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The Enterprise Service Catalog - Unifying IT Services for the Digital Age

Dennis Drogseth

While service catalogs are not new, they are becoming increasingly critical to enterprises seeking to optimize IT efficiencies, service delivery and business outcomes. They are also a way of supporting both enterprise and IT services, as well as optimizing IT for cost and value with critical metrics and insights. In this blog, we'll look at how and why service catalogs are becoming ever more important both to IT organizations and to the businesses and organizations they serve.

What's Cooking in General with Service Catalog Deployments?

Potentially, service catalogs can span everything from supporting internal IT professional needs to end-user needs for IT support, to end-user access to internally delivered software and applications, to support for third-party cloud services across the board, to actual support for enterprise (non-IT) services as managed through an integrated service desk.

Of course the game is changing, with added pressures to support cloud, mobile and enterprise (non-IT) services. But data and dialogs from last year show clear trends that reflect pushing the bar forward in all these areas from past years — with a striking diversity of options. Indeed, enhanced automation for self-service was and remains at the very top of the list for IT service management priorities going forward.

Interestingly enough, internal IT-to-IT provisioning (new servers, deployment requests, etc.) and support for IT professional services (as in project management capabilities) remain among the highest priorities for enterprise service catalogs. But close behind, are:

■ Support for cloud and non-cloud delivered applications

■ End-user access to production services/ applications

■ End-user device (PC, laptop and mobile) provisioning

■ End-user support (help and incident management)

Perhaps not surprisingly, true "appstore" type access for end-user self-service provisioning was far behind these priorities in mid-year 2015. But current EMA dialogs show a growing interest in providing a more complete and self-sufficient storefront approach.

A Few Critical Service Catalog Dimensions

The dimensions of how this is done can range drastically in scope, but ideally enterprise service catalogs will provide metrics for cost and usage, selective service level (service quality) guarantees as appropriate, strong support for secure and appropriate access based on end-user or IT professional roles, and integrated levels of automation to make service provisioning more dynamic, accessible and efficient. Oh, and yes, in the more advanced IT environments, service catalog integrations can handshake as well with service modeling and configuration management databases (CMDBs) to enable yet more advanced levels of automation This can be especially helpful when catalog services are tied to development and DevOps initiatives.

And finally, service catalog access should span not only desktop and laptop access, but increasingly mobile access as appropriate. For instance, nearly two-thirds of our respondents in last year's research were seeking to provide mobile access to corporate application services, and that percentage is steadily climbing higher, as mobile continues to redefine IT and consumer priorities.

Growing areas of interest for service catalog inclusions: cloud and enterprise services

Even last year support for cloud services in service catalogs was striking — at nearly 90%. And cloud priorities in type reflect a growing and rich diversity. These include:

■ Internal software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications

■ Internal infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) services

■ Software-as-a-service from public cloud

■ Infrastructure as a service from public cloud

■ Internal platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings

■ Platform-as-a-service from public cloud

The above list is in ranked order based on mid-year 2015, and subsequent dialog and research in 2016 would indicate a fair amount of consistency, but with a modestly growing preference for public cloud.

Just as striking as cloud in its impact on IT is the growth of including enterprise service support through integrated service desk and IT service management options. Indeed, a separate commentary on the coming together of business process automation (BPA) and IT process automation (ITPA) — (it isn't really quite there yet) — would probably warrant at least a blog, and maybe a book. But this coming together is reflective of the striking number of IT organizations that are making the leap. Indeed, even a year ago, only 11% had no plans to consolidate IT and non-IT customer service.

In terms of service catalog specifics, the following enterprise groups were shown to depend on service catalogs to support their services:

■ Vendor and contract management

■ Facilities management

■ Purchasing

■ Enterprise operations

■ Sales

■ Human Resources

■ Marketing

■ External customer facing catalog options

■ Corporate finance

■ Legal

What Makes for Success When It Comes to Service Catalog Adoption?

As many of my readers know by now, in most of my research I like to contrast those who view themselves as ‘extremely successful' with those who were only marginally so (the two extremes), which almost always produces meaningful patterns of difference. In this case, the following patterns arose:

Those ITSM teams who viewed themselves as extremely successful were:

■ 2X more likely to have a service catalog

■ 2X more likely to offer users access to corporate applications through mobile

■ Dramatically more likely to support cloud-related services in their catalogs. In fact they were 5X more likely to support SaaS from public cloud and 6X more likely to support PaaS from public cloud.

■ Considerably more likely to support enterprise services, including:
- 2X more likely to support human resources
- 3X more likely to support facilities management
- 2X more likely to support legal
- More than 4X more likely to support purchasing
- 5X more likely to support marketing
- Nearly 3X more likely to support enterprise operations

Given this rather heady show of data, it becomes harder and harder to argue against the impression that we're not only living in the midst of the "digital age" in which "digital transformation" is key, but that service catalogs are increasingly becoming a critical cornerstone in making digital transformation yet more of a reality. Current EMA research, underway now, will explore the role of service catalogs in optimizing IT for cost and value. I'll be sharing these highlights with you in another blog later in Q3.

Image removed.

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The Enterprise Service Catalog - Unifying IT Services for the Digital Age

Dennis Drogseth

While service catalogs are not new, they are becoming increasingly critical to enterprises seeking to optimize IT efficiencies, service delivery and business outcomes. They are also a way of supporting both enterprise and IT services, as well as optimizing IT for cost and value with critical metrics and insights. In this blog, we'll look at how and why service catalogs are becoming ever more important both to IT organizations and to the businesses and organizations they serve.

What's Cooking in General with Service Catalog Deployments?

Potentially, service catalogs can span everything from supporting internal IT professional needs to end-user needs for IT support, to end-user access to internally delivered software and applications, to support for third-party cloud services across the board, to actual support for enterprise (non-IT) services as managed through an integrated service desk.

Of course the game is changing, with added pressures to support cloud, mobile and enterprise (non-IT) services. But data and dialogs from last year show clear trends that reflect pushing the bar forward in all these areas from past years — with a striking diversity of options. Indeed, enhanced automation for self-service was and remains at the very top of the list for IT service management priorities going forward.

Interestingly enough, internal IT-to-IT provisioning (new servers, deployment requests, etc.) and support for IT professional services (as in project management capabilities) remain among the highest priorities for enterprise service catalogs. But close behind, are:

■ Support for cloud and non-cloud delivered applications

■ End-user access to production services/ applications

■ End-user device (PC, laptop and mobile) provisioning

■ End-user support (help and incident management)

Perhaps not surprisingly, true "appstore" type access for end-user self-service provisioning was far behind these priorities in mid-year 2015. But current EMA dialogs show a growing interest in providing a more complete and self-sufficient storefront approach.

A Few Critical Service Catalog Dimensions

The dimensions of how this is done can range drastically in scope, but ideally enterprise service catalogs will provide metrics for cost and usage, selective service level (service quality) guarantees as appropriate, strong support for secure and appropriate access based on end-user or IT professional roles, and integrated levels of automation to make service provisioning more dynamic, accessible and efficient. Oh, and yes, in the more advanced IT environments, service catalog integrations can handshake as well with service modeling and configuration management databases (CMDBs) to enable yet more advanced levels of automation This can be especially helpful when catalog services are tied to development and DevOps initiatives.

And finally, service catalog access should span not only desktop and laptop access, but increasingly mobile access as appropriate. For instance, nearly two-thirds of our respondents in last year's research were seeking to provide mobile access to corporate application services, and that percentage is steadily climbing higher, as mobile continues to redefine IT and consumer priorities.

Growing areas of interest for service catalog inclusions: cloud and enterprise services

Even last year support for cloud services in service catalogs was striking — at nearly 90%. And cloud priorities in type reflect a growing and rich diversity. These include:

■ Internal software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications

■ Internal infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) services

■ Software-as-a-service from public cloud

■ Infrastructure as a service from public cloud

■ Internal platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings

■ Platform-as-a-service from public cloud

The above list is in ranked order based on mid-year 2015, and subsequent dialog and research in 2016 would indicate a fair amount of consistency, but with a modestly growing preference for public cloud.

Just as striking as cloud in its impact on IT is the growth of including enterprise service support through integrated service desk and IT service management options. Indeed, a separate commentary on the coming together of business process automation (BPA) and IT process automation (ITPA) — (it isn't really quite there yet) — would probably warrant at least a blog, and maybe a book. But this coming together is reflective of the striking number of IT organizations that are making the leap. Indeed, even a year ago, only 11% had no plans to consolidate IT and non-IT customer service.

In terms of service catalog specifics, the following enterprise groups were shown to depend on service catalogs to support their services:

■ Vendor and contract management

■ Facilities management

■ Purchasing

■ Enterprise operations

■ Sales

■ Human Resources

■ Marketing

■ External customer facing catalog options

■ Corporate finance

■ Legal

What Makes for Success When It Comes to Service Catalog Adoption?

As many of my readers know by now, in most of my research I like to contrast those who view themselves as ‘extremely successful' with those who were only marginally so (the two extremes), which almost always produces meaningful patterns of difference. In this case, the following patterns arose:

Those ITSM teams who viewed themselves as extremely successful were:

■ 2X more likely to have a service catalog

■ 2X more likely to offer users access to corporate applications through mobile

■ Dramatically more likely to support cloud-related services in their catalogs. In fact they were 5X more likely to support SaaS from public cloud and 6X more likely to support PaaS from public cloud.

■ Considerably more likely to support enterprise services, including:
- 2X more likely to support human resources
- 3X more likely to support facilities management
- 2X more likely to support legal
- More than 4X more likely to support purchasing
- 5X more likely to support marketing
- Nearly 3X more likely to support enterprise operations

Given this rather heady show of data, it becomes harder and harder to argue against the impression that we're not only living in the midst of the "digital age" in which "digital transformation" is key, but that service catalogs are increasingly becoming a critical cornerstone in making digital transformation yet more of a reality. Current EMA research, underway now, will explore the role of service catalogs in optimizing IT for cost and value. I'll be sharing these highlights with you in another blog later in Q3.

Image removed.

The Latest

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Today, organizations are generating and processing more data than ever before. From training AI models to running complex analytics, massive datasets have become the backbone of innovation. However, as businesses embrace the cloud for its scalability and flexibility, a new challenge arises: managing the soaring costs of storing and processing this data ...

Despite the frustrations, every engineer we spoke with ultimately affirmed the value and power of OpenTelemetry. The "sucks" moments are often the flip side of its greatest strengths ... Part 2 of this blog covers the powerful advantages and breakthroughs — the "OTel Rocks" moments ...

OpenTelemetry (OTel) arrived with a grand promise: a unified, vendor-neutral standard for observability data (traces, metrics, logs) that would free engineers from vendor lock-in and provide deeper insights into complex systems ... No powerful technology comes without its challenges, and OpenTelemetry is no exception. The engineers we spoke with were frank about the friction points they've encountered ...

Enterprises are turning to AI-powered software platforms to make IT management more intelligent and ensure their systems and technology meet business needs for efficiency, lowers costs and innovation, according to new research from Information Services Group ...

The power of Kubernetes lies in its ability to orchestrate containerized applications with unparalleled efficiency. Yet, this power comes at a cost: the dynamic, distributed, and ephemeral nature of its architecture creates a monitoring challenge akin to tracking a constantly shifting, interconnected network of fleeting entities ... Due to the dynamic and complex nature of Kubernetes, monitoring poses a substantial challenge for DevOps and platform engineers. Here are the primary obstacles ...

The perception of IT has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. What was once viewed primarily as a cost center has transformed into a pivotal force driving business innovation and market leadership ... As someone who has witnessed and helped drive this evolution, it's become clear to me that the most successful organizations share a common thread: they've mastered the art of leveraging IT advancements to achieve measurable business outcomes ...

More than half (51%) of companies are already leveraging AI agents, according to the PagerDuty Agentic AI Survey. Agentic AI adoption is poised to accelerate faster than generative AI (GenAI) while reshaping automation and decision-making across industries ...

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Real privacy protection thanks to technology and processes is often portrayed as too hard and too costly to implement. So the most common strategy is to do as little as possible just to conform to formal requirements of current and incoming regulations. This is a missed opportunity ...

The expanding use of AI is driving enterprise interest in data operations (DataOps) to orchestrate data integration and processing and improve data quality and validity, according to a new report from Information Services Group (ISG) ...