ITIL 4 Specialist drive stakeholder value: maximizing the consumer experience

When we lived in an industrial culture, material possessions were the most important component in our life. However, in the “service age,” we desire to replace ownership of products with access to services and resources that do not need ownership of the resources themselves.

This is occurring both with and without digital transformation, albeit the latter has the potential to accelerate the phenomenon: think of Uber and Airbnb, to name a few examples.

When viewed in this light, the ITIL® 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value module – which is part of ITIL 4 Managed Professional certification – is concerned with the engagement and interaction between service providers and stakeholders, as well as the conversion of demand into value through the use of information technology-enabled services.

But, in reality, what does this entail is unclear.

Service was formerly viewed the same way as produced commodities were: it was the customer’s obligation to extract value from the service. In contrast, the key principle of ITIL 4 is that value is co-created by all parties involved.

Therefore, we designed this ITIL 4 training around the customer journey – starting with both parties engaging, agreeing to work together, and interacting to co-create value – and working their way down.

While ITIL v3 teaches a service provider to improve in a one-sided manner, ITIL 4 urges the service provider to assist the client in improving their own situation as well. For example, the business product owner (also known as the “consumer” in information technology) is encouraged to adopt service management best practices as part of the product development relationship in order to elevate mutual capabilities and, as a result, increase the value that has been co-created.

The most important factors in increasing stakeholder value

When it comes to generating stakeholder value, what competences will an ITIL 4 Specialist develop?

• Ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction

ITIL has previously addressed customer satisfaction via service level agreements that were focused on result, usefulness, and warranty, among other factors. When it comes to consuming a service, ITIL 4 believes that the experience is just as essential as the result. Sprintzeal

• When developing services, consider the user’s perspective.

The subject provides practical instruction on topics like as design thinking, which may be used to improve usability and experience by understanding how a client feels when using a service, for example.

• Designing for customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) in order to maximize the customer experience

These notions contribute to the concepts of utility and warranty (reaching excellent results), but they are expressed in the language of experience-based agreements. Persuading stakeholders, fostering cooperation and openness are all aspects of communication.

Good communication is a necessity of trust in order to create value for stakeholders. This includes listening and understanding what each party need and desires. Understanding the characteristics of a service relationship will put the practitioner in a better position to deliver services, drive value creation, and collaborate on value creation.

This is a markedly different attitude from that of an IT specialist who is configuring a server and focuses on availability, usefulness, and guarantee. The distinction is the recognition that the manner in which service management professionals engage with stakeholders will have an impact on their overall experience.

How does ITIL 4 Managing Professional Drive Stakeholder Value assist those who use it?

As ITIL has evolved to include both consumers and producers in multi-dependent workflows and systems, this module is focused on assisting practitioners in increasing stakeholder satisfaction through the provision of the best service offerings; something that is critical to business success in today’s highly competitive environment.