ITIL 4 : Drive Stakeholder Value: Reference and study guide

1 Introduction

ITIL®4: Drive Stakeholder Value provides guidance on establishing, maintaining, and developing effective service relationships at appropriate levels. It leads organizations on a service journey in their service provider and consumer roles, supporting effective interaction and communication.

Services are not manufactured, produced, or delivered but co-created between two or more stakeholders. The service experience is formed by individual touchpoints and service interactions on a joint journey as well as by the journey as a whole. To improve stakeholder satisfaction, each touchpoint should lead to a good experience, and the whole journey should meet or exceed the stakeholders’ expectations.

The purpose of ITIL®4: Drive Stakeholder Value is to optimize the value of the service journey for all involved stakeholders by converting opportunity and demand into value. In other words, to drive stakeholder value. All stakeholders contribute to the creation of service value by:

•exploring value propositions

•fostering relationships

•keeping engagement channels open

•shaping demand

•designing service offerings

•aligning and agreeing on expectations

•co-creating service experiences

•realizing value.

ITIL®4: Drive Stakeholder Value provides recommendations for how to engage in and contribute to each of these activities.

2 Customer journeys

2.1 Co-creating service value through customer journeys

To drive stakeholder value, all stakeholders must contribute to the co-creation of service value. They engage in a joint experience, known as the customer journey.

Every customer journey involves several touchpoints and service interactions between the service provider, service consumer, and other stakeholders.

Definitions

•Customer journey The complete end-to-end experience that service customers have with one or more service providers and/or their products through touchpoints and service interactions.

•Touchpoint Any event where a service consumer or potential service consumer has an encounter with the service provider and/or its products and resources.

•Service interaction A reciprocal action between a service provider and a service consumer that co-creates value.

Service interactions include:

•transfer of goods

•provision of access to resources

•interaction with service provider resources

•joint service actions.

Touchpoints and service interactions are not necessarily the same. A user may be in contact with a service provider resource without interacting with the service provider. A customer may also enter into an interaction with a service provider through a third party without being in direct contact with the service provider.

During a customer journey, there is a line of visibility beyond which one party cannot see the other party’s activities.

Definition: Band of visibility

Activities and resources within a service relationship that are visible to both the service provider and the service consumer.

The band of visibility is where the service experience is formed, i.e. the customer journey. It includes the touchpoints, service interactions, and parts of the products and environment that are visible to stakeholders in a service relationship. Figure 2.1 illustrates the band of visibility.

Figure 2.1 The band of visibility

Customer journeys are not the same as value streams but are closely related, as illustrated below and in Figure 2.2:

•A customer journey always relies on at least one value stream from each of the involved parties.

•One value stream typically supports multiple customer journeys.

•One customer journey may span more than one service provider value stream from different service providers.

•The customer journey only includes value stream activities that are part of the band of visibility.

•Because organizations have value streams that are invisible to the other parties, some value streams will not be a direct part of the customer journey.

Figure 2.2 Relationships between value streams and customer journeys

Customer journeys are important sources for customer and user experience (CX and UX). However, experiences are also influenced by environmental factors and by the interactions and exposures that the consumer may have with the service provider’s brand, as shown in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3 Three aspects of the customer and user experience

Definitions

•Customer experience The sum of the functional and emotional interactions with a service and service provider as perceived by a customer.

•User experience The sum of the functional and emotional interactions with a service and service provider as perceived by a user.

2.1.1 Stakeholder aspirations

To form the stakeholder’s experience, their aspirations should be uncovered. It is important to understand stakeholder value, which requires exploring the functional, social, and emotional dimensions that explain why stakeholders need certain products and services, including their:

•Needs The outcomes that are essential to a