UK IT frameworks find international audience

UK IT frameworks are gaining popularity abroad

International organisations are increasingly looking to the UK's best practice frameworks for the management of their IT systems, according to services provider Dimension Data.

A survey of 370 chief information officers (CIOs) from 14 countries around the world found that two thirds of organisations have interacted with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), an advisory service first set up the government in the 1980s.

ITIL is now owned by the Office of Governance Commerce, at the Treasury, and offers documents that give guidance on the most efficient ways to implement IT frameworks.

The library is becoming increasingly popular with CIOs around the world, according to Dimension Data services executive Scott Petty.

"Globally, ITIL enjoys acceptance as the de facto standard," said Petty.

"Having achieved widespread acceptance in Europe, ITIL is now well on the way to establishing itself as the definitive set of guidelines for It service management in the Asia-Pacific region.

"The ITIL wave finally reached US shores a couple of years ago and is now beginning to gain traction."

The framework is particularly popular with large organisations, according to the survey. Nine out of ten enterprises (87 per cent) with more than 10,000 employees have engaged with ITIL.

Intelligence firm Datamonitor conducted the study on behalf of Dimension Data.