Itil service standards ignored by most

Less than a quarter of UK IT chiefs have plans to seek accreditations based on Itil best-practice frameworks for IT management, according to a survey.

Itil originated in the UK through what is now the Office of Government Commerce and has been regarded as a success story at home and abroad, winning the recognition of many infrastructure software giants, auditors and training firms. However, some experts believe that certification may lag behind.

IT service management firm Axios Systems polled 147 IT managers and directors and found that only 23 percent of respondents were looking for ISO/IEC 20000 accreditation to demonstrate adherence to IT service management best practices. Forty-three percent have no plans at all.

“Itil is such a large framework but many firms think that because they’re doing incident management they’re doing Itil,” said Linda King, Axios marketing manager. “Situations such as the Dell battery recall show how important it is to be able to know your IT estate.”

Taken alone, the lack of willingness to pursue accreditation might not be a major issue, especially for smaller firms, but Axios’s poll suggests basic asset management, having a configuration management database (CMDB) and other key steps are often ignored.

However, some experts said that even in one in four is a good start.

“I don’t think it’s bad for a kick-off,” said Peter Armstrong, corporate strategist at BMC Software, which is building Itil process automation into products. “ISO 20000’s precursor, BS 15000, was mostly ignored but I believe the first wave for ISO 20000 will be people who want to have an edge or are acting as service providers.”

Kosten Metreweli, vice-president of Tideway Systems, another developer of IT management software, said, “Some customers like BT take Itil very seriously whereas others will apply the spirit rather than the letter. They understand the processes have to be right but they don’t see accreditation as important. A lot of the banks are like that.”