Service catalogs are an excellent way to demonstrate IT value to the business. They standardize IT services, and facilitate theeir requisition and delivery. They can even be used to tie services to IT costs or support a chargeback costing model. Several vendors have placed their bets on the emerging popularity of service catalogs by promoting offerings that facilitate the publishing of catalogs and more importantly, play a key role in the requisition, provisioning, financial, and resource planning aspects of IT services.
Features and Functionality
Service catalog solutions typically include a portal that not only communicate IT’s offerings, but also facilitate the service requisition process including:
- Web portal for ordering services.
- A link from business facing request to “back office” IT supporting activities.
- Mapping of workflows required to execute requests.
- Dashboard views for managing request.
- Costing options for calculating business and IT costs for service/per employee.