What is a Service Catalogue?
In ITIL v3, the Service Catalogue forms one of three components of the Service Portfolio (alongside the Service Pipeline and Retired Services).
The Service Catalogue is developed during the Service Strategy stage of the Service Management Lifecycle and maintained during the Service Design stage as part of the Service Catalogue Management process. It provides a comprehensive ‘Customer view’ of all current / active services provided to them by their Service Providers (both internal and managed third parties). Content includes:
- A detailed definition of all current services
- Customers / Users of the services
- The business processes that are enabled by the services
- Service status
- Interfaces to other services
- Dependencies between services
- Intended use
- Provider responsibilities
Benefits
The many benefits include:
- Detailed information of all active services
- Articulation of the objectives for each service
- Confirmation of the of Service Provider(s) commitments, deliverables and accountabilities
- Identification of vital business functions (VBFs) and services and their priority
- Identification of linked services, systems and dependencies
- Differentiation between transversal services (used by multiple Customers e.g. an email system) and those used by particular Customers
- Act as a starting point for other initiatives e.g. Service Level Requirement definition, financial budgeting and charging activities etc.
- Can be used as an effective portal for Customers to request access to services
- An enabler to communicate policies, guidelines and information
- Confirmation exercise to ensure Customer and Providers agree on what services are being provided and used
- An effective marketing tool
Types of Service Catalogue
There are generally two distinct Service Catalogue views.
Business Service Catalogue
| A Customer view |
| IT services delivered to a particular Customer(s) |
| Linking services to business processes and business units |
Technical Service Catalogue
| A more technical view than the Business Service Catalogue |
| It underpins the Business Service Catalogue |
| Also contains details of IT services delivered to a particular Customer(s) |
| Contains information re shared services, components, CIs etc. required to support the service(s) |
| Identifies parties involved in the provision and support of the services |
Whitmore Solutions Related Services
- Undertaking of an audit to identify all current / active services
- Identification of business information relating to each service e.g. the Business Owners and Users, Lines of Service etc.
- Identification of the IT Owners, responsibilities and support commitments for each service
- Confirmation of criticality / classification of each service
- Record the Warranty requirements for each service e.g. availability, capacity, security and continuity requirements
- Recording of related services targets e.g. SLAs / SLRs, OLAs and third party contracts
- Record service cost and charging information (if appropriate)
- Identify related metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Creation / maintenance of an electronic / hard copy Service Catalogue
- Undertaking of periodic audits for accuracy / completeness
For find out more information about other Whitmore Solutions Services or Products, visit our Service Pages on our web site at http://www.whitmoresolutions.co.uk//
