Service Management for Dummies®

Chapter 4. Service Management Standards and Best Practices

In This Chapter

• Understanding the importance of standards and best practices

• Discovering standard process models

• Obtaining standards certification

The definition of service is expansive, ranging from providing service in a restaurant to delivering cash to a banking customer through an automated teller machine (ATM); it even includes digital services, such as sensors included in many automobiles to aid in repair and maintenance services. That definition provides for a lot of services that need to be managed. Services aren't just hidden within a company's own environment; rather, they have to be managed across everything from the supply chain to the product design partners. Because these services are so important to how well companies run, more and more services are being implemented based on best practices and standards for service management.

Organizations need to control, manage, and continuously improve services without always having to re-create what works and what doesn't work. By leveraging standards and best practices, organizations can manage services more effectively and efficiently than they could otherwise.

In this chapter, we explore the world of service management best practices and standards. We also describe why companies leverage standards and best practices, and we introduce the organizations that create and distribute necessary information about these standards and best practices.

Understanding What Best Practices ...