ITIL/Foundation/Service Management/Stakeholders

This lesson introduces the main definitions used to define the service stakeholders involved in Information Technology Infrastructure Library 2011.

Objectives and Skills

Objectives and skills for this service stakeholders section of ITIL Foundation include:

• Define and explain the concept of stakeholders in service management
• Define and explain the concept of provider in service management
• Describe differences between the various service provider types.
• Define and explain the concept of internal and external customers
• Define and explain the concept of user in service management

Activities

1. Review the key terms, then the questions below.
2. Use the Discuss page to post comments and questions regarding this lesson.

Key Terms

“ A person who has an interest in an organization, project, IT service etc. Stakeholders may be interested in the activities, targets, resources or deliverables. Stakeholders may include customers, partners, employees, shareholders, owners etc. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

Stakeholders are all people, organization or others who are involved in the business process as customer, provider …

Service providers

“ An organization supplying services to one or more internal customers or external customers. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

A service provider is a group that provides organizations with consulting, legal, real estate, education, communications, storage, processing, and many other services.

Any IT service could be considered as a service provider delivering an outcome to a customer

IT professionals differentiate between service providers by categorizing them as type I, II, or III. The three service types are recognized by the IT industry although specifically defined by ITIL and the US Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Type I service provider

“ An internal service provider that is embedded within a business unit. There may be several Type I service providers within an organization. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

As they are funded by business unit overheads, the type I providers avoid costs and risks generally faced when dealing with external customers. By the way, they are supposed to have a good understanding of the business requirement that fund them.

Type II service provider

“ An internal service provider that provides shared IT services to more than one business unit. Type II service providers are also known as shared service units. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

Shared services refers to the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group where that service is also used in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and the providing department effectively becomes an internal service provider.

Typical shared service units are human resources, finance, IT and other services in a company that are shared between several business units.

Type III service provider

“ A service provider that provides IT services to external customers. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

External providers are often used to not have to support assets needed to provide a service. They are anyway more focused on costs and risks they have to take care on behalf of the customers and are more difficult to have a good understanding of the business requirement than internal providers.

Customer

“ Someone who buys goods or services. The customer of an IT service provider is the person or group who defines and agrees the service level targets. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

Here also and as already stated previously, a distinction is made between customers who share the same organization than providers and others.

Internal customers

“ A customer who works for the same business as the IT service provider. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

The internal customer is someone or a group of people who will get the core service and who are in the same company or organization than the provider.

External customer

“ A customer who works for a different business from the IT service provider. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

An external customer is actually paying money to receive the service and therefore generates direct revenue.

User

“ A person who uses the IT service on a day-to-day basis. Users are distinct from customers, as some customers do not use the IT service directly. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

"ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2014.

Users are actually those who will actually use the service. Very often in a company, the customer will be the purchasing department that will buy the service to the provider, but it will be another department who will use it.

Supplier

“ A third party responsible for supplying goods or services that are required to deliver IT services. Examples of suppliers include commodity hardware and software vendors, network and telecom providers, and outsourcing organizations. ” — "ITIL® 2011 glossary and abbreviations - English". December 11, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2014.

While providers will deliver the core service, the supplier will deal with the supporting services, infrastructure and others.

Review Questions

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1 To which service provider types apply the following characteristics?

Type I	Type II	Type III
			Avoid risks and costs generated when dealing with a customer.
			Funded by another department of the supplier.
			Service revenues come from an external customer.
			Takes care of the profit generated by delivering the service.

2 To which customer type apply the following statements?

Internal	External
		Challenge the provider to get the lowest price for the expected level of service.
		Generates direct revenues.
		Integer provider business strategy.
		Service has to be provided with a SLA.

3 What are the various service stakeholders role?

Customer	Provider	Supplier	User
				Order the service.
				Provide supporting services and infrastructure parts needed by the service.
				Deliver the service.
				Consume on a daily basis the service.

References

ITIL 2011 Foundation Service Management
Service composition		Processes functions and roles