Page 128 - ITIL® Foundation 3.15

High Level Overview of Lifecycle Stages
Service Strategy
The goal/objective of the Service Strategy Lifecycle stage is to Think and Act Strategically. By being strategic, organizations ensure their relevance into the future. All
organizations need to be
strategic. If strategy is
dismissed or bypassed, the
organization will eventually
become irrelevant to their
customers. Just as every
organization should be
strategic, we as individuals
should be strategic with our
lives and futures. Planning
always works better than not
planning. “Forest Gump”
was a movie. Life does not
happen like this example. Ensure that you are preparing for the future.
Within Service Strategy, policies and guidelines are identified and handed down to the organization. Policies and guidelines allow for and encourage standardization of activity and expectations. One organization that has famously made use of standardization is Southwest Airlines. Southwest only flies one type of airplane. This standardization allows them to react faster to issues, have fewer parts on hand for repairs, and require much less training (as their repair engineers only need to know how to work on one type of plane). Scheduling for everything from Pilots and Crew, to ground repairs is much easier because there is only one model of plane that has to be planned for. Southwest has turned this standardization into a competitive advantage by passing along cost savings to their customers. This results in lower ticket prices while still allowing Southwest to make increased profits.
Other activities within Service Strategy are the investigation and understanding of our resources and constraints. This ensures that we have a clear understanding of our own capabilities. Service Strategy decides whether to enter new market spaces and ensures an understanding of market segments within a market space. Ensuring that
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