ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification Course

Lesson 3: The Four Dimensions of Service Management

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 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Identify the four dimensions of service management

Examine the first dimension, that is, organizations and people

Assess how information and technology affect the service management

Evaluate the importance of the third dimension, that is, partners and suppliers

Explain the value streams and processes of service management

Discover the impact of external factors on service management

The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 1: Introduction to Four Dimensions of Service Management
 The Four Dimensions of Service Management

• The four dimensions of service management are relevant to and impact upon all
elements of the SVS.
• The process improvements must be planned with proper consideration for the
people, partners, and technology involved.
• There are multiple aspects of service management, and all of these must be
considered for an organization’s growth and success.

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 The Four Dimensions of Service Management

• ITIL defines four dimensions that collectively are

critical to the effective and efficient facilitation of
value for customers and other stakeholders in the
form of products and services.
• These are:
o Organizations and people
o Information and technology
o Partners and suppliers
o Value streams and processes.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 The Four Dimensions of Service Management

• The four dimensions represent perspectives relevant

to the SVS, including the service value chain and ITIL
practices.
• They are constrained or influenced by several
external factors that are often beyond the control of
the SVS.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 The Four Dimensions of Service Management

• Organizations must address all the four dimensions

to meet the expectations of quality or efficiency.
• The four dimensions do not have sharp boundaries
and may overlap. They interact in unpredictable
ways, depending on the level of complexity and
uncertainty in which an organization operates.
• It is important to note that the four dimensions of
service management apply to all services being
managed as well as to the SVS.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management

In the upcoming slides, you will be looking at a detailed

overview of each dimension.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 2: Organizations and People
 Organizations and People

The first dimension of service management is organizations and people.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 Organizations and People

An organization is an established structure with a group of people. It has its own values,
functions, responsibilities, and a workforce that supports the achievement of its objectives.

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 Organizations and People

• The complexity of organizations is growing, and it is important to

ensure that the way an organization is structured and managed, as
well as its roles, responsibilities, and systems of authority and
communication, is well defined and supports its overall strategy and
operating model.
• The effectiveness of an organization cannot be assured by a formally
established structure or system of authority alone.
• The organization also needs a culture that supports its objectives, and
the right level of capacity and competency among its workforce.

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 The Leader

A leader advocates values that help and motivate people to work in desirable ways.

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 Organizational Culture

Creates Shared Values Promotes a Culture of Facilitates

and Attitudes Trust and communication
Transparency

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 People

People are a key element of the first dimension.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 People

Be attentive not only to the skills and Understand the interfaces

competencies of teams or individual between their specializations
members, but also to management and roles
and leadership styles

Have proper levels of

Have good communication and collaboration and coordination
collaboration skills among people

Have a broad general knowledge

Update people’s skills and of the other areas of the
competencies over a period of time organization, combined with a
deep specialization in certain
fields

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 Organizations and People

The organizations and people dimension of a service management covers:

Roles and Formal Staffing and

organizational Culture
responsibilities competencies
structure

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 3: Information and Technology
 Information and Technology

The second dimension of service management is information and technology, and it applies
both to service management and to the services being managed.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 Information and Technology

The Information and technology dimension includes the information and knowledge
necessary for the management of services, as well as the technologies required.

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 Technologies Supporting Service Management

Workflow Cloud
Inventory Artificial Remote
management solutions
systems intelligence collaboration
systems

Knowledge Communication Machine Mobile Automated

bases systems learning platforms testing

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 Inclusions of Information and Technology

Information created, managed,

and used in the course of
service provision and
consumption

Technologies that support and

enable the service

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 Inclusions of Information and Technology

The specific information and technologies depend on:

IT architecture Applications Databases Communication systems

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Inclusions of Information and Technology

IT services use the latest technological

developments such as:
• Blockchain
• Artificial intelligence
• Cognitive computing
• Cloud computing
• Mobile applications

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 Selecting the Right Information and Technology

Organizations must consider these questions in relation to the information component:

What information is managed by the

services?

What supporting information and

knowledge are needed to deliver and
manage the services?

How will the information and knowledge

assets be protected, managed, archived,
and disposed of?

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 Enabling Customer Value

Proper information management enables and enhances customer value.

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 Example: Enabling Customer Value

An HR service facilitates value creation for its customers, allowing the organization
to access and maintain accurate information about its employees.

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 Information Exchange

Organizations must consider how the exchange of information between

different services and service components.

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 Information and Technology Challenges

A serious challenge to information management is the security and regulatory compliance

requirements.

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 Information and Technology Policies

Organizations must consider how information is exchanged between

different services and service components.

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 Information and Technology Policies

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 provides data privacy and
security provisions for safeguarding medical information collected in the US.

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 Selecting the Right Technology

Organizations need to ask the right questions while considering technology for use
in the planning, design, transition, or operation of a product or service.

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 Selecting the Right Technology

Does this technology introduce new risks or constraints to

the organization?

Is this technology compatible with the current architecture

of the organization and its customers?

Do the different technology products used by the

organization and its stakeholders work together?

How are emerging technologies (such as machine

learning, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things)
likely to disrupt the service of the organization?

Does this technology raise any regulatory or other

compliance issues with the organization’s policies and
information security controls, or those of its customers?

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 Information and Technology

Is this a technology that will continue to be viable in the foreseeable

future? Is the organization willing to accept the risk of using aging
technology, or embracing an emerging or unproven technology?

Does this technology align with the strategy of the service provider, or its
service consumers?

Does the organization have the right skills across its staff and suppliers
to support and maintain the technology?

Does this technology have sufficient automation capabilities to ensure it

can be efficiently developed, deployed, and operated?

Does this technology offer additional capabilities that might be leveraged

for other products or services?

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 Factors Influencing Technology Choice

• Some organizations tend to have more

interest in being technologically advanced
than others. Culture
• And some organizations might be focused on
a more traditional way of working.

• The nature of the business will also affect the

Nature of the technology that it uses.
business • A company that does significant business
with government clients may have restrictions
on the use of some technologies, or have
significantly higher security concerns that
must be addressed.

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 ITSM in the Modern World: Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provided with minimal management effort
or provider interaction.

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ITSM in the Modern World – Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become an architectural shift in IT,

introducing new opportunities and risks, and
organizations had to react in ways which were most
beneficial for themselves, their customers, and other
stakeholders.

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 ITSM in the Modern World – Cloud Computing
Key characteristics of cloud computing:

On
Resource Measured service
demand
pooling
availability

Network Rapid elasticity

access

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 ITSM in the Modern World – Cloud Computing

Cloud computing changes service architecture and the distribution of

responsibilities between service consumers, service providers, and their partners.

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 ITSM in the Modern World – Cloud Computing

Replaces some infrastructure, Changes the cost structure of the service

previously managed by the provider, removing specific capital
service provider, with a partner’s expenditures and introducing new operating
cloud service expenditures and the need to manage them
appropriately
Decreases or removes the need
for infrastructure management Introduces higher requirements for network
expertise and the resources of availability and security, applicable to both
the service provider the service provider and its partner

Provides users with opportunities to

Shifts the focus of service
scale service consumption using self-
monitoring and control from the
Nature of the service via simple standard requests, or
in-house infrastructure to a
business even without any requests
partner’s services

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 4: Partners and Suppliers
 Partners and Suppliers

The third dimension of service management is partners and suppliers.

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 Partners and Suppliers

The partners and suppliers dimension encompasses

an organization’s relationships with other
organizations that are involved in the design,
development, deployment, delivery, support and
continual improvement of services.

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 Partners and Suppliers

It incorporates contracts and other agreements between

the organization and its partners or suppliers.

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 Relationships between Organizations

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 Organizational Strategy

An organization’s strategy should be based on its goals, culture, and

business environment, while considering its partners and suppliers.

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 Organizational Strategy

Some organizations believe that they

will be best served by focusing their Organizations may choose to rely
attention on developing certain core as much as possible on their own
competencies, using partners and resources, using partners and
suppliers to provide other needs. suppliers as little as possible.

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 Organizational Strategy

An organization can use the service integration and management

method to address the partners and suppliers dimension.

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 Organizational Strategy

A specially established integrator ensures that service relationships are

properly coordinated.

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 Factors Influencing Organizational Strategy

Subject Demand
Resource Cost External
Strategic Corporate matter Patterns
scarcity concerns constraints
focus culture expertise

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 5: Value Streams and Processes
 Value Streams and Processes

Figure 3.1 The four dimensions of service management

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 Value Streams and Processes

Workflows
Activities

Value
streams and
Processes

Controls Procedures

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 Value Streams and Processes

ITIL service value chain is an operating model that covers all the key activities required to
manage products and services effectively.

Business
model

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 Value Streams for Service Management

A value stream is a series of steps that an organization uses to create and deliver
products and services to a service consumer.

Value-added
VALUE STREAM STEPS
activities

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Non value-added
activities

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 Value Streams for Service Management

Organization can map Opportunities to Value streams can be

Value Stream helps to Value stream optimization
their work with the increase value- redefined to react to
have a clear picture of may include process
identified value adding activities can changing demand and
what it delivers and automation or adoption
stream map, this be found across the other circumstances, or
how, and to make of emerging technologies
would enable them to service value chain remain stable for a
continual
analyze their current significant amount of
improvements to its
state and identify any time
services
barriers to workflow
and non-value-adding
activities

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 Processes

Processes are a set of interrelated or interacting

activities that transform inputs into outputs.

INPUT ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

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 Processes

Well-defined
A process takes one
Processes define processes can
or more defined
the sequence of improve
inputs and turns
actions and their productivity within
them into defined
dependencies and across
outputs
organizations.

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 Selecting the Right Process

An organization needs to answer the following questions to successfully create, deliver,

and improve a service.

What is the generic delivery model for the

service, and how does the service work?

What are the value streams involved in

delivering the agreed outputs of the service?

Who performs the required service actions?

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The Four Dimensions of Service Management
Topic 6: External Factors
 External Factors

Service providers are affected by many external factors, that exhibit high
degrees of volatility and uncertainty, and impose constraints on how they work.

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 External Factors

P Political

E Economic

S Social

T Technological

L Legal

E Environmental

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 Key Takeaways

ITIL defines four dimensions of service management: organizations and people,

Information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and
processes.
An organization is an established structure with a group of people. It has its own
values, functions, responsibilities, and a workforce that supports the achievement of
its objectives. People are considered to be a vital element in this dimension and
include customers, employees of suppliers, employees of the service provider, or any
other stakeholder.
The Information and technology dimension includes the information and knowledge
necessary for the management of services, as well as the technologies required.
The partners and suppliers dimension encompasses an organization’s relationships
with other organizations that are involved in the design, development, deployment,
delivery, support and continual improvement of services.
 Key Takeaways

The value streams and processes dimension is concerned with how the various parts
of the organization work in an integrated and coordinated way to enable value
creation through products and services.
Services are affected by many external factors, that exhibit high degrees of volatility
and uncertainty, and impose constraints on how they work.
 Thank You

Based on AXELOS ITIL® material. Material is reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
ITIL® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.
IT Infrastructure Library® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.
AXELOS® is a registered trade mark of AXELOS Limited used under permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved.
The Swirl logo™ is a trade mark of AXELOS Limited used under the permission of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved. ©Simplilearn. All rights reserved.