Service Catalogue Perspective: Know What You Want
Optimising Your IT Service Catalogue
A well-structured IT service catalogue is key to aligning IT services with business goals, raising transparency, and improving communication. Many organisations seek to implement one, recognising the value it brings—but understanding what a service catalogue truly offers and how it benefits different stakeholders is critical for success.
Why Create a Service Catalogue?
An IT service catalogue is a comprehensive directory that details the services IT provides, serving multiple purposes depending on who uses it. These purposes are broadly split between three core groups:
- Users: Employees who need to know what services are available, how they can access them, how much they cost, and when they will be delivered.
- Business Customers: Senior managers or department heads concerned with service performance, usage, costs, and any additional or enhanced services that can be requested.
- IT Department: The internal IT team that delivers services, ensuring clarity about what services are offered, what’s excluded, and what requires extra resources or budget.
User Perspective: What Do I Get?
For the average user, the service catalogue acts like a menu of offerings. Users want to know what services are available to them, such as the ability to request increased mailbox storage, the cost of each service, and the time required for delivery. This clear structure helps users access exactly what they need without confusion.
Business Customer Perspective: Value for Investment
Business customers—such as department managers—view the service catalogue as a tool for managing IT services and understanding value for investment. This group is interested in service levels, associated costs, and performance metrics, helping them plan budgets and monitor the effectiveness of IT services.
IT Department Perspective: Clarity on Services Provided
From an IT perspective, the service catalogue ensures clarity on what is being delivered to the business. It defines available services, highlights what falls outside the scope of IT’s regular offerings, and helps manage expectations around additional requests.
IT teams benefit from a service catalogue as it reduces the assumption that IT automatically provides everything without needing extra resources. By clearly defining what’s included and what requires additional project development, IT departments can better manage their workload and align with business needs.
Customised Service Catalogue: One Tool, Multiple Views
A well-designed service catalogue doesn’t need to be one-size-fits-all. Instead, it can be tailored to offer different views for different stakeholders. By using filters or access rights, organisations can ensure that the right information is delivered to the right audience, maximising the value and efficiency of the catalogue.
Conclusion: A Powerful Tool for Collaboration
A properly designed and implemented IT service catalogue is more than just a list of services—it’s the backbone of IT-business alignment. It enhances transparency, helps manage expectations, and delivers value to users, business customers, and IT departments alike.
Before creating a service catalogue, organisations should clearly understand who will use it, why they need it, and what they will use it for. With the right approach, a service catalogue can become a powerful tool, driving collaboration and efficiency between IT and the rest of the business.