IT Management Fundamentals
IT Services Management
Information technologies are as old as history itself and have played an important role in it. However, it is not until recent times that the automated management of information has made it a key tool for companies and institutions.
Information is probably the main source of business in the developed world, and in turn, this business generates huge quantities of information. Managing information properly is of strategic importance and should not be viewed as just one tool among many others.
Until recently IT infrastructure was limited to providing support services and was in some ways equated to office materials: important, and indispensable for the proper functioning of the organisation, but not much more.
However, today this has changed, and IT services generally represent a substantial share of business processes. Something that the advent of ubiquitious information networks is sometimes responsible for – for example, in the case of electronic banking.
The objectives of good IT services management should be:
- To provide adequate quality management
- To increase efficiency
- To align business processes and IT infrastructure
- To reduce the risks associated with IT services
- To generate business
ITIL was created as a code of good practice aiming to achieve these goals by means of:
- A systematic IT services focus centring on processes and procedures
- Establishing strategies for the operational management of IT infrastructure
