The service portfolio of an IT company consists of three parts. These services include services in the development pipeline, operational services, and retired services. Through service portfolio management, service managers manage and control these services. It is part of the ITIL Lifecycle’s Service Strategy phase. This stage is where service managers decide which services should be made available and which ones will be supported. ITIL training includes service portfolio management. Once the service management team has made their decision, they can design the new services or update existing services in the ITIL Service Design phase.
Management of service portfolios: Compliance with other services
ITIL online courses explain that the Service Design phase ensures that new or modified services are consistent with existing services. Let’s take a banking example: You are changing the money withdrawal service at ATM’s as part a service portfolio management exercise. Bank ATMs and their service also use other services such as customer ID query and customer balance query. A change in the money withdrawal service that is not compatible with the existing customer ID queries and customer balance query services will cause problems in delivering services to customers. New services and updates to existing services must be compatible with existing services. This is something service managers should consider.
Compliance with new services
All other services in the service catalogue with interfaces, dependencies and support, etc., must also be included. The new service must be complied with. Inconsistency between services in the service portfolio can affect the delivery of services to end customers. Poor service portfolio management is responsible for inconsistencies among services. Poor portfolio management can result in a decrease in customer satisfaction and lower value for the business. Service managers need to be aware of this fact. A service can be rendered useless if it suffers from customer dissatisfaction and consequently loses revenue. This means that the company has spent resources that could have been used more effectively to create value or revenue elsewhere.
The ITIL Service Lifecycle is dependent on service portfolio management. It all starts with the ITIL Service Strategy Stage strategic decisions, but the heart of the ITIL Service Design Stage is where it really matters. Services that are not managed properly can be inconsistent with each other, and may not work optimally.
Services in the development pipeline should be managed alongside services that are operational. With the help of service portfolio management, these two types of services should be able to seamlessly merge. Although services that have been retired do not affect the interaction between the operational service and the ones in the design pipeline directly, there are lessons to be learned from retired services to improve new or upgraded services in your service pipeline. This is how service portfolio management encompasses all services within an IT business’s service portfolio.
Service Portfolio ManagementReview by: Janice Perez5 / 5 stars