Quality Management of Corporate Data Assets

Corporate data assets such as customer, material, and supplier master data are critical when it comes to fulfilling business requirements such as compliance to regulations, integrated customer management and global business process integration. Surprisingly, companies do not treat corporate data as an asset, but rather focus on reactive quality management measures only. As a response to that, the chapter reports on the design of a reference model for Corporate Data Quality Management (CDQM). Following the principles of Design Science Research (DSR), the design process involved professionals of fourteen corporations headquartered in Germany and Switzerland. The reference model consists of six design areas which altogether comprise fifteen goals and 43 related practices. It supports practitioners during the establishment and optimization of their CDQM initiatives.

Continual Process Improvement Based on ITIL and Process Mining

The inherent quality of business processes and their support through information technology (IT) increasingly plays a significant role in the economic success of an organization. More and more business processes are supported through IT services. In order to provide IT services with the required quality and at minimum costs, the importance of effective and efficient IT service management (ITSM) processes is crucial. In this contribution, the authors present a new approach, which allows the continual process improvement by the interconnection of the ITIL reference model, the 7-step improvement process, and process mining. On the basis of the reference model, to-be processes are set and key indicators are determined. As-is processes and their key indicators derived by process mining are subsequently compared to the to-be processes. This new approach enables the design, control, and improvement of ITIL based customer support processes, which will be trialed in practice.

Quality-Oriented IT Service Management

<div>Due to the increasing importance of the tertiary sector, information technology (IT) organizations need to face up to new challenges, since their daily business has changed from development and operation of information technology to the customer oriented provision and management of IT services. In order to survive in the market, service providers need to offer and manage competitive and distinctive IT services. The “Profit Impact of Market Strategies” (PIMS) program has emphasized the need for service quality as being a crucial, strategic competitive factor. However, IT service providers do not have guidance of what quality requirements are supposed to be fulfilled to provide high-quality IT services. Different reference models and frameworks such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology) and ISO 20000 are widely used by many IT organizations for improving service management processes and performance. However, these reference models do not address the improvement of service quality in a consistent manner and it is not clear whether these models have the capability to close quality gaps which may arise within a service provider environment.</div><div><br></div><div>Therefore, this chapter proposes an IT service quality model for identifying potential quality&nbsp;gaps and quality dimensions in an IT service provider environment. Furthermore, it proposes a set of different quality requirements combined in a “Quality Requirements Model for IT Services” that are needed in order to close the respective quality gaps and fulfill the individual quality dimensions. The model is developed by mapping&nbsp;the reference models ITIL v3, COBIT and ISO 20000 to the previously developed quality model. The results of the mappings emphasize that all three models are partially capable to close the individual gaps of the quality model as well as to guarantee the fulfillment of respective quality dimensions. The fulfillment of these developed quality requirements can be utilized as a guideline for providing and managing high-quality IT services in the long term.</div><div><br></div><div>Finally, the maturity level is analyzed and pointed out that most of the quality requirements are assigned to maturity stage 2 or 3. This implies that an IT service provider does not necessarily have to reach a maturity stage 4 or 5 being able offering high service quality.</div><div><br></div><div>In summary, the chapter provides guidance and quality-oriented IT Service Management to answer the following questions:</div><div><br></div><div><ul><li>What kind of quality gaps exist in a service provider environment?<br></li><li>Do reference models such as ITIL, COBIT and ISO 20000 have the capability to close quality gaps which may arise within a service provider environment?<br></li><li>What processes, activities and functions from which reference model are needed in order to close the respective gaps?<br></li><li>What quality requirements need to be implemented in order to provide high-quality IT services?<br></li><li>What maturity level do service providers need to reach in order to fulfill quality requirements?<br></li></ul></div>

Focused Improvements of IT Service Processes in a Complex Environment

Comprehensive frameworks such as ITIL provide best practices in a context of IT Service Management but do not support the specific tailoring of processes in a practical setting. This problem has been attacked successfully for systematic IT Service improvement at a large telecommunication enterprise leading to a generalized approach for the improvement of IT Service Processes. In order to cope with multifaceted processes within a complex infrastructure an elected approach is necessary: key stakeholders must be identified and Quality Function Deployment may be used to elicit and prioritize requirements effectively. The requirements can be employed to focus the analysis on the most relevant parts of the given framework leading to a focused audit and yielding specific improvement measures. In combination with further analysis as Pareto and Portfolio analysis a well-thought-out solution portfolio could be proposed, dependent on the impact on the solution and the difficulty of implementation.

Process Assessment as a Means to Improve Quality in IT Services

The main objective of this chapter is to present how a formal and standard process assessment - thanks to its repeatable approach and its comparable results - can be an invaluable contribution for improving the IT services in a continual way. This chapter introduces ISO/IEC 15504, the international standard for process assessment. As a generic process assessment framework, ISO/IEC 15504 can be used for determining the capability of processes of any domain. The authors of this chapter have applied this framework in the field of IT Service Management. Their works (described below) have enabled to develop the TIPA® methodology, based on ITIL® version 2. The chapter then discusses the impact that assessments can have on the quality of the assessed processes and, as a consequence, on the services supported by these processes. The chapter finishes by presenting an example of the results and the lessons learnt as perceived by adopters of TIPA.

Methods for Service Quality Assurance

This chapter describes how the four phases of quality management (quality planning, quality control, quality inspection and quality assurance) for service firms should be structured and what individual measures can be employed in the respective phases. Since the QM-system – particularly in the case of the services sector – has to be adapted to a firm’s specific characteristics, the selection of the methods and techniques suited to the specific situation is of particular importance. For this reason, the criteria for evaluating such methods are also outlined. In addition to the classical instruments used for quality management, recently quality awards, national customer satisfaction barometers and certificates have become well established, also sharing the objective of raising quality standards for services. Finally, an overview is given of the techniques and methods used for securing and promoting quality standards which are linked to the phases of the management process – analysis, planning, implementation and audit. This results in the construction of a systematic system for the quality management of services using a ten-step procedure.

IT Service Quality Management

IT service management is a focal point of interest for practitioners, managers and researchers. In this chapter, the authors outline the field of IT service quality management - a topic that has not been adequately discussed in research literature to date. The authors introduce a framework for IT service quality management and show how the framework can be applied to different phases of an IT service lifecycle. Furthermore, they illustrate possible effects of IT service quality on business performance. For this reason, they define indicators, which are effective measures of business performance, and the relations between indicators and IT service quality. Due to the increased use of modular IT services and the high pressure on IT effectiveness and IT efficiency, IT service quality management has the potential to become a highly relevant topic for IT service providers and IT departments within enterprises.

Framework for IT Service Value Engineering

Managing the business value of IT-Services is an important aspect in the context of IT-Service quality management. This chapter introduced a framework for IT-Service value engineering and closes gaps in research and practical management in IT value management. The concept illustrates aspects of IT service value engineering and IT business alignment and the relation to IT service quality management. The Framework for IT service value engineering is made up of different management levels and a value engineering process. It integrates various concepts from IT and business value management in order to evaluate and improve the contribution of IT services towards overall business value.

Alignment of Perceptions in Information Technology Service Quality

The chapter explains the importance of taking the expectations of customers and service providers into account with regard to IT service quality management. To do this, the author uses the SERVPERF method, which identifies expectations regarding service performance from the point of view of both the customer and the provider. Based on an empirical study, the author demonstrates the importance of aligning IT staff with staff from the customer company as far as quality management is concerned.