Taking IT4IT on the ITSM Journey

The IT world is constantly evolving, and so is the role of IT in any business. Trends like digital transformation, value chain integration, multisource landscapes and service integration enforce the need for a holistic, consistent and commonly accepted architecture for IT management. The IT4IT standard, developed by The Open Group, is currently recognized as the most comprehensive solution to address this challenge. If adopted widely by enterprise architects, service providers and tool vendors, IT4IT will help organizations to develop and maintain end-to-end IT management systems. These will ensure compatibility and consistency within organizations and in their relationships with third parties (suppliers, partners, integrators and customers). It will allow for focus on the true role of IT: to deliver value through services, thus making the company more competitive and innovative.

IT service managers can use IT4IT instantly for the benefit of their business and their customers. There is no need to wait until the standard is widely adopted by all parties involved. IT4IT provides a set of concepts and solutions that can be valuable for ITSM development initiatives in any organization today, regardless of the maturity and scope of their IT service management system. Used together, ITIL^® and IT4IT will help organizations to get the most out of available information technologies in a constantly changing, complex IT and business context.

We are sure that the only way to achieve effective and efficient management of IT in this rapidly evolving business and technology environment is to combine available management standards, frameworks and practices, adapting and adopting them for the benefits of all stakeholders. We believe that there is no single overarching source of universal knowledge and that all frameworks available should be treated by practitioners as complementary rather than competing.

In this paper, we show how IT4IT can help IT service managers at each stage of the service lifecycle. The paper is addressed to ITSM professionals who are familiar with the ITIL structure, scope and content and have an awareness of the IT4IT standard.