What is IT service delivery?

IT service delivery is the way a corporation provides users access to IT services, such as applications,
data storage and other business resources. IT service delivery covers design, development,
deployment, operation and retirement. Many IT professionals play a role in the various stages of
service delivery. Quality of IT service delivery is gauged by metrics included in a service-level
agreement (SLA).

An IT service management (ITSM) framework, such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), dictates the
processes, people and products involved in IT service delivery. The IT team enforces both preferred
and prohibited approaches in accordance with established regulations, compliance and governance
requirements or best industry practices.

A formalized system for IT service delivery benefits an organization with large or complex software
and hardware deployments, diverse system requirements, dynamic IT configuration changes, high
uptime requirements, and demanding user expectations. Business units have options outside of the
dedicated IT team, including public cloud hosting and software-as-a-service products.

However, part of IT service delivery is ensuring a given product or service meets the data and
security control standards of the business. Shadow IT -- when services are procured outside of
sanctioned means -- exposes the business to regulatory and compliance vulnerability.

IT service delivery vs. IT service management

From a practical perspective, IT service delivery is defined almost identically to ITSM. Delivery
references a particular focus on service quality to establish and ensure the terms of an SLA. Does the
IT service provider deliver what the user -- referred to as the IT service customer -- expects?

By comparison, ITSM is the preferred term for how IT service providers operate and continuously
improve upon all the services offered. ITSM aims for increased efficiency and benefits of the service
delivery to the business and its users. In common usage, this subtle distinction is blurred.

The IT service delivery platform

The products and resources involved in a service's lifecycle are referred to as the IT service delivery
platform.

IT service delivery tools -- interchangeably referred to as ITSM tools -- generally cover diverse
functional areas, such as the following:
The overlapping categories of help desk and service desk.

A service catalog, which is a collection of services offered to users, sometimes based on role or
permissions.

Knowledge and issue management.

A configuration management database.

Workflow management to follow queries and requests from development to delivery.

Performance and log monitoring to track the behavior and availability of each application and
service.

IT operations and data center personnel also can improve IT service delivery via technologies that
provision IT resources faster, such as containers, virtualization and cloud.

Examples of help desk and service desk tools with diverse IT service delivery capabilities include
ServiceNow, BMC Remedy, Cherwell Service Management and Datto Autotask PSA.

IT service delivery and SLAs

IT services generally carry a measurable cost for the business to offer, which encourages the use of a
guarantee or promise of a service's performance, availability and uptime. An SLA is the primary
method to codify the expectations for a given IT service and detail the relationship between its
provider and the customer. For example, a business that requires IT to deliver a service with 99.5%
availability permits up to 3.65 hours of downtime per month. Availability goals are generally set to a
minimum of 99.5%, but often go in excess of 99.9%.
SLAs exist between external, third-party providers and business users. They are also commonplace
internally between the IT organization responsible for the service and constituent business units.
Businesses and users rely on reporting to verify adherence to the SLA's terms, or to prove a breach.
SLAs can stipulate terms for remediation of a breach of contract, such as payment credits.

An organization can also track the return on investment in an IT service, such as whether the service
drives business growth or reduces risk, and if it does so at an acceptable total cost of ownership.

IT service delivery roles

In some organizations, an IT service delivery manager oversees and improves the ITSM framework
and delivery platform, but this task also falls to more expansive titles, such as IT manager and
director. IT service delivery is often tied to user satisfaction, business reputation and revenue
generation, so IT service delivery is a high priority for the chief information officer, as well as the IT
organization. IT operations, first- and second-level support staff and diverse other roles are involved
in service delivery. Developers can also play a part to create or customize services.

In addition to technological advances to improve IT service delivery, a corporation can invest in

revamping business processes and operations teams to respond proactively to issues and changes
throughout an application's lifecycle. For example, if service performance declines due to increased
use, the IT service delivery team can identify the issue and work with business leaders to budget and
provision additional resources to prevent capacity constraints from becoming detrimental to the
business.

What Are the Top IT Service Management Roles and

Responsibilities?

 IT Manager
Superior Roles  ITSM Management

 Business Relationship Manager

 Demand Manager
Roles of Service Strategy  Financial Manager
 IT Steering Committee
 Service Portfolio Manager
 Service Strategy Manager
  Availability Manager
 Capacity Manager
 Compliance Manager
 Control Responsible
 Information Security Manager
 IT Service Continuity Manager
Roles of Service Design  Risk Manager
 Service Catalog Manager
 Service Design Manager
 Service Level Manager
 Service Owner
 Solution Architect
 Supplier Manager

 Change Advisory Board

 Change Manager
 Change Owner
 Configuration Manager
 Knowledge Manager
Roles of Service Transition  Project Manager
 Project Owner
 Release Manager
 Service Transition Manager
 Solution Developer
 Technical Architect
 Test Manager

 1st Level Support

 2nd Level Support
 3rd Level Support
 Access Manager
 Application Manager
Roles of Service Operation  Incident Manager
 IT Facilities Manager
 IT Operations Manager
 IT Operator
 Major Incident Team
 Problem Manager

Roles of Continual Service Improvement  Continual Service Improvement

Manager
  Process Manager
 Process Owner

 IT Service Consumer
External Roles (outside the IT Service Provider's  Prospect
organization)  Supplier
 User

Superior Roles

1. IT Manager

Manage information technology and computer systems.

Manage IT, staff, by recruiting, training, etc.

Design, develop, and implement coordinated systems, policies and procedures.

2. ITSM Management

ITSM management means the group of leading persons inside IT who are in charge of the disciplines
of IT service management. It has more significance in ITSM Roles.

3. Roles of Service Strategy

In service strategy, there is a good relationship with the consumers, their needs are identified, and
they work with service level managers.

4. Business Relationship Manager

Business Relationship Managers perform the ITSM roles by maintaining customer relations. They
identify customer requirements. ITIL Foundation Training Online helps in building a career.

5. Demand Manager

They are responsible for:

Identification and understanding

Prognosis

Technically and economically influence.

6. Financial Manager

The Financial Manager is responsible as regards:

Budgeting

Accounting and cost control

Charging of deliverables provided to the customer.

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development.

7. IT Steering Committee

IT Steering Committee is responsible for:

IT service strategy

Priorities of IT service development

8. Service Portfolio Manager

The creation and upkeep of the service portfolio are the responsibility of the service portfolio
manager. They ensure that the service portfolio supports the achievement of business goals by IT
Service Consumers.

9. Service Strategy Manager

The Service Strategy Manager supports in definition, maintenance, and further development of the
IT Service strategy.

Roles of Service Design

1. Availability Manager

The Availability Manager is responsible for defining, analyzing, and planning IT services.

2. Capacity Manager

The Capacity Manager is responsible for ensuring IT Services, and IT Infrastructure can deliver the
agreed service.

3. Compliance Manager

The Compliance Manager's responsibility covers:

Proper and consistent accounting

Obeying procurement guidelines

Obeying environmental regulations and law

Obeying other statutory provisions

Obeying other company-specific regulations

4. Control Responsible

The Control Responsible accounts for the proper execution and reporting of the results of the
security controls within their responsibility.

5. Information Security Manager

The duty of the information security manager is to:

Ensure the confidentiality.

Integrity

Availability of IT services

IT infrastructure

IT assets

6. IT Service Continuity Manager

The IT service continuity manager is responsible for making arrangements for risks that impact IT
services and plans to recover IT services in case of disaster.

7. Risk Manager

The risk manager is responsible for controlling the risks, including assessing the business's IT assets,
defining the risk monitoring procedures, etc.

8. Service Catalog Manager

The Service Catalog Manager is responsible for developing and maintaining the service catalog.

9. Service Design Manager

The Service Design Manager is responsible for ensuring new existing services are designed and
following the IT service strategy.

10. Service Level Manager

The Service Level Manager is responsible for setting up executable service level arrangements.

11. Service Owner

The service owner is responsible for maintaining the service strategy and portfolio.

12. Solution Architect

The solution architect is responsible for specifications of technologies, architectures, customization,

etc.

13. Supplier Manager

The IT service management job responsibilities fulfilled by supplier management include evaluating
external suppliers, ensuring fulfillment of contracts by external suppliers, etc.

Roles of Service Transition

1. Change Advisory Board

The Change Advisory Board is a team that does the ITSM Roles by evaluating, prioritizing, scheduling,
and releasing changes.

2. Change Manager

The change manager is responsible for controlling and authorizing all the changes in the IT services.

3. Change Owner

The change owner has the authority to request any change if required.

4. Configuration Manager

The configuration manager provides the information utilized by IT Service Management about the IT
services and IT infrastructure.

5. Knowledge Manager

The knowledge manager’s responsibility is to ensure that the IT organization can.

Collect,
Analyze,

Classify,

Store, and

Provide knowledge and information.

6. Project Manager

The Project Manager has the responsibility for planning and coordinating all resources.

7. Project Owner

The project owner is responsible for recording the achievement of the project targets.

8. Release Manager

The main ITSM role of the release manager is to ensure the integrity of the live environment
protection.

9. Service Transition Manager

The Service Transition Manager coordinates

Change movement,

Transition planning and support, and

Know how to manage so that service strategy and design can be achieved.

10. Solution Developer

The solution developer is responsible for giving IT applications and systems, i.e., customization of
standard software products.

11. Technical Architect

The technical architect is responsible for making the design of IT infrastructure components.

12. Test Manager

The Test Manager ensures the following:

Functionality

Integration
Interoperability

Usability

Documentation

Operation

Roles of Service Operation

1. 1st Level Support

The 1st Level Support registers and classifies incoming notifications. They transfer it to 2nd level
support and also process requests of users.

2. 2nd Level Support

The 2nd Level Support passed on the incident to Problem Management for further processing.

3. 3rd Level Support

3rd Level Support focuses on the goal of restoring a failed IT service as quickly as possible.

4. Access Manager

The access manager is responsible for approving the permission to use IT services, data, etc.

5. Application Manager

The application manager is responsible for the operations of the user support resources in 2nd level
support and further development.

6. Incident Manager

If the IT system fails in case of any incidents, then the incident manager is primarily responsible for
restoring the IT system.

7. IT Facilities Manager

The IT facilities manager is responsible for physical infrastructure like-

Computer rooms

Power supply

Cooling
Access control etc.

8. IT Operations Manager

The IT operations manager is responsible for overall IT operations and ensuring that the operational
tasks are done properly and on time.

9. IT Operator

IT operator performs the tasks of manual event monitoring, backups, installation of standard
equipment, etc.

10. Major Incident Team

The major incident team consists of IT executives and technical experts to resolve any major
incidents.

11. Problem Manager

The problem manager avoids the occurrence of any incidents, providing information about any
errors, etc.

12. Roles of Continual Service Improvement

Continual service improvement is a technique for locating and putting into action opportunities to
enhance IT operations and services and monitoring the results of these actions over time.

13. Continual Service Improvement Manager

The Continual Service Improvement Manager's responsibility is to manage improvements to the IT

services and the service management processes.

14. Process Manager

The Process Manager's responsibility is to plan and coordinate all operational process-related work.

15. Process Owner

The process owner is responsible for friction-free and goal-oriented operations.

External Roles – Outside the IT Service Provider’s Organization

1. IT Service Consumer
They consume the services of the IT Service Provider.

2. Prospect

This includes possible future IT service consumers.

3. Supplier

The scope of supply is defined by the external suppliers of infrastructure and operating supplies.

4. User

The user of an IT system within the business organization, external or internal.

How Do These ITSM Roles Work Together?

ITSM Roles work together by-

 Front facing role in which there is direct interaction with people.

 Back-end role in which people directly deal with technology.
 Some are a hybrid of the above two roles based on the specialist nature.
 Some roles are directly related to services.