A lot has been written about service desks and service catalogs. Many

organizations tend to confuse one with the other and will purchase a service

desk solution masquerading as a service catalog, only to find that the solution

they have implemented does not handle the day-to-day business needs and

processes of their customers. So how do organizations decide which route to take

to ensure that they implement the best solution for their specific needs?

Let’s begin by defining a ‘service.’ According to the Information Technology Infrastructure

Library (ITIL) 2011 English Glossary v1.0, a ‘service’ is a means of delivering value

to customers by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the

ownership of specific costs and risks. The term ‘service’ is sometimes used as a synonym

for a core Information Technology (IT) service or service package. IT services generally

support a customer’s business process and are comprised of a combination of people,

processes and technology and should be defined by a service level agreement (SLA). An

example of an IT service is IT Communications that encompass such offerings as eMail,

instant messaging, and other forms of electronic correspondence.

A service catalog, according to ITIL Service Design guidelines, is a thorough listing of IT

and/or business service offerings that an organization provides to its employees and/or

customers. Service catalogs can also be ‘actionable,’ by automatic fulfilling the delivery of

the IT services requested. The service catalog is the only part of an organization’s service

portfolio that is generally available to its customers.

In comparison, a service desk is a primary IT service used for IT Service Management

(ITSM) as defined by ITIL. Service desk tasks include the managing of incidents and

requests, as well as providing an interface to manage other ITSM processes including

problem management, event management, change management and request fulfillment.

The intention of a service desk is to provide a single point of contact (SPOC) between an

organization’s customers and IT.

However, it seems the two definitions above are in conflict. If the service catalog is the

only part of an organization’s service portfolio that is available to a customer and is used

to support the requesting and delivery of IT services, then how can the service desk

be the single point of contact for handling and managing customer requests? While it

appears that a service catalog and a service desk are interchangeable— each solving the

same challenge— this is actually not the case. Both may be used to allow customers to

communicate with IT and track submissions made to IT by customers, but each serves a

distinct purpose.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Service Catalog or Service Desk?By Cesar Fernandez, Director of Product Solutions

“Through 2017,

70% of organizations’

IT service catalogs deployed

within ITSSM tools will

change the business users’

interfaces, due to ITSSM tools

replacements.”

GARTNER

SERVICE CATALOG

A service catalog is a customer facing tool that provides a central source of IT service

offerings available to the business. It ensures that the business customer can view

up-to-date, reliable and detailed listings of the IT services available. An automated

service catalog also provides a vehicle to order those services, provide routes to necessary

approvals and track costs and fulfillment status.

Consider for a moment that a service catalog is like a menu at a restaurant. The menu

is the catalog of offerings a restaurant presents to its customers. With a menu, the

restaurant offers its customers a limited and consistent set of food choices that have

been predefined by the chef and wait staff and targeted to the specific market the

to which the restaurant caters. (Chinese restaurants will typically serve Chinese food,

Mexican restaurants, Mexican food, and so on.) The menu does not offer the customer

an unlimited number of dishes across varying cuisines, nor does it offer up the specific

ingredients used to make the dishes. The result is that customers have simple, predefined

choices that allow the restaurant to provide consistently high quality dishes while

efficiently managing their operations.

By defining exactly what it will serve its customers, the restaurant can ensure that it

has the proper ingredients available, can obtain high quality ingredients from the best

available sources, and can effectively manage the resources required to prepare and serve

its food.

In much the same way, an IT service catalog provides the same level of efficiency and

benefits to an IT organization. By offering a standardized set of services and business

solutions in a service catalog, IT can achieve various operational and user-facing benefits,

including optimal resource allocation, a solid infrastructure, reduction in organizational

costs, increased service delivery efficiency and clearer budgeting and forecasting

capabilities. Additionally, by combining and standardizing needed service components

and their associated support mechanisms into a single service offering, IT can provision

an entire solution at once, saving valuable time and cost in delivery. For example, a

company may offer an employee onboarding service that contains items such as a laptop,

cell phone, facilities pass, etc., in order to save time and effort in ordering all of the

necessary items individually.

A typical offering in a service catalog will include the following:

• Description of the offering and its categorization

• Any associated (or required) offerings or services (also known as

underpinning services)

• Delivery timeframes (also known as service levels agreements or SLA)

• Any associated costs (such as ongoing monthly charges)

Actionable service catalogs will also include an automated delivery process, including

securing all approvals, completion tasks with escalation points, and the tracking of costs.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

SERVICE CATALOG OR SERVICE DESK?

“IT service catalogs simplify the

service request process for

customers and improve

customer satisfaction by

presenting a single face of IT to

the customer for all kinds of IT

interactions.”

GARTNER

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

SERVICE CATALOG OR SERVICE DESK?

SERVICE DESK

A service desk is a function of an IT department. It is primarily associated with the service

operation lifecycle and its typical purpose is to handle incident submissions by a customer

via life cycle management. Service desk functions generally come in three flavors:

• Call center – Usually in centralized locations, call centers receive large numbers

of requests, typically via telephone. They are run by large companies to handle

product support requests and customer requests for information.

• Contact center – Similar to call centers, contact centers manage all customer contact

through a variety of communication channels including telephone, email, fax and

most recently, chat tools.

• Help desk – Typically internal to an organization, help desks provide trouble shooting

support and guidance related to the products and services offered to customers

or end users.

IT service desks function very similar to help desks within an organization. When

customers need help, they report incidents, outages, and requests for service to a service

desk by phone, email, or by using an ITSM tool.

It should be noted that a request for service in this instance should not be confused

with the requesting of a product or offering tied to an underlying service. A request for

service is typically a request to have something corrected, fixed, updated, or changed

and generally encompasses such things as resetting a password, rebooting a server, or

notifying IT that something is down, broken or otherwise not functioning properly. ITSM

tools are used by customers to report situations to IT and used by IT to track and monitor

the situation to proper resolution.

Using the same menu example previously mentioned, a restaurant would not list

“chipped wine glass” as a menu item. The restaurant, however, would have a mechanism

in place for the customer to report the incident of a chipped wine glass, typically to the

waiter, hostess, or manager who would then resolve the incident by changing out the

chipped wine glass for a new one. If several wine glasses were chipped, the multiple

incidents would be considered a problem whereby the restaurant would determine a

root cause for the high incidents of chipped glasses (possibly a bad dishwasher, careless

storage, or defective product), and resolve the situation by implementing a change

(ordering a new dishwasher, improving storage techniques or finding a new supplier).

In the same fashion a service desk would troubleshoot an incident, determine the root

cause (if there were multiple incidents), and if necessary, implement a change to resolve

the problem and the occurrence of future incidents. In addition to managing customer

reported incidents and requests for service, a service desk’s activities include problem

management, configuration management, change management, release management

and capacity management, among others.

“The service desk is the front

office of your IT organization,

where the analysts are

focused on resolving incidents,

implementing changes, and

making it easier for customers

to get information.”

FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC.

Cesar Fernandez is the Director of Product Solutions for PMG, a software company that deploys enterprise service catalog for the Global 2000. With a Six Sigma Black Belt and ITIL v3 certification, Cesar has over 20 years of experience in business process management. After several years of working closely with the PMG customer base, he now leads the company in developing service catalog solutions targeted to specific customer needs.

SO WHICH TOOL SHOULD BE USED?

Well, it depends.

If the need is for a customer facing product and offering ordering system, then a service

catalog is the best choice. Ensure however, that the service catalog:

• Is actionable

• Provides a mechanism for fulfillment tracking and escalation

• Is intuitive and easy to use

• Integrates with a variety of external systems for easy auto-provisioning (including

ITSM tools)

• Has the ability to track cost and cost allocations

If the need is to manage a customer’s request for service, incidents or outages, then

a service desk tool is what is needed. At a minimum, ensure that the tool being

implemented handles these critical ITSM functions:

• Incident management

• Problem management

• Configuration management

• Change management

• Release management

A FINAL CAVEAT

Now that the difference between a service catalog and a service desk is clear, there is one

last thing to remember: Many service catalogs integrate into IT service desk tools in order

to provide a single place for customers to order any and all types of services/products

that they might need, from items such as laptops and facilities passes to problem

management and configuration management.

However, when choosing a service catalog to integrate into your IT service desk,

remember that not all service catalogs are created equal. Many service desks offer a type

of service catalog to provide a single point of contact between IT and its customers. It’s

important to note that the service catalogs provided by ITSM tools tend to be more IT

facing, when a service catalog needs to be customer facing.

IT facing service catalogs struggle to gain acceptance as they tend to be written in more

technical terms for IT concerns, rather than business terms. In order to drive adoption of

the service catalog, be certain to create it placing the customer’s needs first.

This will ensure success.

www.pmg.net

PMG

211 Perimeter Center Parkway

Suite 450

Atlanta, GA 30346

phone 770.457.8787

toll-free 866.764.6381

e-mail sales@pmg.net

ABOUT PMG

PMG’s powerful yet easy

to develop solutions go

beyond traditional IT service

management, helping you

create a better, smarter

set of automated business

processes that streamline

operations, reduce costs and

improve efficiency. The PMG

Enterprise Service Catalog

unites the best features from

e-Commerce, Business Process

Management (BPM) and content

management systems (CMS)

into one tightly integrated

solution. By implementing a

flexible PMG solution that easily

integrates with existing tools

and your established business

environment, you can handle

internal service requests faster

with fewer manual processes

and less reliance on staff

intervention. The result is a

more efficient, less costly set of

business operations. And that’s

just smart!

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

SERVICE CATALOG OR SERVICE DESK?