One of the most important things that customers consider while purchasing a product or service is its credibility. A label that states the product has been tested, analyzed, and certified by an international regulatory body reassures a customer’s purchase decision.
This is why organizations today strive to get themselves bench marked, differentiated, and validated. For this, they seek out regulatory bodies that develop and publish international standards. One of such regulatory body that’s well known across industries is the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO.
What started as a standard for industrial measurements has transformed into standards that organizations across industries are concerned about. ISO certification is proof that an organization complies with a given ISO standard.
Complying with ISO standards offers many benefits, including improved credibility, increase in customer satisfaction, consistent quality, structured processes and fewer disruptions to name a few.
One ISO standard that has gained popularity lately is ISO/IEC 20000. ISO/IEC 20000 is the internationally recognized standard for service management. It describes a set of management processes designed to help organizations deliver effective services.
This service standard is widely accepted to measure the IT service management processes within an organization. ISO/IEC 20000 is evidence that an organization is following the best practices for delivering quality IT services.
ISO/IEC 20000 is divided into a number of parts, each part providing specific guidelines for an effective service management system (SMS), out of which, ISO/IEC 20000-1 is the most important for acquiring an ISO/IEC 20000 certificate. ISO/IEC 20000-1 defines and elaborates on the mandatory requirements for an SMS to be compliant with the ISO/IEC 20000 standard.
Why does your organization need ISO/IEC 20000 certification?
Implementing ISO/IEC 20000-1 standards will not only help an organization build trust with its customers, but will also foster a stable foundation for services to help increase and improve its service providing capabilities. Once structured to comply with ISO/IEC standards, organizations will be able to plan resources and responsibilities with greater clarity, deliver services with better quality, adopt a culture of continual improvement, and improve service efficiency and productivity.
Since ISO/IEC 20000 certification is structurally aligned with other management system standards, complying with ISO/IEC 20000 will make conforming to other similar standards and regulations easier.
The government, military, and health care organizations have all started mandating ISO/IEC 20000 certification for their IT service providers. This means, if your target audience values ISO/IEC certifications, having one can be the difference between earning a new customer or watching them give their business to one of your competitors.
How can you get ISO/IEC 20000 certification?
To get ISO/IEC 20000 certification, the first thing you need to do is assess where you stand in terms of service management processes. Ensure that processes are being performed as per the requirements mandated in the ISO/IEC 20000-1 document, and implement any missing processes. Monitor these processes and have process records ready for inspection.
Following this, conduct internal audits to review, compare, and verify if your organization’s service management processes are being performed as per the mandated requirements. If not, take the necessary corrective actions.
Once the internal audit is successfully completed, select an appropriate registered certification body (RCB) to conduct the audit for certification, and submit the necessary records as evidence for review. The RCB will carry out an audit to ensure that your organization’s service management processes are in conformance with the ISO/IEC 20000-1: 2018 requirements and grant you certification if so.
What role does IT play?
IT plays an important role in the ISO/IEC 20000 certification process. To get an ISO/IEC 20000 certification, organizations need to establish, implement, and maintain service management processes as per the requirements document.
IT management tools are used to implement service management processes under the ISO/IEC 20000-1 standard to provide the necessary audit records as evidence, to facilitate certification, and to help retain compliance with specifications over time.
How does ManageEngine help in getting ISO/IEC certified?
Many organizations already have their hands full with their daily business operations and might find it difficult to make time to conduct service management process as mandated by ISO/IEC requirements and collect the necessary evidence for the external audit. In other cases, organizations might not be well versed in conducting service management process and might look for help from an external organization.
In either of cases, ManageEngine can help. ManageEngine’s comprehensive suite of IT management solutions offers tools that can help in the implementation and operation of service management processes as mandated in the ISO/IEC 20000-1 document.
These tools effectively fulfill the requirements for compliance by integrating the mandated processes in the organization’s operations and generating evidence in the form of records to demonstrate conformance.
