Information technology services
A wide range of services in the modern world are consisted of digitized elements, bits. People develop and people use such services constantly.
In practice, phenomena of I(C)T services can appear in quite different contexts. On the one hand, IT-based services often mean services used with information and communication technology, e.g. automatic teller machines, Internet-based services, services accessed through mobile and wireless information devices, and applications. On the other hand, many organizations operating in the IT field regard themselves as IT service organizations such as internal units and external vendors. Examples of IT service providers’ services: developing information systems, maintaining, installing, updating, training, problem resolving, supporting, consulting, and integrating.
The packaging of IT services
The packaging of IT services is an approach aiming for industrial, factory-like operations in a high-volume mass market of IT service. The factory-like activity gives the following benefits: a standard delivery of IT service, a controlled production, and a workable billing. This approach is to the benefit of both parties: the customer (who buys and uses IT service) and the IT service provider (who markets and sells the service).
The packaging of IT services meets the requirements of an IT service provider for developing and tangibilizing its IT service offering for customers. The approach collects the basic elements related to a selected IT service from an organization and transforms them into a repeatable, billable, and easy-to-sell IT service product. It improves time-to-market and saves money, because it helps organizations to sharpen their often unstructured IT services and tasks.
The packaging of IT services aims to eliminate inefficiencies or non-value-added activities in the IT service processes. An existing IT service is thus bundled into an advantageous, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-buy IT service product (baseline) from the customer’s point of view.
|
