Defining your ITIL Service Strategy in 2025

If there’s one theme for the all-too-obvious AI-powered future of enterprises, it’d be ‘breaking silos’. Enterprises want to become more agile, be proactive and on their feet to stay relevant. A crucial part of that vision is their service strategy.  

This is where ITIL 4 takes centre stage.

ITIL 4 has redefined service strategy by emphasizing value co-creation over process-heavy frameworks. Unlike its predecessor ITIL 3's focus on siloed processes, ITIL 4 integrates people, technology, and processes to align IT services with business outcomes.

This shift empowers IT administrators to rethink strategies.

No, scratch that.

This shift empowers IT to act as strategic enablers to drive business success.

IT teams have a permanent seat at the decision table playing a crucial role in the future of the organization. They certainly aren’t a back office function anymore.  

The evolution of service strategy from ITIL 3 to ITIL 4

If there is one headline transformation from ITIL 3 to ITIL 4, it has to be its approach towards service strategy. In ITIL 3, service strategy was treated as a standalone module, often (sadly) perceived as theoretical and detached from day-to-day operations.

ITIL 4 reshapes this narrative by embedding service strategy into the Service Value System (SVS) and emphasizing practical implementation through its 'Guiding Principles'. This (much-needed) evolution reflects the modern business demand for flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Key shifts in approach:

At the heart of ITIL 4 is the Service Value System (SVS), which integrates strategy into a broader framework that encompasses:

• The Service Value Chain (SVC): Outlining activities to create and deliver value.
• Guiding principles: Including focus on value, start where you are, and progress iteratively with feedback, ensuring service strategies remain practical and effective.

This holistic approach ensures that strategy is a dynamic, actionable plan tied to measurable outcomes.

The 4Ps of ITIL service strategy

For the uninitiated, the 4Ps are the foundational elements that guide IT leaders to deliver and manage IT services effectively. Each ‘P’ plays a critical role in ensuring alignment between IT and business objectives.

• People: As you can guess, skilled teams are the backbone of any IT strategy. People make or break the IT strategy. ITIL 4 emphasizes building teams with the right expertise, aligned with strategic goals, and continuously upskilling to meet evolving demands.
• Processes: Agile and adaptable workflows are the bedrock on which forward-thinking organizations are built. The DNA to respond quickly to changes and disruptions comes from designing workflows and processes that prioritize efficiency while remaining flexible to iterative improvements.
• Products: The technology tools and platforms used must support the organization’s objectives. Selecting the right software, hardware, and cloud solutions ensures scalability and reliability in service delivery.
• Partners: Vendors and stakeholders are not just suppliers but strategic collaborators. Strong partnerships enhance service delivery, providing access to expertise and resources that drive innovation.

5 Key processes of ITIL 4 service strategy

1. Strategy management for IT Services

Strategy management ensures that IT services are designed to align with business goals and objectives. This involves evaluating existing strategies and adapting them to meet changing business needs.

For example, many organizations are transitioning from traditional support portals to communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Atomicwork facilitates this shift by enabling IT teams to meet employees within their existing workflows. This integration opens possibilities for improving support through:

• Knowledge management: Easily share articles, FAQs, and solutions directly within Slack or Teams, thereby reducing ~50% of employee asks immediately.
• Request management: Automate and track requests, such as access provisioning or incident updates, ensuring faster and more transparent support processes.

2. Financial management

Financial management ensures that IT services are cost-effective without compromising on value delivery. IT teams are increasingly using agentic AI tools to optimize costs and streamline operations.

With our smart AI assistant ‘Atom’, Atomicwork automates routine tasks like password resets, ticket triaging, and self-service support, etc. This ensures that operational costs are reduced and IT teams spend human resources towards more strategic initiatives.

In fact, one of customers, Ammex Corp, was able to achieve a ticket deflection rate of 65%, without scaling their head count thus saving operational costs.

3. Demand management

Demand management helps organizations predict, analyze, and respond to fluctuations in service demand effectively.

For instance, diving into the analytics of an end-user AI assistant, can help you find out the queries for which the assistant didn't return helpful answers. Your team can then enrich the knowledge base or create service items for the missing information or services.

In specific, demand management can aid in:

• Resource allocation: If your IT support team notices ticket fluctuations during specific periods, they can reallocate resources to ensure optimal support coverage.
• Automation of routine requests: By identifying frequently raised requests, such as password resets or access provisioning, IT teams can automate workflows to manage demand more efficiently.

Atomicwork supports one-click automation for routine tasks to allow IT teams to focus their resources on more strategic initiatives, ensuring smoother and faster service delivery proactively.

4. Service portfolio management

Service portfolio management involves curating and optimizing the service catalog to reflect the organization’s evolving needs. Regular audits of the service catalog can uncover gaps or opportunities to improve service delivery.

For instance, ITSM analytics can help discover recurring requests not currently covered in your service catalog, like issues with, say, a laptop mouse.

Once identified, you can add the recurring issue to your service catalog and follow best practices for service catalog management, such as:

• Setting up separate catalogs for different teams (e.g., IT, HR, Facilities)
• Adding comprehensive attributes and tags to improve searchability and categorization
• Automating the triaging or knowledge retrieval workflows at the backend for every service item

Atomicwork’s analytics and service catalog features streamline this process, ensuring that your catalog remains dynamic, organized, and aligned with constantly growing and changing user needs.

5. Business relationship management

Building strong relationships with stakeholders is essential to understanding their needs and delivering value-driven IT services. IT teams must collaborate effectively with various departments to ensure seamless support:

• HR: IT teams work closely with HR for tasks such as onboarding new employees, provisioning required access to tools, and managing employee IT queries related to their day-to-day workflows.
• Finance: Coordination with Finance is crucial for managing software licenses, budgeting for IT infrastructure, and ensuring compliance with financial audits.
• Legal: IT teams support Legal by managing secure access to sensitive documents, ensuring data privacy compliance, etc.

With Atomicwork, all stakeholders, be it HR, Finance, and Legal, can be managed under one platform. We bring the service desk to where end users are, thereby streamlining support and enhancing efficiency.

In conclusion

ITIL 4’s approach to service strategy equips IT teams to stay current. They can focus on value creation, agility, and business alignment, exactly what the doctor ordered for the future of enterprises.

By adopting the 5 key processes, IT teams can optimize service delivery and drive strategic growth.