The definitive truth? Business Capabilities vs. Business Services

Daniel Carvalho
Kilo Guru

‎11-10-2020 09:37 AM

Hello All

The document "Application Portfolio Management (APM) Product View and use cases for CSDM V3" brings us a very straight forward and hard-put definition:

Frequently Asked Questions
• What is the difference between a Business Capability and a Business Service?
Business Services are what IT provides to the customer, while Business Capabilities describe what the business does.

But, so far, all available examples are very ambiguous:

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HR Business Service Example - Onboarding

Finance Business Service Example - Financial accounting

Health Business Service Example - Registration

By simply reading "Onboarding", "Financial accounting" and "Registration" I really can not rest 100% sure that those represent "things" that IT provides to the (internal) customer (and/or user).

It could be a matter of language barrier, but the semantics of those examples seems more prone to the meaning of "business processes / business functions" then of "IT resources / IT data processing features/capacities".

Can someone help on setting a definitive understanding on this best-use approach (according CSDM) of root cmdb_ci_service?

Cordial

Daniel

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kjh1138
Tera Expert

‎11-10-2020 10:09 AM

Definitions of these terms are somewhat fuzzy depending upon the source, and ServiceNow hasn't added a great deal of clarity.  I think of a Service as an interface for and an SLA definition of value delivered to the consumer of the Service. 

I think of a Capability as something an organization or technology has the ability or potential to do. Like yourself, I think if the term Function when describing what someone or something does.  Not to be confused with Process which is the how.  In the ServiceNow context, Capability and Function seem to be effectively synonymous.

Interested to hear other perspectives/thoughts

 

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Daniel Carvalho
Kilo Guru
In response to kjh1138

‎11-10-2020 10:27 AM

Hi

"a Service as an interface for and an SLA definition of value delivered to the consumer of the Service"

I was under the perception that the Service Offering would be the that mentioned interface.

Cordial

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kjh1138
Tera Expert
In response to Daniel Carvalho

‎11-10-2020 11:53 AM

Hi Daniel, in the ServiceNow (and probably ITIL more generally?) context you're correct but I was speaking more conceptually.

alexrozov
Tera Expert

‎11-10-2020 10:13 AM

Hi Daniel

I think you are raising a very good question.

For example, if we look at onboarding in the example there is a 1-2 relationship between the capability and the business service.

I can see of course situations where the business service will be "hr services" and it can support multiple capabilities such as onboarding, offboarding or internal job move.

 

But I definitely agree that a more clear set of definitions and examples is called for.

 

I would like to add to this a question on if and how business processes come into play.

the ServiceNow CMDB does have a business process class although OOTB it has no suggested relationships, and no specific attributes for the class.

I was really hoping to see business process being added to CSDM 3.0 since this is a common term that is used by many organizations.

and I'm really not clear on if and how this should also come into play and if there is a distinct difference between a business capability and a business process

 

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