day by addition of various new features. There have been many
versions of IITL like version 2006, version 2007 and version 2011. The current version of ITIL
is termed as ITIL 2011. It is not necessary that the procedures, tasks, checklists used by ITIL are
related to the organization or the technology used, it is just used for applying integration with the
strategy of organization such that the competency level remains minimum. The goal is not to
arise competency level between the organizations by providing various functionalities rather is to
provide the same functionality in a different strategic way so that the main goal of service
management could be fulfilled. It actually establishes a baseline for the organization through
which the organizations can plan and implement their ways of management. It is owned by a
company named AXELOS since 2013 which is a joint partnership of CAPITAL and UK cabinet
office. When in need of large operations the ITIL framework is very useful as it provides various
functionalities which can be used on a large scale. Also, it helps in management in such a way
that the efficiency remain same whether talking about small-scale organization or a large scale
3

organization. This makes IITL a special framework and that is the reason it is most frequently
used.
IITL framework operates its functionalities by dividing its work in various stages. These are 5 in
total and the whole procedure is called IITL life cycle. These five stages are service strategy,
service design, service translation, service operation, and continual service improvement. The
lifecycle of IITL is its main functionality and this lifecycle remains same for every organization
which gets associated to ITIL framework. No doubt the contents in the life cycle might be
different but the main goal is to provide service management to improve reliability, performance.
The life cycle focuses on determining the strategy and procedures by making several designs,
transitioning into production and then implementing that service. The lifecycle gets updated
regularly according to need of the customers and fits into every environment. The lifecycle
stages are independent of each other which means they can be used individually when required.
It is not necessary that the organization has to implement all stages of the life cycle, it can choose
those stages accordingly. The organizations which adapt lifecycles of IITL are more precise in
doing their work than those who do not (Nelson, et. al., 2016). Let's discuss each of them briefly:
4

Service strategy:
The main idea behind service strategy is to determine how the services will be used to operate IT
related objectives. It also explains that how IT services will be evaluated for overall business
purpose. It ensures that the service is maintained and implemented. It includes practical decision
making according to the services offered with goal of increasing life of those services. It assures
to handle various costs and risks regarding to services. The process area of service strategy are
demand management, business relationship management, strategy management, service portfolio
management, and financial management according to service.
Objective:
The objective of service strategy stage is to arrange service provider for the organization. This
includes a thorough study of strategy which means to understand the strategy thoroughly. The
capability of the organization is understood through which it can help in delivering service
strategy. The customers should be specified clearly that are using the service strategy. It gives an
idea about various stages of services such as funding, delivering and creating the value of service
delivering (Wager, et. al., 2017).
Benefits:
1. It helps in understanding the links between service assets and the service provider. Also
one can understand various activities, outcomes which are crucial to the organization.
These outcomes might be achieved by the customers as a result of service use.
2. It gives the ability to adapt various IT services and to be flexible. Also, various
preventive actions can be taken to meet the updating business. It helps in ensuring
business advantage during competition.
3. The service provider acts as a contributor to the cost and value of the service. This helps
in increasing value of customers and the organization.
4. It maintains a portfolio of qualified services
5. It performs a proper return on investment analysis when the services are used by the
customers.
5

It can be helpful in creating student enrolment service as it will provide best strategy for
enrolment which will help in better implementation and fast output (Pushkala, 2015).
6

Service design:
This stage is specifically for the purpose of designing a service. In this stage, the service is
designed with a business perspective in mind. This is done to provide true value service to the
customer. It actually helps in converting the service strategy into a design plan of providing
business objective (Vezzoli, et. al., 2015).
IITL service design guides to develop and design a business which can be helpful for the
customer. It also provides strategies and methods for conversion of strategy into the design.
Objective:
There can be various objectives of the service design step. These are:
1. To design those services which require minimum improvement during their life.
2. To use CSI in all the activities of service. This is done to ensure that the solutions of the
services are more precise and dependent
3. Always look for new opportunities by determining latest trends in the sector.
Benefits:
Service design is an important stage of life cycle because it provides these benefits:
1. It helps in improving IT governance day by day.
2. It helps in improving decision-making abilities
3. It increases reliability, flexibility, and performance of service
4. It improves the effectiveness of business management in IT sector and processes
5. It reduces the cost to the organization
6. It makes changing services easy (Campbell, et. al., 2016).
In the case of student enrolment if a service design is efficient then the high-quality services can
be easily used and evaluated. It means to store student details the best service of ITIL can be
used so as to increase reliability and security of the system. It is sure that after designing a better
7

service the business requirement of an organization such that student enrollment company will
be met ( Heikkinen, 2018).
8

Service transition:
Transition service includes movement of ITIL services and changes its operational use. It has a
management system known as a service knowledge management system which supports learning
in the organization. It means that a new staff member can read that document and can take help
from that document about the transition. This, in turn, increases effectiveness and efficiency of
several stages of the life cycle of ITIL. This helps in decision making and to improve the
managing of services. The service knowledge management system gets updated regularly with
an increase in experience of the employees of the organization. Talking about the main purpose
then its main purpose is to find those services which met the requirements of the customer and to
transmit them (Waheb, et. al. 2015).
Objective:
1. To make sure that the transited service meets the expectation
2. To evaluate the performance and usage of new services
3. To provide knowledge about each service available in the ITIL framework
4. To manage the risk which arise due to transition of new services
5. To deploy those services which suits the environment
6. To manage changes in services efficiently
Benefits:
Transition of service provides with various advantages. Those are:
1. Better cost estimation and timely service is provided. Also it implements the risks
involved in transition phase
2. It controls and configure the services properly
3. It increases the expectation of customers which help them in increasing their profit
4. It reduces effort of those services which are not capable according to the environment
5. It ensures that all the services update regularly and show their effort
6. It reduces delay which helps in determining results fast (Verlaine, 2014)
9

The use of transition service in student enrolment could be finding a new service which can help
in storing data of student fast and in a reliable manner. This will help in improving the efficiency
of the system.
10

Service operation:
In the service lifecycle of ITIL, the operations related to the services are infrastructures,
processes that make use of technology for delivering the values in the business, and the activities
that are judged on a periodic basis. These operations must be kept in mind by the appointed ITIL
consultant for the university. The day to day implemented services for the student enrollments is
being checked for the daily implementation of the operation (Ng, et. al., 2018). The operations
are being carried out by the ITIL consultant that will deliver the flow of work and fulfillment of
all the requirements of the staff of IT support and the students. The infrastructure must be
checked on the regular basis and the process that is using the technology for increasing the
business values are up to date for better management and a routine check must also be done for
the newly enrolled student (Mahy, 2016).
Objective: The main objective of this services operations of ITIL is to make the surety for
successful delivery of the required IT service effectively and efficiently decided by the norms of
SLA (Service Level Agreement) for their customers or business associations. The other main
reason behind the operation of services is that it is helpful in improving the periodic activities
services for the purpose of assessment metrics, gathering information and monitoring of
performances.
Value: In this level, the actual visibility of the imparted value in the business or firm is shown.
The most value is added at this stage of ITIL lifecycle. The value points are shown by a various
operation like problem management, event management, incident management, request
fulfillment, and access management (Morris, et. al., 2017).
11

The process carried in ITIL operation:
Problem management: This helps in finding the root cause of the incident and the measurement
of that cause for ensuring the non-occurring of those incidents in the business again.
Event management: It deals with the event scheduling in the phase of the lifecycle. This includes
the activities like event detection, the occurrence of those events, filter the given events and at
the end respond to those events. It also keeps the track of the logging that is helpful in
maintaining the records.
Incident management: It keeps the track of the disrupted services and to restore the services
quickly. It allows the running services to the normal functioning when disrupted. It will help the
university to restore services and to minimize the level of disruption in the business for the future
scope.
Request Fulfillment: The term request means any sort of query or requirement. It basically deals
with the services that are requested by the customer which need minimum change with the
minimum risk involvement. It includes the services like creating a username or user id, change of
the password, that are used personally by the IT staff of the university and the students of the
university.
Access management: It is related to the service request or grants permission from the various
different uses of the universities by the technical or IT service staff. It allows the authorized user
of the services to the known members of the services.
The ITIL consultant is the responsible person who will manage these operation services for the
university. The operations are carried under the ITIL consultant and for all the members of the
staff of IT and the students (Schuetze, 2017).
12

Continual service improvement:
Continual service improvement utilizes various previous techniques from management options
which help them in learning from their previous successes and failures. Its main goal is to
achieve efficiency by performing checking from previous tasks. It goes on improving and
learning from previous outcomes regularly. This helps the ITIL to be reliable on different
services accordingly (Khanna, et. al., 2017).
Objective:
1. To increase the cost-effectiveness of the service relates to IT and to maintain customer
satisfaction
2. To ensure a standard and quality management method used for service delivery
3. To analyze existing opportunities and to update from those opportunities in terms of
service operation
4. To implement various activities to improve quality of service and to improve IT
management processes
5. To improve previous stages such as service design, service strategy, service transition
(Sallé¸2004)
13

Processes under continual service improvement:
There are various processes which are used in continuous service improvement with help of
which improvement can take place. These are:
1. Service Review: This process reviews the services and infrastructure in a fixed time
interval. Through this, it improves quality of service and defines various ways of
providing a service
2. Process evaluation: It evaluates different processes used in various services regularly. It
identifies those areas where processes have not reached. This help in making assessments
and reviews about the services
3. Definition of CSI initiatives: It generates some initiatives which help in improving
services and processes. These initiatives are generated using reviews and assessments.
The initiatives help in making various goods and bad about services and processes
4. Monitoring CSI initiatives: Which initiatives are good and which are bad are monitored
by CSI monitoring
This stage helps in continuous improvement of all previous four stages. In case of the company,
it will always give best results about performing operations on data like insertion, deletion, and
updation
So in this essay, the discussion is made on the ITIL lifecycle services for the University of South
Australia. In this, the discussion is made on the various phases of the lifecycle of phases (Wager,
2017).
14

References:
 Bartens, Y., De Haes, S., Lamoen, Y., Schulte, F. and Voss, S., 2015, January. On the
way to a minimum baseline in IT governance: using expert views for selective
implementation of COBIT 5. In System Sciences (HICSS), 2015 48th Hawaii
International Conference on (pp. 4554-4563). IEEE.
 Brenner, M. (2006, April). Classifying ITIL processes; a taxonomy under tool support
aspects. In Business-Driven IT Management, 2006. BDIM'06. The First IEEE/IFIP
International Workshop on (pp. 19-28). IEEE.
 Campbell, J.D., Jardine, A.K. and McGlynn, J. eds., 2016. Asset management excellence:
optimizing equipment life-cycle decisions. CRC Press.
 Cannon, D., Wheeldon, D., Lacy, S. and Hanna, A., 2011. ITIL service strategy (p. 469).
London: Tso.
 Cervone, F. (2008). ITIL: a framework for managing digital library services. OCLC
Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, 24(2), 87-90.
 Domínguez-Mayo, F. J., Escalona, M. J., Mejías, M., Ross, M., & Staples, G. (2012). A
quality management based on the Quality Model life cycle. Computer Standards &
Interfaces, 34(4), 396-412.
 Heikkinen, M., 2018. Improving the Service Development and Delivery Processes: For
Better Internal Customer Involvement
 Khanna, P. and Desai, S., 2017. Implementing an ERP System in a Multi-business
Company in India: The Case of MBPEL. South Asian Journal of Management, 24(3),
pp.170-198.
 Mahy, Y., Ouzzif, M. and Bouragba, K., 2016, November. Supporting ITIL processes
implementation using business process management systems. In Systems of
Collaboration (SysCo), International Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
 Mesquida, A.L. and Mas, A., 2015. Integrating IT service management requirements into
the organizational management system. Computer standards & interfaces, 37, pp.80-91.
 Morris, H. and Gallacher, L., 2017. Itil Intermediate Certification Companion Study
Guide: Intermediate Itil Service Capability Exams. John Wiley & Sons.
15

 Nelson, R. and Staggers, N., 2016. Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional
Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.
 Ng, J.J., 2018. A deeper look into a project management tool: The Change Register. IEEE
Engineering Management Review, 46(1), pp.24-26.
 Purba, J.T. and Panday, R., 2015, March. Innovation Strategy Services Delivery: An
Empirical Case Study of Academic Information Systems in Higher Education Institution.
In International Conference on Soft Computing, Intelligence Systems, and Information
Technology (pp. 514-525). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
 Pushkala, D.A., Sridhar, S. and Sriharsha, A.P., 2015. APPLYING COSTOF QUALITY
FOR ITIL-AN ILLUSTRATIVE STUDY.
 Sahibudin, S., Sharifi, M., & Ayat, M. (2008, May). Combining ITIL, COBIT and
ISO/IEC 27002 in order to design a comprehensive IT framework in organizations. In
Modeling & Simulation, 2008. AICMS 08. Second Asia International Conference on (pp.
749-753). IEEE.
 Sallé, M., 2004. IT Service Management and IT Governance: review, comparative
analysis and their impact on utility computing. Hewlett-Packard Company, pp.8-17.
 Schuetze, R., 2017. Applied Fuzzy Management Methods for IT Service-Level-
Management. In Wirtschaftsinformatik in Theorie und Praxis (pp. 35-47). Springer
Vieweg, Wiesbaden.
 Sowa, F., Staples, R. and Zapfel, S. eds., 2018. The Transformation of Work in Welfare
State Organizations: New Public Management and the Institutional Diffusion of Ideas.
Routledge.
 Verlaine, B., Jureta, I. J., & Faulkner, S. (2014). Aligning a Service Provisioning Model
of a Service-Oriented System with the ITIL v. 3 Life Cycle. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1409.3725.
 Vezzoli, C., Ceschin, F., Diehl, J.C. and Kohtala, C., 2015. New design challenges to
widely implement ‘Sustainable Product–Service Systems’. Journal of Cleaner Production,
97, pp.1-12.
 Wager, K.A., Lee, F.W. and Glaser, J.P., 2017. Health care information systems: a
practical approach for health care management. John Wiley & Sons.
16

 Wahab, A. and Soomro, T.R., 2015. Implementation of Service Oriented Architecture
Using ITIL Best Practices. Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 10(6),
pp.765-770.
17