IT Service Management – Unlimited!

The ITIL V3 Service Strategy book defines a ‘Value Network’ as “A complex set of relationships between two or more groups or organizations. Value is generated through exchange of knowledge, information, goods or Services”

For anyone who has not understood this concept of ‘Value Network’, the ITIL V3 itself is the best of all the examples one could refer for the purpose of understanding. Look at the value it has created for the BLOGGERS around the world through the new concepts (many of them vague), and now, mainly by the plethora of ‘errors/ mistakes/ inconsistencies/ blunders etc’ (or whatever you may want to call them as) contained in the new ITIL V3 publications.

For instance, the definition of ‘Value Network’ itself is inconsistent if you compare the one given in Page No: 48 of the Service Strategy book and the one in the glossary of all the books. One may feel I’m nitpicking here, but the plain fact is that it is ‘inconsistent’ and defeats one of the main purposes of the REFRESH project.

Leaving that for now, look at the Case Example-5 and its solution given in the Service Strategy book to explain ‘value network’. It looks like a coincidence of some sort that the whole ITIL V3 fits in there and could replace the ‘web commerce company’ given in this example. Let us replace ‘The auctioneer’ in the example with ‘ITIL V3′ and the ‘Hobbyists’ with ‘Bloggers’

Now, try to analyze it. The earlier versions of ITIL were creating ‘tangible and intangible value’ to trainers, consultants and organizations across the world ‘through complex exchange of knowledge and information’. But now with V3, the value net analysis reveals a hidden participant and their intangible exchanges: BLOGGERS. These bloggers may actually belong to one of the above mentioned groups, however with the self-given rights for criticizing, anonymously.

BLOGGERS discovered they could take part in the ITIL V3’s micro-economy. They have become professional participants with their own value capture. They have created a sense of community, loyalty (which I doubt), feedback mechanisms and referrals. By indirectly creating prosperity for the BLOGGERS, ITIL V3 created prosperity (I would replace this with ‘popularity’) for itself.

So, will ITIL V3 (The Auctioneer in the example) use this insight to create a new class of services directed at Bloggers (The Hobbyists in the example)? Or have they already done that?

Reviewing and correcting the entire V3 publications is a daunting and costly task for the owners of ITIL V3 and so is re-issuing the publications to all those who have bought it. So, this new set of ‘bloggers’ can do this for the owners of ITIL free of cost (without calling it as another refresh) and make all of it available to existing buyers without the re-prints.

May be this was already part of the Strategy? I don’t think it is a bad idea to seriously think about this (if not already) and make it formal…