Introduction to ITIL: Early US Adopters Show Business Value

Home source: http://enterpriseleadership.org/content.php?cid=1445

Elizabeth Ferrarini is an IT consultant and freelance writer from Boston, Massachuetts. There have three examples this information about the ROI from the ITIL implementation. In Elizabeth’s report, he mention a news how ITIL support audiences getting benefits from Grater group. The news as following:

“Gartner Group describes ITIL as a roadmap for carrying out repeatable steps for managing technology. It sets out major procedures, goals, and directions for each of 10 different disciplines -- everything from incident management to service-level management -- that can turn IT into a service delivery system rather than an infrastructure made up of discrete processes. ITIL addresses those activities that an organization should do in order to keep processes in control. It can also help determine if a process is cost effective or not, and whether job descriptions should be changed.”

Also Elizabeth takes three successful examples to justify how ITIL framework improves the audience business. Three examples include Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar and Ontario Justice Enterprise. The information as next:

Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based consumer products giant, embarked on ITIL in 1999 with a worldwide effort to streamline the number of applications help desks have to support. In just the past four years, Procter & Gamble has reportedly saved about $500 million. A study of savings within Procter & Gamble's finance and accounting IT departments showed a six percent to eight percent cut in operating costs and a 15 percent to 20 percent reduction in technology personnel. Procter & Gamble's most recent ITIL endeavor involved root-cause analysis of trends in help-desk requests. This initiative resulted in a 10 percent reduction in help desk calls.

Caterpillar
In 2000, Caterpillar, the Fortune 100 construction equipment and engine manufacturer based in Peoria, Illinois, used ITIL methods to address incident management for Web-related services. The ITIL team found that internal service providers couldn't meet the target response time of 30 minutes between 60 percent and 70 percent of the time. Now service providers surpass the 90 percent mark.

Ontario Justice Enterprise
Ontario Justice Enterprise, an agency that handles the Canadian government's court system, adopted ITIL in 1999 to help manage growth and to improve service to its internal customers. With 1,000 locations across Ontario serving 25,000 individuals, the agency was under intense pressure to provide more efficient services. The ITIL initiative spawned a virtual service desk that helped slash support costs by 40 percent. The service desk improved service-level monitoring and service request processing, ensuring that everyone worked together as a service-delivery chain. As a result of this agency's experience, other Ontario federal government agencies have adopted ITIL principles.

To sum up, even though the previous examples no more details to talk about the ITIL five basic elements, business perspective, application management, service delivery, service support and infrastructure management, but those examples represent the values from induction the ITIL framework to the business is quite shine. I got more senses from Elizabeth’s report, but the feeling is rough and not enough.