IT Service Personnel: Changing the Culture from Technology to Service

Abstract

IT service management best practice frameworks such as the IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) aim to improve the quality of service to customers. This study reports on recent surveys and case studies of organizations which have embarked on IT service management improvement. It highlights specific difficulties experienced by organizations in changing the orientation of staff to customer service rather than technology. Six factors were found to be critical in achieving an effective service-oriented philosophy. The factors are support from senior management; the threat or opportunity to outsource IT services; integration of processes to provide end-to-end service; involvement of business stakeholders; culture change of IT staff to service excellence; and the redesign of processes prior to investing in tools.