Scenario Two. Scenario Three

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1 ITIL Intermediate Lifecycle Stream: SERVICE STRATEGY CERTIFICATE SCENARIO BOOKLET Scenario One An education services company offers learning management system (LMS) products and services to support customers in both academic and corporate environments. Its primary product line is called My Learning Portal (MLP). Services include: A range of core services based on the MLP which provides customers with different levels of functionality Customer support services for MLP provided by a service desk and associated field support team. Different levels of support are available at different prices A range of technical professional services to help customers install, configure and upgrade the MLP components at the customer site A range of education services to train customers to use, exploit, administer and maintain the MLP functionality and write customized reports Reporting services for reporting to the company s customers on their support utilization, license utilization, and other service consumption on which billing is based Internal billing services to ensure the company s customers are billed for services in a timely manner. Customers can choose from a range of pre-determined options designed to be appropriate to their needs. Occasionally, customized solutions may be negotiated. The company is trying to improve the way it markets its services and to differentiate them from similar offerings provided by other service providers. Key business managers have been discussing different ways to package the company s services, including how to package and market the following three new services that are planned for development: X. Education services to help customers learn the fundamentals of educational programme design and to exploit technology to support educational programmes. Y. Professional services to assist customers in educational programme design initiatives. Z. An e-learning platform to allow customers to develop and offer computer-based courses over the internet. The Swirl logo is a trade mark of the Cabinet Office ITIL is a registered trade mark of the Cabinet Office Page 1 of 1

2 Scenario Two The IT service desk of a large organization receives a wide range of calls from users. These calls include incidents and service requests, including some standard change requests. The IT department has developed processes to deal with each type of call. The business, however, has been growing rapidly and complaints have been received from the user departments about the length of time it takes IT to fulfil various service requests. The IT department has acknowledged that many of the support processes are inefficient and could be improved. Also, process documentation should be produced and maintained. A project has been initiated to select and purchase an automation tool for the service desk. The objective is to use the tool to automate as many of the service request fulfilment processes as possible, in order to make better use of staff time and enable cost savings. One of the essential requirements for the tool is that it must have a self-help interface which will allow users to select requests from a menu, thereby reducing the volume of calls to the service desk and, as a result of the automation, speeding up the fulfilment of the request. The choice of the tool has been narrowed down to one of four products and a selection is soon to be made. Several points of view have emerged regarding the deployment plans. Scenario Three An insurance company sells medium-priced insurance (home, vehicle, etc.) policies to the general public. They do not have the cheapest policies in comparison with their competitors, but they differentiate themselves by promising that there are no hidden policy clauses and that insurance claims will always be processed quickly, efficiently and with excellent customer service. They are well regarded by their customers, and enjoy a high level of customer retention. The company recently acquired a smaller insurance company which has a similar range of products. The two main reasons for the acquisition were: first, to grow the company through increasing the number of customers; and, second, to achieve economies of scale through the consolidation of the two organizations operations. It is intended that the new merged organization will retain the best processes, practices and services from the two original organizations. The original company operates out of two locations, the head office and a separate office housing the call centre for policy renewals and claims. The smaller, recently acquired company operates out of a single office. Both companies have their own internal IT organizations which provide IT services to support the insurance business. The IT organizations are located at each company s head office. IT services for both companies are delivered through a mixture of in-house staff and outsourced providers. There are many similarities between the IT services delivered within each company. For example, each company s IT department provides an IT service to support the insurance claims process. The IT infrastructures, however, are quite different and it is anticipated that significant rationalization will be required. Page 2 of 2

3 Scenario Four Your company primarily hosts mainframe and mid-range servers. Recently you have also been managing web services platforms for a few companies. Your company s oldest hosting contract is with a manufacturing company for whom you are hosting a mainframe-based legacy service, which supports their procurement process. The manufacturing company has recently embarked on a strategy to modernize and enhance its procurement function and intends to replace the existing IT service with a more up-to-date, webbased business-to-business service. They have indicated that they will be looking for a company to host and support the new service. The new contract will be a lot larger than the existing contract as the new service will incorporate many more facilities, an increase in functionality, and will run on a different platform. The manufacturing company has indicated that they will look at the market to find the most appropriate hosting company. They also indicated that the selection process will be competitively-based on specific criteria which are not being divulged. Your company has been asked to bid on the new contract. The existing contract with the manufacturing company is not particularly significant to your company in terms of revenue or profit. The new contract, however, is likely to be a lot more lucrative. The board of directors of your company are very keen to win the new contract, as it would fit with their current strategy to grow their web-based hosting business and would provide good publicity. However, there are risks that remain unexplored. Your company has eighteen months to decide whether or not to bid for the future business. Scenario Five A seasonal market chocolate manufacturer was supported by a small internal IT organization. For many years, it was a compact, family-owned firm that did not fully leverage the benefits that IT could deliver in terms of marketing, sales and operational efficiencies. Business demands of IT were not planned for in advance and market-leading seasonal products meant that the IT services organization became purely reactive with no financial constraints for improvements or changing needs. Basic service management processes were in place for incident and change management but no formal service levels were defined or maintained. Very little historical IT performance data has been maintained. The family sold the business to a much larger competitor who initially held back from absorbing the IT services into their own infrastructure. The competitor IT organization was happy to continue with a reactive approach in the short term, running the IT department separately from their own, while they introduced a service catalogue to try to understand what services they would be absorbing. The nature of the business means that new chocolate product lines rarely require new IT services but they do place considerable strain on the existing ones. The long-term plan was to be far more proactive in managing demand for IT services and to allow economies of scale to be leveraged, including absorption of services and supporting the business with a broader scope. Now that the new IT organization is in place, the reactive nature of the business has led to tensions, with specific issues being raised from the business users and customers. The business feels that the new IT organization is: Not as responsive as it formerly was Fails to understand their business priorities, resulting in major changes at critical business periods System upgrades are made at inappropriate times of the year Performance levels have been below expectations at business-critical periods. Page 3 of 3

4 Scenario Six You are the operations manager for a company that specializes in providing on-site desktop services, as well as some procurement services, for small to medium-sized companies. The company s service team comprises approximately 150 technicians, all of whom are highly paid as a result of the legacy corporate culture. Currently, clients requiring service from your company call an answering service and leave a message on a voice mail system with detailed information on the service required. The calls are reviewed twice a day and dispatches are scheduled as needed. Customers are somewhat frustrated with this arrangement but are willing to accept the process because, once the technician is on site, the service is exceptionally good. Technicians are assigned based on their desktop calendars and receive their dispatch via their smart phones. The only service level target the technicians have to meet is being on-site with the customer within two business days from the time a call is received. The chief executive officer (CEO) and chief information officer (CIO) have recently issued a joint statement that the company s vision for the coming year is to grow the organization and to transform it into one of the best in the industry, with a world-class service desk supported by highly efficient and effective processes. The CEO believes this will improve the company s position in the market. The CEO has made it clear that controlling costs as the expansion efforts proceed will be the key to ensuring maximum profits. A formal business case is now to be developed for funding the expansion of operations and new capabilities including the service desk. Scenario Seven For over 300 years the National Mail was state-owned, holding exclusive rights on the transportation of letters and parcels. Since 2005, however, the company has been operating in open competition with other providers who are national as well as foreign. The transition from a monopoly position to open competition has brought major changes to the company. The organization is continuously being trimmed to meet the demands of an open market, and performance in all areas of the business is constantly being measured against best practices, competitors and other vendors. The aim is to maintain and strengthen the position in the company s current market for basic postal services, in parallel with expansion into other countries and new markets. This expansion is mainly planned through acquisitions. With increased competition, growing demands from customers, and the increasingly complex solutions offered, IT has become an essential part of core business. Twenty-four hour, continual daily (24x7) operation is now an important business success criterion. The focus has been to ensure a stable, secure and reliable operational environment, while strengthening the capability to offer complex, quick and cost-effective solutions to business needs. The IT organization has also had its share of rapid change over the last few years. The board of directors has decided to merge 15 internal IT departments into one central IT service unit which will employ 500 people and operate on a considerably larger budget. The newly-appointed chief information officer (CIO) of the centralized IT unit would like to ensure his organization will be effective in leveraging the new scale and scope. He wants to meet the board s expectations in terms of improved performance and outcomes that support business plans. He has asked you to outline an approach for the IT strategy. Page 4 of 4

5 Scenario Eight A power company produces electric power and sells it to distribution centres which then distribute the power to consumers, including other businesses, factories and homes. The company is highly regulated and is required to provide full documentation for all business processes, including details on how its critical IT services are supported. The chief information officer (CIO) is concerned that resources are over-burdened as a result of having to fulfil an excessive volume of service requests from customers. These include requests to support software and hardware procured and installed outside the control of the IT department. Based on findings from the upcoming audits, it is likely that there will be an opportunity for current resources to be reallocated to ensure that critical IT services are adequately supported. Nevertheless, the CIO considers it essential to gain a better understanding of the services and the balanced set of investments required across the service lifecycle in order to maintain the value of the services to customers. The CIO has therefore authorized a project to define the IT service portfolio. The CIO has asked for a description of each IT service and has been provided with the following information on the five critical services: Service Description Comments AOS Billing Determines the power consumption by the distribution centres. Runs on an older platform. Undergoing review for possible replacement due to high costs in maintaining the old platform and the lack of skilled staff members. SET KEEPOUT OUI BAS Measures the power output from the generators and has the ability to increase or decrease production. Monitors and records access to the power stations. Records the time spent by employees on generator maintenance. Provided by a third-party supplier. Estimates the market and potential clients. Not foreseen as needing to change in the near future. Being phased out for a new service using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to detect personnel movements into and out of the power stations. A stable service. A major update is being introduced to automate the capture of employee start and stop times. Currently being phased out and replaced with a newer version of the service (by the same thirdparty supplier) to provide a more accurate view of the potential market. Page 5 of 5