Service Oriented IT Management: Benefit, Cost and Success Factors

Due to an enhanced customer focus in the planning, development and delivery of IT services, service-oriented IT management has become increasingly important. This paper investigates to what effect service-oriented IT management has already been put into place in European companies. Benefit and cost categories of integrating service-oriented principles into IT management processes are analyzed. Additionally success factors for implementing serviceoriented IT management are investigated. For this purpose, six case studies were conducted. The situation of IT management before and after implementation was analyzed and comments are made on the corresponding transformation projects. Based on the case studies, this paper shows three typical benefit categories of service-oriented IT management. Eight cost categories for implementing and operating service-oriented IT management processes are discussed and six success factors of pertinent re-organization projects are identified. Findings can serve as guidelines for other IT organizations and can be used as enabler for getting informed decisions regarding the initiation of service-oriented IT management. Finally, the article highlights four current trends for service-oriented IT management and further research is outlined.