Service Catalogue Options

A Service Catalogue can be a structured (Word / Excel) document located in a Sharepoint folder accessible from any location.  This option provides a way of documenting specific requirements.

Alternatively Webpages and Web-Forms can be created which are available via the Intranet.  However most organisations will jump to the COTS solution.  Here are a few vendors:

ServiceNow has doubled their annual contract values Year on Year for the last five years.   Their service portfolio management solution transforms IT-speak into a language the business understands and cares about. They call it the language of IT 3.0. 

CA Service Catalog helps you increase value by communicating service offerings in rich, descriptive business language

CA Oblicore Guarantee (TM) accelerates the monitoring, reporting, and management of the service portfolio

Axios – to assist with the rapid deployment of the service catalog Axios provides a complete set of service structure and content templates.  Axios also offer a service catalog strategy workshop to jump start the process.  Axios are the worlds leading “independent” software provider.  Martin advised that the key word is independent and that Axios stick to their knitting which is to invest in their Assyst product suite.  

HP Cloud Service Catalog (Beta) ” Project Coral” –  effectively manage the service portfolio based on cost, quality of service and user feedback 

IBM CloudBurst – Automate service delivery and help save operating costs through a self-service portal and service catalog

BMC – Enable all areas of your business with a consistent, accurate view of IT services with BMC Software’s Service Catalog

Newscale acquired by Cisco – Publish a menu of standardized service offerings in an online catalog.  Newscale technology will serve as the storefront for [Cisco] Cloud services with its Amazon-like interface

A key point to remember is that the Service Catalogue solution of service offerings to the Business  should not include Service Request Fulfillment.  For example you cannot request a new service via a tool rather it is an informed discussion with the Business Relationship Manager.  If a user wants to order something in particular, then they will typically use a different best of breed solution e.g. Ariba.  So don’t dilute the value of the Service Catalog. 

The Vendors will respond that in a world of Cloud Based Services a user should be able to self-provision.  That is fine as an argument if you are talking about technical components in a virtualised “On Demand” world.  How many organisations are there yet?  The school answer is that Service Requests are part of the Service Desk solution, they are not required functionality of the Service Catalog.

Business Services Catalog – the Evolution

http://www.slideshare.net/servicenowdotcom/knowledge11business-services-catalog-the-evolution

Samantha Reed has produced this presentation on the evolution of the Business Services catalog.  On slide 5 and 7 the Technical Services Catalog is shown.  As we move more of these capabilities and resources to 3rd Party Service Providers we will only need to capture information at the level of Service Assets not drill down into the detail of configuration items because the CMDB will be managed externally.