IT is one of the most critical elements within any business, demanding a practical approach to service management. This practical approach is found in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a process-based, best practices framework developed for IT service management. This white paper will address the details of ITIL, the associated benefits of this platform and the 10 steps to a successful ITIL implementation.

Now into its third decade, ITIL, or Information Technology Infrastructure Library, was created in the 1980's under the guidance of the British Office of Government Commerce. ITIL is a method for organizing and delivering your IT services using best practices to help you give your team the utmost in efficiency, quality and collaboration.

This briefing paper explores some of the major challenges facing those who manage help desks. It looks at the impact of new ways of seeking and delivering the service, and assesses a number of emerging issues which will influence their management in the coming years. Its recommendations will equip managers with a clear agenda to consider the implications for their organizations.

The growing movement to improve IT service delivery and support has led many companies to rethink the structure and composition of their service desks. When planning such a reorganization, IT management must keep in mind that customers of the support organization do not have technology problems, they have business problems. The technology is merely a tool that these users need to use to accomplish a business task. With this in mind, the result is a set of basic principles that should guide organizational design and planning.

Knowledge Management is a methodology for capturing, optimizing, delivering and maintaining a collection of information that provides guidance or action, and is of value to the organization. When a support professional has access to knowledge, they can quickly assist customers with problems and inquiries. As a result Knowledge Management has become an essential practice within today's support centers. Customer service and support software allow companies to manage the interactions with customers and employees. When combined with Knowledge Management, the support center is able to improve efficiencies, increase satisfaction, and reduce the cost of service.

Whether you are building a Help Desk from scratch, consolidating a group of existing Help Desks or seeking ways to improve your support operations, this chapter can help. We will provide guidelines for how to structure your Help Desk and determine the support architecture to build a best-in-class operation that will efficiently provide high-value service to your company by increasing customer productivity. Key considerations include the pros and cons of a central-point-of-contact, consolidated Help Desk; whether to consolidate physically, logically or implement a virtual Help Desk; keeping your support in-house, outsourcing, or implementing a combination of both.

Business Expectations Rise, Pressure on IT Intensifies Improving business processes is the number one business priority for the fourth consecutive year in Gartner’s worldwide survey of 1,500 Chief Information Officers (CIOs). Of the CIOs surveyed, 83% anticipate significant change in their enterprise over the next three years. Register now to download the whitepaper: Business Expectations Rise, Pressure on IT Intensifies