20 November 2009 - Axios Systems, the world's leading provider of IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions, today warned organisations that a failure to implement a Service Catalogue could significantly impact their service management systems, processes and strategies. Axios Systems believes that a Service Catalogue is the catalyst for accelerating ITIL maturity and Continual Service Improvement, and that without a Service Catalogue; organisations will struggle to demonstrate what services IT performs and how much they cost.
In a recent global study by Axios Systems, 63% of respondents claimed that cost reduction was the principal driver for IT projects over the next 12 months. A Service Catalogue can play a crucial role in cost reduction initiatives by driving greater efficiency within the enterprise, optimising assets and resources, and automating previously manual and time consuming tasks.
 
In using a Service Catalogue, organisations can benefit in the following ways:
·         Rapid deployment of new services
·         Enhanced customer adoption through a more intuitive experience
·         Faster provisioning of services from request to fulfilment
·         Reduced risk through stricter governance and approval process - ensuring compliance to corporate policies
·         Reduced costs by standardising service offerings and streamlining the fulfilment processes
·         Improved quality of service from cost transparency to complete visibility into status of requests
 
It is important that a Service Catalogue works with a system that can manage and monitor all these services to the highest possible level. This is where the need for an integrated CMDB is an important part of the strategy - they must work in tandem to deliver Best Practice ITSM.
 
In the November 2008 Forrester Research Report, Service Portfolio Management Links IT Capabilities To Business Value, Craig Symons states "A well-implemented Service Catalogue solution both fully integrates a customer-focused Service Catalogue and makes it actionable and operational - for determining the right portfolio of service offerings, negotiating service-level options with the business, tracking IT budgets and consumption, and managing the fulfilment of requests for services. The Service Catalogue provides transparency because it gives business executives a view into IT that describes the portfolio of services that IT provides in business-relevant terms that facilitate decision-making."
 
Tasos Symeonides, CEO, Axios Systems, said, "Organisations are in the midst of major cost reduction programs and a Service Catalogue can play a major part in that process. While the first step may be a Service Catalogue for IT services, the ability to extend enterprise-wide provides the opportunity to establish one service management system to rule them all. We believe that without a Service Catalogue, truly effective, long term cost reductions will be hard to create and maintain, as well as impact the success of ITSM and ITIL adoption within the organisation."
 
Symeonides continues, "All services must be clearly defined by the IT department and the business from cradle to grave, to ensure the Service Catalogue is as comprehensive from the outset as possible. A tool, such as the assyst Service Designer within the assyst Service Catalogue, enables organisations to intuitively design services using a pre-defined template library, which can be used for all business departments including IT, HR and Facilities Management."
 
Axios Systems and Sharon Taylor, ITIL V3 Chief Architect, hosted a live webcast on 5th November. A recording of the webcast is now available on the Axios Systems website.