M&A driving Global Adoption of IT Infrastructure Library

London - Already in use by leading insurance companies, the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) will continue to gain popularity, notes London-based independent market analyst Datamonitor.

Results from research undertaken by the analyst into global enterprise adoption of ITIL initiatives reveal merger and acquisition (M&A) is the principal catalyst driving enterprise ITIL-based implementations forward.

Datamonitor's "CIO Agenda MarketWatch" study conducted an in depth study of ITIL adoption to chart best practices and lessons learned.

M&A emerged as the principal catalyst driving ITIL adoption. When corporate restructuring occurred in the wake of M&A, process change became inevitable. As the public face of IT, service management was considered a reachable place to start. Datamonitor also discovered close alignment between ITIL and COBIT, another framework aimed at cultivating more effective IT governance practices.

Furthermore, while so-called reengineering projects have lost favor because of their disruptive impacts and loose scope, Datamonitor found that ITIL projects require nothing short of process reengineering.

The study also revealed that ITIL adopters have only partially learned how to avoid the pitfalls of traditional reengineering. Not surprisingly, one of the chief hurdles was maintaining firm control of project scope. This is especially critical when compiling the change and configuration management database (CMDB) that is pivotal to ITIL adoption.

Overall, organizations that have successfully embraced ITIL have discovered follow-on process improvements that bolstered business agility and boosted the quality of IT service delivery.

ITIL has focused the spotlight on an area long neglected by IT in insurance and other industries: service management and delivery, notes the analyst. Traditionally, most organizations relegated "help desks" as low priority budget line items because it has been perceived as an overhead cost that contributed little business benefit. Yet, ITIL became one of the first major IT initiatives that actually emerged in the aftermath of the dot com, post Y2K, 9/11 perfect storm.

ITIL is series of reports that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. Developed in recognition of organizations' growing dependency on IT to satisfy corporate aims and meet business needs, ITIL embodies best practices for IT Service Management. Developed under the auspices of the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC), widespread adoption of the ITIL guidance has encouraged organizations worldwide, both commercial and public-sector organizations, to develop best practice approaches.

Source: Datamonitor

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