SmartSuite for the IT Service Manager
The IT Service Manager owns the service management practices: the service catalog, SLAs, process ownership for incident, problem, change and request, continual improvement and business relationship management. They make sure services are defined, measured, improving and understood by their business customers.
What you own
The IT Service Manager owns the service management practices: the service catalog, SLAs, process ownership for incident, problem, change and request, continual improvement and business relationship management.
- Own the service catalog and service level agreements
- Own ITSM process design, metrics and continual improvement
- Oversee incident, problem, change and request practices
- Manage business relationships and service reviews
- Govern the ITSM toolset and its configuration
- Report service performance against SLAs
Reporting lines
Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.
Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
How SmartSuite supports this role
Lead
Service level. Defines services and SLAs in a catalog and measures performance against them with live dashboards.
Request. Runs request fulfillment through a service portal with routing, approvals and SLAs.
Incident. Owns the incident and problem process configuration, priorities and escalation rules.
Change. Owns change enablement with CAB workflows and risk-based approvals.
Reporting. Reports service performance and improvement actions to IT leadership and business customers.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
ITIL 4 defines the practices the role owns, from service level management and relationship management to continual improvement, and ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018 is the certifiable service management standard built on them. COBIT 2019's DSS02 (managed service requests and incidents) supplies the control framing. Regulated sectors expect documented service levels and process ownership: FFIEC guidance for banks, DORA for EU financial entities, HIPAA for healthcare systems and FedRAMP for providers to US government. ITIL 4's service level management practice is where the three artifacts this role owns meet: the catalog that defines each service, the SLA that sets its targets and the service review that reports against them, with continual improvement fed by the same measures.
Related roles
Explore Further
Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.
Frequently asked questions
What is the IT Service Manager accountable for?
The IT Service Manager owns the service management practices: the service catalog and service level agreements, the design, metrics and continual improvement of the ITSM processes, oversight of the incident, problem, change and request practices, business relationship management and service reviews, and governance of the ITSM toolset and its configuration. They report service performance against SLAs, so the services the business consumes are defined, measured, improving and understood by the people who depend on them.
How does SmartSuite help an IT Service Manager define services and SLAs?
Service Catalog defines the services and Service Level Management (SLAs) measures performance against the SLAs attached to them with live dashboards, so each service has a definition, an owner, a target and a current performance figure in one place. A service review with a business customer starts from the dashboard, not from a report assembled the day before, and a missed target shows which requests or incidents caused it.
How does SmartSuite run request fulfillment through a service portal?
Service Desk & Request Portal runs request fulfillment through a service portal with routing, approvals and SLAs, so a user raises a request in one place, it is routed to the right team, approvals happen in sequence and the response time is measured. The Service Desk Manager runs the queue while the IT Service Manager owns the catalog the requests are drawn from, and Knowledge Management holds the articles the service desk uses to resolve the common ones.
How does this role configure incident, problem and change practices?
The IT Service Manager owns the incident and problem process configuration, priorities and escalation rules in IT Incident Management, and owns change enablement in Change Management with CAB workflows and risk-based approvals. The Incident and Problem Manager and Change and Release Manager run the practices day to day, while the IT Service Manager sets the priority matrix, the escalation path and the approval thresholds they operate within, and changes them as continual improvement finds a better design.
How does this role report service performance to IT leadership and the business?
SmartSuite reports service performance and improvement actions to IT leadership and business customers from the catalog, SLA measurements and request and incident records as they stand. The IT Service Manager can show the Chief Information Officer how each service performed against its targets and what improvement actions are open, and take the same view into a service review with a business customer. The IT Operations Director and IT Compliance Manager see the same services.
How quickly can an ITSM practice get started with SmartSuite?
New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. For an ITSM practice the first workflow is the service catalog: load the catalog with owners and SLA targets, configure the priority matrix and escalation rules, and open the request portal to users. Incident, problem and change practices follow as each is reviewed, and the GRC Platform Administrator and IT Asset Manager work in the same workspace, so service, asset and control records refer to the same services.
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