Service Portfolios and Service Catalogs: What's the difference?

[David Thigpen]

As the Product Manager for the IT Service Portfolio Management application in ServiceNow, I frequently hear questions that are not necessarily related to IT service portfolios, but more about IT service catalogs.  What really is the difference?  Many persons and organizations seem to use the terms interchangeably.  I’d like to take a moment and discuss their differences and how those are reflected within ServiceNow.

The IT Service Request Catalog
An IT service request catalog generally represents those things that an end user can currently request from IT. “Those things” can take many forms: access to systems, replacement consumables, new service consumption, answers to questions, and support from various IT services and processes like Incident Management.  Are all those things “IT Services?”   Generally, in some form, yes, even if they may not have been formally identified as such. If I go to the IT service catalog and order a product like a new laptop or keyboard replacement, is that part of a service as well?  I would consider it a deliverable of an IT Procurement service.  

IT service request catalogs provide a lot of value for an organization.  They help IT departments be more efficient, automate approval and procurement processes, and help standardize the interactions between IT departments and their user communities.  They also help manage expectations by letting end users know exactly what they can expect from the IT department.  Setting up an IT service request catalog is one of the first things many ServiceNow customers do.

The IT Service Portfolio
But do those items that are shown within the IT service request catalog truly represent all that IT does? Remember, the ITIL definition of an IT Service Portfolio includes: “The complete set of services that is managed by a service provider. The service portfolio is used to manage the entire lifecycle of all services, and includes three categories: service pipeline (proposed or in development), service catalogue (live or available for deployment), and retired services.“  So actually, the IT service request catalog (live, available) is only a portion of the entirety of the IT service portfolio.  

Notably, the IT service portfolio also includes IT services that are in various stages of evaluation or development.  This can include significant changes to existing services and their offerings.  Adding a new offering for an existing service is a good example. Since these new or changed services are not yet ready, they will not be shown in the service request catalog, but they still are consuming part of the iT budget and should be considered as part of the portfolio (in development.)  Also, that evaluation process is intended to make sure we don’t somehow end up with a new service capability that duplicates something we already have.  IT departments will also need to evaluate services and offerings in order to determine if they can be eliminated (retired) or sourced elsewhere.

Some services provided by an IT department may not have representation in the service request catalog simply because they do not have any end user consumable components.  These “unseen” services are still part of the IT service portfolio.

Final thoughts
A Service Request Catalog and an IT Service Portfolio are not the same thing and serve very different purposes.

IT Service Request Catalog

• Represents consumable IT service offerings, generally by the end user community
• Shows only those items that are available for consumption “right now”
• Organized in a manner that supports searching, browsing and ordering
• Built around the use cases of request and fulfillment

IT Service Portfolio

• Represents all IT services that now or historically have consumed IT budget
• Includes services that are under consideration or development
• Organized in a manner that encapsulates ownership, accountability and expenditure
• Built around the use cases of service life-cycle, executive communication and portfolio optimization

I hope this new understanding helps you get more out of your ServiceNow investment!