CSDM 4 - Technical Consumer vs. Business Consumers

[simplyrik]

After all this time, I am still trying to determine what classification to put certain Services into (Business Service vs. Technical Service).

CSDM 4 provides more to think about in this regard that doesn't really answer the question I am looking for.

• Business service is a service type that is published to business users, and it typically underpins one or more business capabilities.
• Technical service is a service type that is published to service owners and typically underpins one or more business or application services.

On the surface, it seems straight forward, but I am trying to understand certain IT Services that aren't necessarily "Technical" In nature.  Like PPM or IT Service Management, or Knowledge Management Services.  Some Services can be published to both Business and Technical Consumers.  Does that make them Business Services or Technical Services? If we evaluate them in the same like as EMail which has traditionally been classified as a Business Service, then that works.

I have been torn by not focusing on who it is published to, but more about who "Consumes/Sells" - Business vs. Who "Supports" - Technical.

I started looking at the TBM Counsel's ATUM Framework which breaks Services into different Categories.  I could align the defined Services as:

BUSINESS

• Workplace; Client Computing, Communication & Collaboration, Connectivity
• Business; Product Mgmt; Sales & Marketing, Manufacturing & Delivery; Customer Service
• Shared & Corporate; Finance, Workforce, Vendor & Procurement, etc....
• Delivery; Strategy & Planning; Development (?); Support (?), Operations
• Security & Compliance; IAM, Cyber & Incident Response (?)

TECHNICAL

• Platform; Data, Application
• Infrastructure; Data Center, Network, Compute, Storage

I fully understand that each company & industry will differ, but ensuring that Services/Offerings are defined and linked to the appropriate Service Taxonomy Node, based on ATUM should be somewhat aligned.

[Steve MacDonald]

@simplyrik In some cases they could be both Technical Services AND Business Services.

I think there are a couple of things to consider here:

• Technical Services fall in the 'Manage' section of the CSDM, so Technical Services are more about the operational / support aspect of the technical objects. 
• Business Services fall into the Sell / Consume section, so it is more about what users are requesting / using. 
• Business Users also include those folks inside IT, so you could have a Business Service of 'Compute' (with BSOs of 'Windows Compute', 'Linux Compute', etc.) that users would consume.

In this regard, your PPM or ITSM services are Business Service Offerings. You will also have a Technical Service Offering that includes the technical services (Compute) that support the Application Service. 

Steve

[simplyrik]

Thanks Steve, so I am not going crazy, it is somewhat subjective based on the organization/company/customers.  There is a tendency to overthink this sometimes.

[Steve MacDonald]

I overthought this exact same one for quite a while before someone pointed out to me that 'IT is part of the business'. It became clear to me at that point. 

Glad I could help!

Steve

[Adi Schmid]

Currently we have the same discussions. We are an internal IT service provider. As @Steve MacDonald mentioned, IT can also be part of the business. But we also have services that the business uses as a technology consumer. This includes, for example, servers that we offer as IaaS.
We also have another mixed form in the SAP environment. Here, the key user organisation from the business takes over the 1st level support. The business takes over classic IT activities here, but from the point of view of costs and responsibility, it is clearly located outside of IT.

We are in the walk phase and have only built up the orange part and are now thinking about how we can move into the green part of the model. We only want to build objects that generate clear added value for us.