What Is IT Service Delivery? (Challenges, Examples)

  • Updated: March 7, 2024
Andrew Dennis
Andrew Dennis
IT service delivery

Getting IT services into end users’ hands is critical to building successful IT environments. Whether you’re resetting a forgotten password or fixing a malfunctioning laptop, teams can’t do their job properly without the IT services that enable them to be productive and efficient. 

It’s critical to invest in building strong IT service delivery processes, including tools that can make it all happen. Here’s everything you need to know about IT service delivery.

What is IT Service Delivery?

IT service delivery refers to the methods of providing and managing IT services to organization members or end-users. This includes everything from connecting users to available services to maintaining, updating, and troubleshooting deployed software. 

IT service delivery processes not only ensure that end-users get the IT services they need but also that those services function as they should.

What is an IT Service Delivery Manager?

IT service delivery managers oversee the delivery of IT services. They are responsible for ensuring services are delivered to the expectations established in service level agreements and that they appropriately fill the various needs of the business and end-users. 

IT service delivery managers are in charge of IT service management (ITSM); this includes: addressing service issues, identifying opportunities for improvement, and ensuring the IT services provided are aligned with the organization’s overall goals and objectives.

Components of IT Service Delivery

Let’s run through a quick breakdown of the various components of IT service delivery:

  1. Service level management: Service level management (SLM) ensures IT services meet performance expectations through creating and monitoring service level agreements (SLAs). 
  2. Financial management for IT services: Financial management involves budgeting and managing costs associated with maintaining and delivering various IT services. 
  3. Capacity management: Capacity management oversees the IT servers, networks, and storage to ensure there are enough resources to meet current and future service demands. 
  4. Availability management: Availability management makes sure IT services are available when needed and that risks are appropriately managed.
  5. IT service continuity management: IT service continuity management involves creating and implementing processes to maintain service continuity in case of a system failure or disruption.

Benefits of IT Service Delivery

Effective IT service delivery helps boost productivity and improves overall user satisfaction. Here’s how improving IT service delivery can benefit your business:

  • Improves operational efficiency. Standardized IT delivery procedures and best practices can streamline operational processes and enable the IT department to work more efficiently. This can improve response time, resource utilization, and overall team productivity. 
  • Manages costs. Efficient IT service delivery optimizes resource utilization and minimizes downtime, helping to manage costs and reduce expenses. Proper IT service delivery also makes it easier for the business to budget and manage financial resources to maximize IT ROI. 
  • Strengthens risk mitigation and enhances security. IT service delivery should also include measures to identify and mitigate risks, including regularly updating software, monitoring for potential threats, and having a plan in place to maintain connectivity in the event of a failure or disruption. 
  • Improves customer satisfaction. An IT service delivery framework provides quick and efficient issue detection and resolution, minimizing service disruptions and improving the overall customer experience. Providing user-friendly service catalogs, transparent communication, and personalized services can also improve customer satisfaction.
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Common Challenges of IT Service Delivery

While IT service delivery is beneficial, it doesn’t come without a few challenges. It’s important to be mindful of issues that may arise, including:

  • Lack of established KPIs. Clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs) make it easier to measure IT service delivery success. Without them, it can be difficult to make data-driven and informed decisions when looking for areas of improvement or opportunities to increase user satisfaction. 
  • Lack of communication with stakeholders. IT service delivery should be aligned with overall business objectives but without clear communication and input from key stakeholders, it can be difficult to collaborate with other teams and departments. 
  • Inability to iterate. IT service delivery should be a dynamic process that easily adapts as business needs change and evolve. Being unable to iterate can lead to the company’s IT environment growing stale and falling short of end-user needs and expectations. 
  • Lack of contextual support to end-users. Users need support tailored to their unique needs — something that can be tricky for IT teams. If users are not getting the help they need when it comes to IT service delivery, it can lead to frustration and resistance to working with IT teams.

Examples of IT Service Delivery

IT service delivery is a standard part of day-to-day business operations. Here are five common examples of IT service delivery.

1. Credential resets

When a user forgets their username or password or otherwise needs to reset their login credentials, the IT department must verify the user’s identity and help them get back into their accounts. This may be through delivering a temporary password or by prompting the user to answer pre-set security questions.

2. Provision of accounts

Provisioning accounts refers to the process of getting new employees or users set up with a new account. IT needs to collect relevant information from the user, assign the appropriate accesses and permissions, and ensure the new user can access and log in to their new account.

3. Equipment repair

When equipment hardware breaks or malfunctions, IT must be able to fix those issues or replace broken parts. This process typically involves accepting a repair request from the user, determining the best course of action to solve the problem, and ultimately delivering the necessary repairs or replacements.

4. Software implementation

Implementing software requires deploying and configuring new software applications and updating existing ones, including ensuring that software is properly installed, configured, and accessible to all relevant individuals across the organization. It may also involve proper software testing, training, and ongoing maintenance.

5. Storage requests

As departments run out of storage and need additional space to accommodate their growing data and workloads, IT must be able to deliver additional storage space. This may involve provisioning storage on services, in the cloud, or in hybrid storage situations.

IT Service Delivery Tools

The right tools can make delivering IT services easier. Here are some IT service delivery tools to consider.

1. Help desks

A help desk serves as a central point for collecting user service requests and providing them with resources, instructions, or support to solve their problems. It makes it easier for end users and IT teams to communicate and facilitates fast problem resolution. A help desk tool can also provide automation tools and features to make issue resolution even easier.

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2. IT service catalogs

An IT service catalog shows end users what services and resources are available to them. Through the catalog, they can request access to new tools or services, or gather information about available resources to improve decision-making. The IT service catalog also enables IT teams to track service requests to better understand service requirements and needs.

3. Digital adoption platforms

A digital adoption platform (DAP) uses interactive guides and in-app tutorials to introduce new technologies or applications to users. As part of an IT service delivery plan, a DAP can play a critical role in onboarding, training, and collecting feedback from end users. Using a DAP can simplify IT delivery and take complicated manual tasks off your team’s plate.

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Enable your employees with in-app guidance, self-help support, process changes alerts, pop-ups for department announcements, and field validations to improve data accuracy.

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4. Knowledge base management

Knowledge bases provide instructions, guidance, and additional resources to teams and end users, enabling them to troubleshoot problems and solve issues on demand. A knowledge base can walk users through how to solve common problems and troubleshoot minor issues, enabling them to get the support they need faster and on their own time.

5. Log management

A log management tool provides standardization to the process of collecting, storing, and managing IT service delivery information. Log management tools help identify ongoing problems and responses to incidents and enable IT teams to detect anomalies faster. They can also support IT teams in planning for capacity changes to stay on top of changing demands.

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Best Practices for IT Service Delivery

Improve your IT service delivery with these best practices.

  1. Clearly define IT service delivery KPIs. Set specific, measurable benchmarks to determine how successful your IT service delivery is. 
  2. Track and monitor KPIs regularly. Regularly track your KPIs to see if you’re on track to meet your performance benchmarks. 
  3. Develop workflows to improve efficiency. Well-defined workflows can streamline IT operations and improve consistency across service delivery processes. 
  4. Provide transparent and regular reporting on KPIs. Communicate performance trends to identify opportunities for improvement and facilitate better decision-making.
  5. Collect continuous feedback and iteration. Work with IT teams and end users to collect and implement feedback to continuously improve your service delivery.
Software clicks better with Whatfix’s in-app guidance, real-time support, and user behavioral analytics

Take some pressure off your IT teams’ hands with a digital adoption platform like Whatfix. Streamline service delivery processes with in-app guidance and deliver real-time support, reducing the amount of manual training and instruction needed from your IT team. And with user behavior analytics, you can gain clear insights into how users are interacting with your IT services. With a more complete understanding of how your end users are behaving, you can improve your IT service offerings and enhance overall efficiency. 

Get started today to see what Whatfix can do for you.

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Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that provides organizations with a no-code editor to create in-app guidance on any application that looks 100% native. With Whatfix, create interactive walkthroughs, product tours, task lists, smart tips, field validation, self-help wikis, hotspots, and more. Understand how users are engaging with your applications with advanced product analytics.

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