Help defining Business Services and Service Offerings...

[scottatah]

Hello,

We're looking to move more towards a proper Business Service/Service Offering type of setup.   We've come up with the below list of Business Services which I'm 90% happy with.   Within each, we've began building out Service Offerings with BSM's.   This is simple for items like SharePoint or Exchange, but how do you handle something like MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, ServiceNow?   These are all common apps, but don't generally have a supporting infrastructure to draw out in a BSM.   Do these still get created as Service Offerings?   Furthermore, not ALL of these (I suspect around 500-700 different software/tools within our environment) will easily be grouped into our 10ish Business Services.   I've thought about grouping them under a generic Application Support Business Service, but I'm not 100% sold.   Alternatively, are these apps considered CI's the same as a switch or computer might be?  

Once I have this sorted out, I'm hoping to create very explicit definitions for Business Services and Service Offerings and create internal catalog items to allow ITIL staff to request additions with supporting business cases.  

Business Services (thus far):

Business Communications

Copy, Print, and Scanning

Desktop Computing

Document Management

Finance GL

Human Resources

Loan Origination

Mobile Computing

Network

Reporting & Analytics

Systems Security

Telecom

Web Development

I appreciate any advice and contributions.

Thanks,

Scott

[bernyalvarado]

Hi Scott, indeed... Office, Adobe Acrobat and ServiceNow are all CIs which you could categorize using various types of CI classes. I will often assign these Applications or as Software.

Thanks,

Berny

[JamesEcoStratus]

Scott Kolenc Berny Alvarado

Scott - More the most part i'd agree with Berny's suggestion of placing MS Office, Adobe, & ServiceNow under Software. I'd also recommend trying to reduce the number of those items which need to be mapped, making sure what your bringing into ServiceNow is actually needed and not just more data (You probably already had this mindset).

Secondly, (If you haven't already) I'd make sure your defining services correctly and mapping those Business Services to IT Services and below is some added content which hopefully helps.

Defining a Service

Two Service types:

1. IT Service — A service provided to one or more Customers of IT, by an IT Service Provider
2. Business Service — A service that is delivered to Business Customers by Business Units. Successful delivery of Business Services often depends on one or more IT Services

Defining a Service

• Meet with Key Business users of IT to understand the Service they consume or want to consume (what makes sense to them)

IT Service

• Approach IT Services from a customer's (customer of IT) perspective
• Move to business approach (i.e. Messaging, Service Desk, Monitoring, Hosting)

Business Service:

• Your Business should already have a listing of the Services they sell to their customers
• This information will be utilized to map to the IT Services previously defined

How are Services Used?

IT Services are used in the following processes:

        — Service Catalog

        — Business Services mapping

        — Configuration Management

        — Monitoring

        — Incident Management

        — Change Management

Business Services

• AFTER you've collected the Business Services that are sold to the outside customers. You will now need to map those to YOUR existing IT Services.
• Once Services are mapped (Configuration) you will be able to utilize this information in Incident & Change

What does this mean in ServiceNow?

• ServiceNow's Business Services model allows your organization to add lookup data right to the business service record; things like tier 1 assignment group, business approver, escalation support group, etc.
• I'd recommend starting simple and adding as your business requires. Business Services like - Software, Network Printer, Laptop, Desktop, Networking etc. are really just CIs and you will be able to relate them to Servers, Databases, and other CIs as business demand increases and becomes more complicated.
  • Stay away from Software Application Suites like Adobe or Microsoft Office - The problem is usually with PhotoShop, Excel or Visio.
• Keep in mind where Tier 1 issues are routed and package those you can together.
  • As an example, you may have a lot of Incidents or Questions for desktop applications that will be assigned to Help/Service Desk resources or a Desktop Support group.
  • However have specialized applications or services - like Outlook/Exchange routed to a specialized group.
• Try to keep your categories to no more than 10. One issue I've seen is organizations create multiple levels (category, subcategory, item, subitem, etc) which ultimately describe the things involved and not the Problem.
• In most of these cases they didn't really need a level of subcategory since you have a Short Description and a Description field for details.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Create an environment to shift from a technology to service based culture

• Ability to make informed decisions through improved visibility

• Improved communications and inter-team workings
• Ensures everyone speaks the same language
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Clearer view of current capability / Information about Services
• Greater flexibility for the business through improved understanding of IT support
• Enhanced reporting capabilities
• Improve Availability
• Cost-justified infrastructure and services
• Process maturity benefits that are repeatable and consistent
• A strong foundation for automations
• Enforced adherence to process

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

• We have a strong foundation for a Service Catalog
• We have a clear understanding of what the Business Units value and at what cost
• Enables you to answer the questions
  • How can I clearly articulate the services we offer?
  • How can I ensure delivery on time and with quality?
  • How can I understand how services are performing to address Current demand?
  • Better understanding of areas to improve?
  • How can I determine the cost for the services we offer?
  • How can I ensure every one is on the same page with prioritization?

If you found this helpful or addresses your questions I'd appreciate it if you could mark as such.

Best of luck with ServiceNow project and let me know if more information is needed and/or how things turn out.

Regards,

James

[rwagner]

How and where do you edit the Business Services / Service Offerings?

[Tom Alday]

There is a OoB application module called "Business Services". Business services are stored in the cmdb_ci_service table and Service Offerings in the service_offering table.