Publishing / Agutter ITIL® 4: Digital and IT Strategy (DITS)

Your companion to the ITIL® 4 strategic leader DITS certification
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80638-646-8
Verlag: Packt Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 276 Seiten

This book explores ITIL® 4's approach to digital strategy, starting with key concepts like digital transformation, ITIL® 4 guiding principles, and the role of technology in shaping business models. It introduces the driving forces behind change and how to align digital strategies with business goals for maximum impact.
The middle chapters delve into the practical aspects of IT strategy, focusing on areas such as strategy management, governance, and continual improvement. Key topics like digital disruption, organizational viability, and strategic approaches for operational excellence are covered in-depth. The book provides a structured framework for managing risks, handling financial strategies, and fostering innovation in digital organizations.
The final chapters guide readers on implementing and assessing digital strategies, from defining clear goals to establishing operational models. Practical tools, case studies, and exam preparation further enhance the reader's understanding. Ideal for IT professionals, business leaders, and strategists, this book equips them with the skills and knowledge to lead digital transformation and succeed in the modern business environment.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Publishing, IT Governance

Agutter, Claire

Leseproben

CHAPTER 2: KEY CONCEPTS

In this chapter, we’ll study key concepts that support the creation and management of digital and IT strategies. This chapter includes:

• Digital technology;

• Digital business;

• Digital organisation;

• Digitisation;

• Transformation;

• Products and services and their management;

• Strategy tiers; and

• Business models.

Digital technology

Digital technology is “any technology that digitizes something or processes digital data. Digital technology refers to information technology (IT) and the parts of operational technology (OT) that have been digitized. It also depends on the use of communications technology. Thus, digital technology refers to the merging of IT, OT and communications technology to achieve levels of functionality and automation that are not possible with any of these alone.”

Figure 4 shows the hierarchy of elements within the digital technology definition.

Figure 4: Digital technology5

The different elements of digital technology can be confusing. Let’s take an example from the agricultural industry. Digital technology is now being applied to crop management, allowing farmers to look after their crops in a cost-efficient way that also helps the environment. Historically, farmers had to treat their entire crops with weedkillers, pesticides, watering, etc. Now, technology allows them to be much more targeted.

Drones (OT) can fly above fields to report on the status of a crop and signal where there are weeds or pest damage, or signs of drought using AI to compare images of healthy crops with those that are in danger. Information technology allows the farmer to review and assess images, and the corrective action (weedkiller, pesticide) can be applied either manually or in an automated way. Over time, the information will build so that trends can be seen, particular seed types reviewed, etc.

Table 3, below, provides further detail on the elements of digital technology.

Table 3: IT, OT, CT and IoT definitions

Term	Explanation

Information technology (IT)

Information technology refers to the use of systems to store, retrieve and send information. The systems may include software, hardware, services and infrastructure. Word processing or spreadsheets are examples of information technology.

Operational technology (OT)

Operational technology refers to systems or devices that monitor and/or control devices, processes and events. Examples of operational technology include fire control systems or cyber security threat monitoring. OT can form part of the Internet of things (IoT).

Communication technology (CT)

ITIL® 4 defines communication technology as “…enables IT and OT to be highly mobile and accessible to organizations, consumers and other stakeholders”. Common examples of communication technology are email, video conferencing and online chat.

Internet of things (IoT)

The Internet of things (IoT) describes a network of devices that are connected to the Internet and can send and receive data. Do you want your fridge to automatically order milk when you’re getting low? You need a smart fridge with IoT capabilities!

Digital business

In the ITIL® 4 definition, digital business describes how organisations use digital technology to carry out activities. The definition of digital business relates to ‘carrying out business’ rather than ‘a business’ as an entity.

Here’s something for you to think about. For your current or most recent employer, what activities are now enabled by technology that weren’t in the past? Is technology part of their core strategy, or more related to operational efficiencies?

One of the businesses that I started is an elearning organisation. From day one (16 years ago), we’ve only done elearning and we could only exist because of technology. We could perhaps have offered classroom training instead, but that would have put us in a very different competitive environment; local customers instead of global, for example.

Digital organisation

“A digital organization is an organization that is enabled by digital technology to do business significantly differently, or to do a significantly different business.”

Most organisations operate using a mixture of systems, including both digital and manual activities. Digital organisations are very reliant on technology to carry out their core business activities (do ‘digital business’).

There’s a trend at the moment to put ‘digital’ in front of everything – digital business, digital worker, digital leaders, digital teams, etc. It can be helpful or it can cloud what we’re trying to say, so it’s important to assess the word as we use it. Digital business is, I believe, an important definition because it describes a significant change in how organisations operate and how they view themselves. It describes a way of thinking that moves from ‘IT and the business’ to ‘IT is the business’.

We need to apply ‘digital’ with care though and not lose sight of our customers or the outcomes we want to achieve. An example here comes from the UK’s health service and the rollout of the COVID-19 pass that allowed people to travel by showing their vaccination record and any COVID-19 infections/recoveries. Many people thought of this as a ‘digital’ service hosted in an app, but in fact it needed both an online and offline element, for people who didn’t use the Internet or weren’t comfortable using an app. The outcome and the value came from being able to record and share information about people’s COVID-19 history and vaccinations. The app/digital element was the major part of this, but it wasn’t the whole story.

Digitisation

Digitisation turns something from analogue to digital. For example, a newspaper might decide to digitise its archive of previous editions. Digitisation can also refer to how we use digital technology to change an aspect of how we work – for example, “we digitised the new starter process”.

Banksbest is digitising cheques. The new service My Deposit My Way will allow cheques to be paid in to bank accounts using the camera on a mobile phone. What are the benefits associated with this? Can you think of any risks?

Digital transformation

ITIL 4® defines digital transformation as “the use of digital technology to enable a significant improvement in the realization of the organization’s objectives that could not feasibly have been achieved by non-digital means. Digital transformation is achieved by digitizing, robotizing, and other forms of automation that enable organizations to do things differently, or to do different things.”

Figure 5 shows how digital transformation impacts all areas of the organisation. Viewing digital technology as an ‘IT initiative’ invites failure. This needs to be seen as a holistic, business-wide initiative, and integrated into day-to-day business activities.6

Figure 5: Modified list of key digital transformation themes

Products and services and their management

Most organisations create products and services to help them fulfil their strategic objectives. Products and services are often the point where organisations interact with their consumers, and where value is co-created.

Banksbest has set itself a strategic target to grow its residential mortgage business by 50%. What actions could it take to help realise this goal? How many of them are technology related or supported by technology?

The terms in the table below will be familiar to you from your ITIL® 4 Foundation training. They are the ingredients that an organisation has to work with to serve its consumers. And just like with recipes, the ingredients can be combined in different ways to deliver very different outcomes.

Table 4: Resource, product, service and service offering definitions

Term	Definition

Resource

“A person or other entity that is required for executing an activity or achieving an objective.”

Product

“A configuration of an organization’s resources, designed to offer value for a consumer.”

Service

“A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks.”

Service offering

“Describes one or more services based on one or more products. Service offerings might include goods, access to resources, and service actions.”

Creating competitive advantage/Wardley mapping

Wardley mapping7 is a technique that can help organisations understand their products and services and how they can...