Justifications, Strategies, and Critical Success Factors in Successful ITIL Implementations in U.S. and Australian Companies: An Exploratory Study

Strategic Management of IT Practices in Tourism for Operation and Service Enhancement

The information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) standard describes processes that should be implemented in Information Technology (IT) departments for proper operations management, which includes human resources management, economic management, and strategic management, among others. This should be especially considered in the business management of industries with no relation to information technologies (IT), such as tourism and hospitality companies. This work aims to present a method to establish the order of adoption of the IT management processes in companies that belong to the tourism industry. We conducted a survey to obtain the necessary data and developed a methodology that is based on an optimization procedure. This procedure generates the optimal sequence of IT tasks to adopt in a generic small company in the tourism industry. The methodology was then applied to a representative tourism company. Through the sequence obtained, it is shown that it is necessary to implement operative processes, and subsequently, strategic processes. A comparative study was developed to find the differences with other authors’ proposals. The most important result we found was the possibility of efficient use of organizations’ information to build an optimized list of IT procedures to improve their administration. The obtained list of processes is specific for each organization, and not dependent on the solutions offered by other authors who proposed a general or underoptimal list of processes.

A Methodology to Sequence the Service Management Processes in IT Departments: Application to the Tourism Industry

One of the key elements to consider in business management is the management of IT (Information Technology) departments by implementing processes as described in the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) standard. This is particularly important in industries that are not directly related to ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), such as the tourism industry. In this paper, we present a methodology to sequence the implementation of the ITIL processes in any company to support its development. The methodology is based on an optimization algorithm and the information extracted from a survey. The optimal sequence is built from this information and from the information of the restrictions imposed by the company that implements the ITIL processes. We applied the methodology to a company in the tourism industry. The sequence obtained shows the need to implement operative processes (initial positions in the sequence), and afterwards strategic processes (final positions in the sequence). A comparison with other authors’ proposals shows differences in the order of processes proposed by this methodology. The main conclusion is that it is possible to use the information of companies to efficiently generate an optimal sequence of ITIL processes which enhances their management; this sequence is unique for every company that wants to implement ITIL in the tourism industry, and it is independent from the proposals of other authors who designed generic/non-optimal sequences.

Key Success Factors That Enable IT Service Providers to Achieve Organizational Performance: Evidence from Romania

The recent preoccupations of companies are quite varied, but most of them have the same objective—the improvement of organizational performance. The service area is a very popular one among individual clients or legal entities, the latter having many more interactions with companies in the IT area following the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this paper is to determine the factors that contribute to improving the organizational performance of IT service companies. The study involves exploratory, quantitative research that analyzes the perceptions of employees in the Romanian IT sector regarding the performance of their companies, as well as the key success factors that enable its achievement. The results indicate that organizational culture, organizational innovation level, service quality, and employee skills are some of the most important variables that can influence the organizational performance of Romanian IT service providers, thus contributing to their economic sustainability. Moreover, in this field, entrepreneurs should be more concerned about developing employees’ skills and improving their satisfaction, as they are one of the key resources for a sustainable business in the IT industry.

Model to Optimize the Decision Making on Processes in IT Departments

The objective of this article is the definition of an algorithm aimed to settle the sequence of implementation of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes that should be followed in the technology departments for its proper management. The mathematical model presented solves the question of the best ITIL process to implement by using an optimization function that considers the objectives and restrictions given by the company. This model is the basis for an iterative greedy algorithm proposed that generates the optimal sequence of ITIL processes to implement. The algorithm has been proven in a company with satisfactory results: the proposed sequence of implementation allowed the company to properly manage the IT department as well as get close to competitors based on the objectives and restrictions reported by the company. The novelty of this contribution relies on the design of an algorithm to generate an optimal and specific sequence of ITIL processes to implement in the IT department of a company, as the previous solutions relied on generic sequences or required external consultants to get their opinion and so did not have a mathematical basis.

Success Factors in Sustainable Management of IT Service Projects: Exploratory Factor Analysis

Management of successful IT projects in a sustainable manner is influenced by numerous factors. Organizational awareness of the necessity of engaging all project stakeholders is an important issue that helps in meeting project sustainable development goals. While there are many studies on the success factors of IT software projects, there is still little coherent research on the success factors of IT service projects. The purpose of this article is to contribute in filling this gap by attempting to identify success factors of the IT services project involving both traditional and agile approaches and considering sustainable development, specifically in terms of the stakeholders’ role in project management. We conducted questionnaire-based research involving 155 IT service project managers. The results of the study were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. As a result, we presented and thoroughly formally examined the factorial model of success components in the IT service industry. We distinguished four factors: (1) agile techniques and change management, (2) organization and people, (3) stakeholders and risk analysis, and (4) work environment. The results were compared with analogous studies found in the literature. The research showed that both traditional and agile management approaches coexist, meet sustainable development goals, and are significant for the successful management in IT service projects where all stakeholders play an important role.

An IT Service Management Literature Review: Challenges, Benefits, Opportunities and Implementation Practices

Information technology (IT) service management is considered a collection of frameworks that support organizations managing services. The implementation of these kinds of frameworks is constantly increasing in the IT service provider domain. The main objective is to define and manage IT services through its life cycle. However, from observing the literature, scarcely any research exists describing the main concepts of ITSM. Many organizations still struggle in several contexts in this domain, mainly during implementation. This research aims to develop a reference study detailing the main concepts related with ITSM. Thus, a systematic literature review is performed. In total, 47 articles were selected from top journals and conferences. The benefits, challenges, opportunities, and practices for ITSM implementation were extracted, critically analysed, and then discussed.

Attributes of IT certifications aligned to organizations’ needs

Purpose

An area of information technology (IT) in organizations is required to manage resources efficiently. For this, IT certifications are adopted by companies and sought by professionals. However, these have many requirements and to identify which are paramount to the performance of their activities and/or are much more important to IT managers is not a trivial task. The purpose of this study is to identify how the processes of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 and Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (CobiT) 5 certifications are analyzed by IT managers. Regarding the knowledge of professionals about the processes, which are more important, less important or indifferent in the manager’s view.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey is carried out with IT managers using questions elaborated according to the Kano model in which the processes of the analyzed certifications are related to classify according to the proposed model.

Findings

Of the 64 analyzed processes, 20 CobiT processes and 13 ITIL processes were classified as must-be requirements. Another 17 CobiT processes and 9 ITIL processes were classified as one-dimensional and 5 ITIL processes are present in more than one relationship with CobiT processes and, depending on the relationship, they were classified as must-be or one-dimensional requirements.

Originality/value

It is concluded that this study contributes in the discussion of the importance of the ITIL and CobiT implementations and analyzes the relevance of ITIL and CobiT certification processes in the view of IT managers, providing useful information for the professionals in terms of prioritization of the processes expected by the managers.

Methodology to Improve Services in Small IT Centers: Application to Educational Centers

Educational centers (schools, academies, high schools, etc.) are usually small companies, which make them special in terms of management. The management of IT services is far from standard and based in home solutions. The disadvantage of this approach is clear, as it happened during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The solution to properly managing IT services is based on the use of the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). The question is how to apply this standard that only defines the processes to implement, but does not describe the way or the order to implement them. In this article it is shown which IT processes are really needed in any educational center and the order in which they should be implemented. The method used consists of fulfilling a knowledge database with extensive information from schools, academies, and other educational centers. After that, an existing optimization model is adopted and a representative learning center is defined, which is used to propose the IT processes sequence; finally, a set of optimal IT processes and the order to implement them is defined. These ordered processes optimize the quality of IT for learning services. The main result is an ordered set of IT processes that best fit the needs of IT departments in small educational centers.

Effective organisational change to achieve successful ITIL implementation

Purpose

Although an increasing number of organisations implement the Information Technology Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®) with the aim to improve provision of information technology services to their customers, a significant number of ITIL implementations do not achieve the expected outcomes. The organisational change strategies of organisations during ITIL implementation initiatives may have an effect on success, but empirical research on this topic is scarce. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

A multiple case study methodology comprising successful ITIL implementations in eight large Australian organisations is used. A socio-technical systems approach represented by Leavitt’s Diamond is adopted as a lens to shed light on the attributes of effective organisational change strategies for successful ITIL implementation.

Findings

This paper identifies organisational change strategies employed by organisations that have effected a successful ITIL implementation. The authors identified that the ITIL implementation required changes to the four components of the socio-technical work system (STS) identified in Leavitt’s Diamond. Changes to one STS component affected other STS components when implementing ITIL; and that effort applied to the STS components did not need to be equal, but appropriate to the requirements of the ITIL implementation and the organisation.

Research limitations/implications

The sample size of eight ITIL implementation cases studied may limit the generalisation of findings.

Practical implications

This research provides IT service management researchers and ITIL practitioners, for the first time, information about organisational change strategies as applied to successful ITIL implementations.

Originality/value

This research has developed novel insights into organisational change strategies and ITIL implementation that had not previously been explored.

Introducing ITIL Framework in Small Enterprises

Given the critical consequences that IT can have on the survival of SMEs in a competitive environment, ITSM practices have becoming a necessity for SMEs that must be investigated. ITIL is criticized as being appropriate for large enterprises and less for SMEs. Thus, it calls for tailoring this framework while taking into consideration the specific realities of small companies. In this context, this article provides a practical tool formally developed according to the design science research approach, and it addresses an area of relevance to both practitioners and academics and suggests solutions that can help managers to personalize IT service practices to suit the characteristics of small scale enterprises. Results show that the flexible nature of the proposed framework has enabled to overcome the main difficulties of ITIL components implementation in small scale environments. It is found that the integrated use of balanced scorecard perspectives and ITIL practices can help SMEs to better implement ITIL components, achieving in that way a better alignment between the business and the IT.

Exploring ITIL® Implementation Challenges in Latin American Companies

The purpose of this article is to explore the challenges faced when implementing the information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) framework. An online survey was completed by 169 Latin American companies. Questions focused mainly on the current perceptions and assessment of ITIL benefits. A descriptive statistical analysis approach was employed. Evidence suggests that the main challenges of implementing ITIL are the time devoted by the information technology staff involved in the project, their understanding of ITIL purposes, and the support they receive from senior management. Participants suggested that the existence of a service management office (SMO) could represent a way of addressing these challenges and to more effectively realize ITIL benefits.

Critical success factors for mobile health implementation in Indonesia

Purpose

Mobile-based technology health services in Indonesia are experiencing significant growth. However, the implementation of m-health in Indonesia is at a stand-still because the numbers of users or medical personnel who use m-health applications are still low. Given this fact, this study aims to identify critical success factors (CSFs) in the implementation of a mobile health applications in Indonesia. This research covers the following four dimensions: system quality, information quality, service quality, and organizational.

Method

This study uses a quantitative research approach with the entropy method to analyze system quality, information quality, and service quality, and it uses a qualitative approach for the organizational dimension. A total of 127 respondents completed the questionnaire (quantitative approach) and interviews were performed with three personnel from the Social Security Agency for Health (BPJS-K) (qualitative approach).

Results

The highest weights for each dimension were as follows: ease of access for the system quality dimension; adequate and relevant information for the information quality dimension; user service convenience for the service quality dimension; and top management support for the organizational dimension.

Conclusions

Based on the results of this study, the regulator, health facilities management, and mobile health provider should ensure a long-term commitment to support the implementation of mobile health applications. In order to reach a wider market, all mobile health applications should be as user friendly as possible for the patients.

Chasing Success: An Empirical Model for IT Governance Frameworks Adoption in Australia

Over the past few decades, information technology (IT) has played a central role in transforming society and enabling the knowledge economy. Such transformation has also introduced new problems, leading to a growing need among organisations to adopt IT governance frameworks in order to provide assurance that their IT operations meet required standards and community expectations. However, the adoption of such frameworks is a complex phenomenon fraught with risks and challenges, and is yet to attract adequate research attention. This study explores factors influencing the success of IT governance frameworks adoption by proposing an integrated research model that draws upon the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and the Delone and McLean’s information systems (IS) success model. Data were collected from 126 Australian organisations that have adopted IT governance frameworks through mail surveys and analysed using the partial least-squares (PLS) method. The findings demonstrate that ease of use, innovation compatibility, training and external pressures were significant to the success of IT governance frameworks adoption, assessed through user satisfaction; while ease of use, top management support, external support and user satisfaction were found significant to organisational performance. These findings are of relevance to researchers, practitioners and a broad range of organisational stakeholders, given the growing global importance and implications of IT governance frameworks adoption to organisations.

An Extensive Review of IT Service Design in Seven International ITSM Processes Frameworks

The main international IT Service Management processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ISO/IEC 20000, COBIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP) include the design of IT services as part of their main best practices. However, despite having a common purpose and conceptual structure, they are organized differently. Hence, ITSM academic researchers and practitioners need to integrate a broad and diverse literature in relation to these frameworks. In Part I of this research, the authors pursued the goal of a descriptive-comparative analysis of fundamental concepts and IT service architecture design models used in the seven ITSM frameworks. In this paper (Part II) we complete this systemic analysis by using the ISO/IEC 15288 systems engineering standard and focusing on the IT design processes and practices reported in the aforementioned ITSM frameworks. Specifically, CMMI-SVC and ITUP are assessed in overall as the strongest frameworks from an engineering view, MOF 4.0 and ITIL v3 as moderate, and ISO/IEC 20000, ITIL v2 and COBIT as the weakest. ITSM academicians and in particular practitioners thus will need to distinguish their utilization according to the level of required detail of the IT service design process. This paper aims to advance our comprehension and understanding on the state of the art regarding what are IT services and how they can be designed. Thus it is of broad significance to ITSM researchers and practitioners.

Research in Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) (2000 – 2010)

In information systems (IS) research, Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) has become a popular research area among IS and management researchers as a result of industry push and the development and advancement of research in service sciences. From academic perspective, a growing number of papers have been published addressing many aspects of ITSM issues. This paper presents the results based on a study of comprehensive review of publications in ITSM from 2000 to 2010. A total of 152 research papers from leading information systems (IS) journals and conference proceedings were identified, categorized and analyzed from the perspectives of reference discipline, theoretical foundation, research method, level of analysis, and research topic. The findings suggest five primary conclusions: 1) there is generally a lack of theoretically driven researches; 2) the field is still improving, with a growing number of published papers dealing with the development of concepts, constructs, models, methods and implementations for theory formalization; 3) ITSM performance issues, justifications, and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) topics are among the most popular topics of research; 4) ITSM researchers do not seem to consider research at an individual level; 5) the most popular research method was the conceptual orientation. Recommendations for future research in ITSM are presented and articulated.

Supporting the Module Sequencing Decision in ITIL Solution Implementation

Nowadays a growing interest in Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) proves the trends and needs of their implementation in organizations. In order to successfully implement an ITSM project in an organization, it is essential to implement a suitable ITSM solution to support the related processes. The ITSM solution implementation can be conducted either in a big bang or phased manner by module. The present paper intends to offer the analytical means to support decision-making in the implementation sequence of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) solution modules. Since the decision problem of the module sequence involves a myriad of organizational and technical issues, which are vague in essence, we propose the Balanced ScoreCard (BSC) based evaluation criteria for supporting module sequencing decision along with fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (FTOPSIS) method to be applied. The proposed approach has been applied to a local Iranian company in the field of IT services to implement the acquired ITSM solution; the provided numerical example illustrates the applicability of the approach for the purpose. The priorities for the implementation sequence of the modules are determined in the case study.

An Extensive Review of IT Service Design in Seven International ITSM Processes Frameworks

An IT service design process is considered to be a fundamental piece of the seven key international IT Service Management (ITSM) processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ITIL v3 (and ITIL v2011), ISO 20000-4, CobIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP). Nevertheless the availability of IT service design processes, few –if any- descriptive-comparative studies among them have been reported. Thus, in this paper (Part I), we address this knowledge gap. An extensive descriptive-comparative review of seven IT service design processes in aforementioned frameworks is reported. Fundamental concepts (viz., design as noun, design as verb, service, service system, IT service, IT service system, and IT service architecture design) are analyzed by using a Systems Approach. Our findings indicate that the frameworks ITIL v2, ISO/IEC 20000 and Cobit 4.0 are using weak systemic concepts, while the frameworks ITIL v3, CMMI-SVC, ITUP and MOF 4.0 are more foundationally congruent with the new service systems view. Implications for ITSM theory and practice are discussed.

The status of IT service management in health care - ITIL® in selected European countries

Background

Due to the strained financial situation in the healthcare sector, hospitals and other healthcare providers are facing an increasing pressure to improve their efficiency and to reduce costs. These trends challenge health care organizations to introduce innovative information technology (IT) based supportive processes. To guarantee that IT supports the clinical processes perfectly, IT must be managed proactively. However, until now, there is only very few research on IT service management especially on ITIL^® implementations in the health care context.

Methods

The current study aims at exploring knowledge about and acceptance of IT service management (especially ITIL^®) in hospitals in Austria and its neighboring regions Bavaria (Germany), Slovakia, South Tyrol (Italy) and Switzerland. Therefore highly standardized interviews with the respective head of information technology (CIO, IT manager) were conducted for selected hospitals from the different regions. In total 75 hospitals were interviewed. Data gathered was analyzed using descriptive statistics and where necessary methods of qualitative content analysis.

Results

In most regions, two-thirds or more of the participating IT managers claim to be familiar with the concepts of IT service management and of ITIL^®. IT managers expect from ITIL^® mostly better IT services, followed by an increased productivity and a reduction of IT cost. But only five hospitals said to have implemented at least parts of ITIL^®, and eight hospitals stated to be planning to do this in the next two years. When it comes to ITIL^®, Switzerland and Bavaria seem to be ahead of the other countries. There, the highest levels of knowledge, the highest number of implementations or plans of an implementation as well as the highest number of ITIL^® certified staff members were observed.

Conclusion

The results collected through this study indicate that the idea of IT services and IT service management is still not widely recognized in hospitals in the countries and regions of the study. It is also indicated that hospitals need further assistance in order to be able to successfully implement ITIL^®. Overall, research on IT service management and ITIL^® in health care is rare.

Software Development Life Cycles and Methodologies

Information Systems as a discipline has generated thousands of research papers, yet the practice still suffers from poor-quality applications. This paper evaluates the current state of application development, finding practice wanting in a number of areas. Changes recommended to fix historical shortcomings include improved management attention to risk management, testing, and detailed work practices. In addition, for industry’s move to services orientation, recommended changes include development of usable interfaces and a view of applications as embedded in the larger business services in which they function. These business services relate to both services provided to parent-organization customers as well as services provided by the information technology organization to its constituents. Because of this shift toward service orientation, more emphasis on usability, applications, testing, and improvement of underlying process quality are needed. The shift to services can be facilitated by adopting tenets of IT service management and user-centered design and by attending to service delivery during application development.

Taking a Byte of Telephony Costs

In 2006, the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) upgraded the telephone system at its main campus in Anchorage from a traditional private branch exchange (PBX) architecture to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. This case describes the organizational decisions that led to the change; the scope and the process of upgrading; and the current status of the new VoIP system. The actual migration to VoIP was completed less than a year after the start of the project. The transition process went smoothly. User satisfaction with the performance of the VoIP system is very high. Based on extensive interviews with decision makers and the technical personnel involved, this case also describes financial considerations (including “creative” ways to stretch a limited budget), outsourcing considerations, training related issues, as well as lessons learned.