We, and many other Managed Learning Services companies, continue to see a growth in demand for ITIL skills and qualifications. Here’s our thoughts on why that is. If you are unsure about the history or use of ITIL, learn more from this article.
Every company is an IT Service company
ITIL is focussed on IT Service Management. Historically this was concentrated in the big software houses and consultancies. Nowadays almost every company is an IT service company. Even if IT is not the core business, it is essential to delivering the core business.
The most obvious evidence for this is the number of times a company makes headlines for all the wrong reasons because of an IT service failure. Prime examples include airlines unable to fly planes, banks unable to process transactions and, from a few years ago, restaurants running out of chicken.
Globalisation
English is the world’s common language of business, at least for now with ITIL becoming the world’s common language for IT Services.
The communication required for IT Service Management is much more efficient and effective when everyone involved has the same understanding of the concepts involved, and describes them using the same vocabulary. When IT Services companies from, for example, Africa and Asia work together they probably communicate using ITIL.
Professionalising IT
Most traditional professions, such as medicine, accountancy and engineering, have qualifications that differentiate the professionals from the technicians. Often they differentiate between the hands-on technician with practical skills in one area, and the professional with a conceptual understanding of the whole system or process. The professional qualifications act as a prerequisite for the senior and better paid positions within the industry.
At the moment IT lacks this. Anyone working in the IT business can call themselves an IT professional, whether they are the person designing the IT architecture for the entire organisation, or the person plugging in PCs.
ITIL is a step forward towards professionalising IT, by making it easier for people to understand and explain the difference between the roles.
Change is the one constant
Every IT solution needs updating when the problem it solves changes. This has been true ever since Alan Turing used very early IT to crack the Enigma code. The pace of change is also always increasing. Most people now have immediate access to a wide range of IT Services 24/7 from their mobiles.
The COVID-19 pandemic also brought about a rapid change in working practices in many organisations that no-one foresaw, especially working from home.
Therefore implementing a service is just the first step: organisations must be able to continually enhance that service throughout that lifetime. Being agile is essential to being successful. The tools and concepts provided by ITIL help facilitate the agility every organisation needs.
Does your organisation need to enhance its ITIL knowledge?
If your team lacks the ITIL skills your organisation needs then we can help. We’re happy to talk through the way our training delegates progress through the various levels and options for ITIL training, and the best ways to enable that learning for them. Simply contact us for a conversation.
