Many of an organisation's key operational processes rely on IT and changes within these processes require changes to the IT systems - affecting hardware, software, communications and support. This is the realm of IT Service Management and the scope of ISO/IEC 20000-1 formerly known as BS 15000.

The standard is applicable to all sizes of organisation who are involved in the management, including outsourcing, of their own IT systems and organisations providing IT service management services to their customers. Its focus is on delivering good and improving services to users.

How can ISO/IEC 20000-1 benefit my organisation?

An independent assessment of your service management system by LRQA will help demonstrate the robustness of your system and provides a number of benefits, including:

• Free of bias – a risk if the owner of the system assesses their own work or if a customer assesses the systems of a supplier
• Confidential – a key requirement for some organisations where data is sensitive
• Robust assessment – our assessors are well qualified professionals with experience in the IT sector who will provide a thorough and honest assessment of the implementation and effectiveness of your systems
• Cost effective assessment – a relatively inexpensive way of getting good quality information to help you drive forward improvement to your management systems
• Management system based – the basis of the standard is the Plan Do Check Act cycle common with other management system standards enabling you to operate an integrated system thereby reducing duplication and costs
• Demonstrate best practice – the standard is based on the work done by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and the internationally accepted IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) to give the user confidence that real benefits will be brought to the way your IT Services are managed.
• Comprehensive – this approach will ensure that you have all that is necessary to meet the needs of your IT system users and your business to help ensure your IT services are efficient and effective

Your next step

LRQA provide a range of assessment and certification services to the ISO/IEC 20000-1 standard. If you would like more information call one of our business advisors on 0800 783 2179 who will ask you a few key details about your organisation, or complete the enquiry form on this website.

LRQA was one of the first registered certification bodies to be recognised by the itSMF to provide accredited assessment to BS 15000.

A member of the Lloyd's Register Group ©LRQA 2010 Page last modified on 13 December 2007