Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

AXELOS – who develops and promotes ITIL – defines it as:

According to the World Trade Organisation, services comprise the largest and most dynamic component of both developed and developing economies. Services are the main way that organisations create value for themselves and their customers. Almost all services today are IT-enabled, which means there is tremendous benefit for organisations in creating, expanding, and improving their IT service management capability.

Technology is advancing faster today than ever before. Developments such as cloud computing, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), machine learning, and blockchain have opened fresh opportunities for value creation, and led to IT becoming an important business driver and source of competitive advantage. In turn, this positions IT service management as a key strategic capability.

To ensure that they remain relevant and successful, many organisations are embarking on major transformational programmes to exploit these opportunities. While these transformations are often referred to as ‘digital’, they are about more than technology. They are an evolution in the way organisations work, so that they can flourish in the face of significant and ongoing change. Organisations must balance the need for stability and predictability with the rising need for operational agility and increased velocity.

Information and technology are becoming more thoroughly integrated with other organisational capabilities, silos are breaking down, and cross-functional teams are being utilised more widely. Service management is changing to address and support this organisational shift and ensure opportunities from new technologies, and new ways of working, are maximized.

Service management is evolving, and so is ITIL, the most widely adopted guidance on IT service management (ITSM) in the world.