Better together

ITIL® and the HDI Support

Center Standard for a high-performance
support centre

AXELOS.com

White Paper
January 2016
Contents
Introduction 3
An overview of ITIL® and the HDI Support Center Standard 4
Three reasons why ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard are better together 5
How the HDI Support Center Standard complements the full ITIL lifecycle 8
Additional guidance for high-performing support centres 11
Better together: adopt ITIL with the HDI Standard and meet today’s challenges 12
About AXELOS 13
About HDI 13
Trade marks and statements 13
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center 3
Standard for a high-performance support centre

1 Introduction
1.1 THE LANDSCAPE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS IS SHIFTING
The shift to cloud-based services is causing business and technology services to be less platform-centric.
Adoption of mobile devices far exceeds the deployment of traditional PCs, and business customers are
carrying out more of their work using apps, rather than traditional applications running in a client-server
environment. Agile development and DevOps practices are increasingly being adopted, resulting in more
frequent changes to the customer environment. The trend toward outsourcing continues, with more
‘substitute’ service providers becoming available for technology support. Is it any wonder that customer
expectations of excellent service are on the rise?

1.2 A HIGHER LEVEL OF CUSTOMER AND USER SUPPORT

In light of these trends, forward-looking support managers must consider how they will meet the
following challenges:
IT organizations will continue to provide support for more remote and mobile workers — those using
personal devices (Bring Your Own Device) — as more and more cloud-based apps enter the mix
Social media will continue to displace traditional email and phone communications, and social media
will play an ever-increasing role in support. Organizations must find ways to deliver support through
support communities, rather than through a hierarchical command and control structure
Due to an increasingly competitive and global environment, organizations will move to a continuous
deployment model. Organizations must be able to effectively support the continuous deployment
of new and improved technology through a continual learning approach and via more powerful
knowledge management systems and process
Organizations will need to be able to handle multiple technologies in multiple environments, and
there will be an even greater need for enhanced communication, troubleshooting, and relationship
management skills. These skills will be the key to the success of support centres in the near
future. In addition, effective knowledge management will enable support organizations to act more
effectively and efficiently, reusing solutions, expediting issue handling, and empowering users
Organizations will continue to move into the global economy, with an increasing volume of services
being delivered over the web and an increasing percentage of products and services being purchased
over the internet. Competitors are only a click away, and thus improving the level of customer and
user satisfaction with services is an increasingly important differentiator. None of this has escaped
the notice of executives, an increasing number of whom are actively looking for ways to improve the
customer experience. What better place to start than the service desk or support centre?

For general guidance in meeting these challenges, thousands of technical support organizations have
chosen ITIL® —, and rightly so. The ITIL framework is the most widely accepted global framework
for carrying out the practice of service management. Organizations around the globe have improved
productivity, lowered operational costs, and optimized the quality of their services by adopting the ITIL
framework. The core ITIL books provide proven guidance for setting up and implementing a service desk
that is the single point of contact for all product or service users, handling incidents, fulfilling service
requests, and communicating with the user community on a continuing basis.
But given these latest trends and challenges to service provisioning, is there a complementary source of
guidance that can add specific value to help technical support organizations meet these challenges? One
of the outstanding characteristics of the ITIL framework is that it can be integrated with other industry
standards, philosophies or frameworks, such as COBIT®, Six Sigma, Agile, and the HDI Support Center
Standard.
These challenges mean that the support centre (service desk, help desk) is becoming more (not less)
crucial. Are there any other standards or frameworks that could be combined with ITIL to help a service
provider meet these challenges in order to help transform an ordinary support centre into a high-
performance support centre?
Absolutely!
4 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre

1.3 COMPLEMENTARY SUPPORT CENTRE – SPECIFIC GUIDANCE

Given the challenges discussed, and given ITIL’s ability to integrate with other forms of complementary
Best Practice guidance, it makes sense to complement ITIL with a proven, well-established standard of
Best Practices for support centres.
That complementary guidance is the HDI Support Center Standard. The ITIL framework and the HDI
Support Center Standard are simply better together. For support organizations, ITIL defines the service
desk and emphasizes the importance of positioning the service desk as the single point of contact for
end users and customers. It provides crucial guidance on core processes, such as event, incident, and
problem management. It also provides guidance on how to plan for and manage escalations, how to
maintain a high level of communication across support teams, and how to define the right set of metrics
and reporting so that goals and objectives can be met and performance optimized.
The HDI Support Center Standard complements ITIL’s core guidance but it goes further by providing
support centre–specific guidance on how ITIL Best Practices apply to and can be applied in support
centres.

2 An overview of ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard

2.1 ITIL
The histories of ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard share many similarities. ITIL was developed
in the 1980s to ensure that the UK government’s IT services were providing value and that IT resources
were being allocated in a fiscally responsible manner. The ITIL framework addressed the management
of these resources without addressing any particular technologies, and it could be applied in many ways
in any service provider organization: executive management, planning and development, testing and
deployment, operations, workforce management, etc. In 2007, ITIL evolved into the current lifecycle
approach and was updated in 2011 to clarify the lifecycle approach and evolve the framework based on
the lessons learned by practicing organizations.
The latest version of ITIL provides comprehensive guidance on five service management practices:
strategy, design, transition, operation, and continual improvement.
Service strategy: Provides guidance on strategic processes
Service design: Outlines how IT should design all aspects of a service, so that the strategy can be
successful when the service is transitioned into live operation
Service transition: Provides guidance on transitioning a service into live operation and delivering the
value the customer seeks
Service operation: Defines operational support processes, along with functions like the service desk
and other support groups
Continual service improvement: Identifies opportunities for continuous improvement, as well as
internal alignment and alignment with the business.

ITIL identifies the service desk as a critically important function for support organizations; one that can
make up for shortcomings in other areas of an organization.

2.2 HDI SUPPORT CENTER STANDARD

HDI defines a support centre as a service desk or a help desk that provides support to customers
and users, whether they are internal (i.e. employees of the organization) or external (i.e. users that
purchased a product or service). While the ITIL framework provides general guidance on Best Practices,
the HDI Support Center Standard was designed to complement the Best Practices found in various
global frameworks (e.g., ITIL), standards (e.g., ISO 20000), and methodologies (e.g. Knowledge-
Centered Support [KCS]), in order to provide specific guidance for support centres.
The HDI Support Center Standard was developed in 2000 as a basis for assessing and certifying a
support centre’s adoption of and compliance with industry Best Practices. However, the value of the
standard has been proven to extend far beyond certification. The standard has evolved over the past 15
years to address the latest Best Practices in the support industry. ITIL has evolved but also the European
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center 5
Standard for a high-performance support centre

Framework for Quality Management (EFQM), the International Standards Organization (ISO), Total
Quality Management (TQM), and Knowledge-Centered Support.
The HDI Support Center Standard comprises 68 activities distributed across eight elements, including
five enabling elements; leadership, strategy and policy, people management, resources, and processes
and procedures; and three result elements: people satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and performance
results. When a support centre excels in each of the enablers, it will experience excellent results.

3 Three reasons why ITIL and the HDI Support Center

Standard are better together
They Are Naturally Complementary:
Both ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard are global, vendor-neutral, well-accepted and highly
adopted industry Best Practices. Both sprang from the expertise and experience of industry practitioners.
And both have been the subject of continual improvement, each having undergone several revisions
based on the collective work and experience of industry expert and practitioners.
Both ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard are flexible and adaptable. Thus, both are applicable to
and can be used by:
for profit and non-profit organizations;
public and private enterprises;
internal and external service providers;
organizations of all sizes.
Just as organizations may assess their service management practices against the ITIL framework, they
may also assess their support centre practices against the elements and activities in the HDI Support
Center Standard.
The HDI Support Center Standard aligns with ITIL’s process guidance:
The HDI Support Center Standard is particularly complementary to ITIL in the area of process guidance.
In fact, the ITIL service lifecycle stages, and the processes within these stages, can be mapped to the
elements and activities in the standard
The HDI Support Center Standard provides extended guidance across the lifecycle:
ITIL provides the necessary core guidance for what constitutes a quality service desk. The HDI Support
Center Standard references this core guidance, and provides guidance specific to support centres, across
the service lifecycle to extend this specifically to the help/service desk, enabling what the HDI Support
Center Standard calls the ‘high-performance support center.’

Specific guidance for leadership, policy, and strategy

ITIL stresses the importance of establishing a strategy, vision, mission, and goals for your service
organization. The HDI Support Center Standard affirms the need for a clear, well-articulated, and well-
communicated purpose for the support centre. Both emphasize the need for strategic, tactical, and
operational goals, as well as a well-planned and well-executed set of metrics for assessing the quality of
support operations and identifying opportunities for improvement.
The HDI Support Center Standard affirms ITIL’s definition of the support centre as the single point of
contact for all users. In that capacity, the support centre coordinates the resolution of all incidents and
requests related to supported services and technology, and it operates as the communication hub for
all users. Here, the standard provides extended guidance on optimizing inbound and outbound support
centre communications.
6 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre

People resources and management guidance

ITIL emphasizes the importance of workload analysis, which ensures the service desk is staffed
properly. The HDI Support Center Standard complements this guidance by recommending the use of
staffing models or methods for workload analysis, as well as by providing guidance on how to optimize
staffing and scheduling. Training is a key consideration in ITIL, and the HDI Support Center Standard
provides specific guidance for initial and ongoing training plans.
ITIL notes that, in addition to technical skills, people and communication skills are especially important
for service desk professionals. The HDI Support Center Standard extends this guidance by providing an
inventory of desirable soft skills that should be in place in high-performing support centres.

Support centre metrics and reporting

HDI’s guidance for optimized support centre metrics is compatible with industry Best Practice
frameworks such as ITIL, but tailored to the support centre. For example, ITIL provides guidance for
service desk functional metrics, but also for each of the key support centre operational processes
(e.g., incident management, request fulfillment). Those metrics are aligned with roles (a service desk
manager, one or more supervisors, level 1 and 2 support analysts) as needs dictate. The HDI Support
Center Standard goes further by providing an optimized scorecard of support centre metrics, one
that includes the most common support centre key performance indicators for people, process, and
technology.
In summary, the HDI Support Center Standard enables a support centre not only to adapt ITIL and
other best practice guidance more effectively but also to extend these general approaches with specific
guidance. The result is a support centre that can meet the challenges of modern service management
and beyond, and go from ordinary to extraordinary performance.

ITIL processes referenced by the Support-specific guidance in the

HDI Support Center Standard HDI Support Center Standard

Service strategy
Strategy management
Resources: support centre
financial management
Leadership:
Alignment with the
organization
Integration with the support
model
Resource allocation and
alignment
Promoting teamwork and
the optimal distribution of
information
Strategy and policy:
The purpose of the support
centre
Support centre goals and
objectives
Support centre strategic,
tactical and operational plans
Resources: support centre
financial management
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre
ITIL processes referenced by the Support-specific guidance in the
HDI Support Center Standard
Service design
Service catalogue management
Service level management
Information security
management
Service transition Change management
Service asset and configuration
management
Knowledge management
Service operation Event management
Incident management
7
HDI Support Center Standard
Strategy and policy: defining
support centre services
Service catalogue management
Resources: security of systems
and information related to the
support centre
Process and procedure: change
management
Process and procedure:
service asset and configuration
management
Resources:
Knowledge management
tool/system
Knowledge resources
Process and procedure: event
management for the support
centre
Resources: incident
management, reporting tools/
systems
Process and procedure:
Specific guidance for incident
management
Logging of incidents/requests
Categorization of incidents/
requests
Prioritization of incidents/
requests
Status levels of incidents/
requests
Initial investigation and
diagnosis
Escalation of incidents/
requests
Resolution of incidents
Closure of incidents
Reopening of incidents
Resources:
Investigation and diagnosis
resources
Service management system
Workforce management
system
Remote support tools
8 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre

ITIL processes referenced by the Support-specific guidance in the

Continual service improvement
HDI Support Center Standard
Request fulfillment
Problem management
The seven-step improvement
process
HDI Support Center Standard
Process and procedure: service
request fulfilment
Process and procedure: problem
management
Strategy and policy:
Support centre goals and
objectives
Operational plans
Support centre service
improvement plans

Table 3.1 Mapping the ITIL service lifecycle across the HDI Support Centre Standard

4 How the HDI Support Center Standard complements the full

ITIL lifecycle
The HDI Support Center Standard aligns with ITIL across the full lifecycle, clearly indicating how
ITIL processes across the service lifecycle are integrated with and supported by high-performing
support centres.

4.1 SERVICE STRATEGY

Strategy management establishes a connection between the support centre and the support
organization’s overall vision, mission and goals. This, in turn, guides support centre management in
developing and deploying the ongoing strategy for the support centre.
The HDI Support Center Standard adds value to ITIL by providing specific strategy management
guidelines for support centres. Consistent with ITIL, the standard includes several activities that assess
the degree of alignment between the support organization and its customers, as well as guidance for
improving alignment by, for example, drafting strategy statements (vision and mission) that support the
business’ overall vision and mission. The HDI Support Center Standard mandates that support centres
have an “established, documented, and communicated” purpose.
Consistent with ITIL’s strategy management process, the HDI Support Center Standard requires
support centres to define and adopt specific goals and objectives that align with the organization and
its customers’ needs. The support centre’s strategic (long term), tactical (mid term), and operational
(short term) goals should be clearly documented and communicated, as well as assessed on a regular
(periodic) basis to make course corrections, defer plans (if necessary), or apply additional resources.
The HDI Support Center Standard also promotes the importance of teamwork. Across all levels, support
teams must work together effectively to respond to events and resolve incidents quickly. Targeted
internal and external communications ensure that internal teams are aware of and stay informed of
progress on strategic and tactical projects. The standard also provides guidance on marketing and
promoting the support centre to the organization, customers, and users, so all parties know what to
expect from the support centre in terms of service and value.
Financial management provides guidance for budgeting for the design, development, testing,
deployment, and support for all services in live operation. The HDI Support Center Standard provides
additional value by requiring the support centre to have a defined financial management process that
results in a budget that supports training, staffing, tools, and other resources necessary to achieve the
support centre’s stated goals and targets.
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center 9
Standard for a high-performance support centre

Business relationship management (BRM) is responsible for defining needs, managing the customer
relationship, and ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction. The HDI Support Center Standard
complements BRM by stressing the importance of including a representative from the support centre in
regular service review meetings. This individual can apprise the support centre of changing customer
support needs, as well as engage stakeholders (account managers, customers, users, management) in
the development of the support centre’s strategic plans.

4.2 SERVICE DESIGN

Since service design processes are responsible for designing all aspects of a service, it is critical that
support is built in, rather than added on during the transition phase or after it has already gone live.
The support centre can provide valuable insight and subject matter expertise for the design team, with
particular regard to the support infrastructure and its capabilities, the extent of support resources, the
capabilities of the support staff and the users, and the tools and systems that are in place to support
new/changed services. By involving support centre staff in the design process, supportability will
increase and overall support costs will decrease.
The HDI Support Center Standard extends service catalogue management to the support centre, by
advising that the support centre provide input to this process for defining and documenting the list of
services the support centre provides, including descriptions, target response and resolution times, and
contact methods. This information should be clearly communicated to customers and users, such that
the catalogue becomes a comprehensive reference for customer and user support.
The HDI Support Center Standard also includes support-specific activities for the service level
management process. These activities include setting service level targets for the services the support
centre provides (e.g. response and resolution targets for incidents, fulfillment targets for service
requests) and operating-level objectives between the support centre and other support groups to
facilitate working relationships and ensure target timeframes are met. Finally, the support centre should
send a representative to service review meetings with customers and the service level manager, to
review performance to targets and take customer feedback back to the support centre.
The ITIL framework is further enhanced by the recommendation that availability and capacity
management plans be designed, developed, and maintained to ensure that the support centre is
equipped with sufficient technology and people resources. The HDI Support Center Standard also
requires support centres to have event management processes in place to monitor the delivery of
supported services, technology, and products, and advise the support centre of any events detected by
operations management.
With regard to service continuity management, the HDI Support Center Standard recommends that
support centres have their own documented continuity plans, given that in most organizations this
function is critical, especially during major disruptions. The support centre’s continuity plan should
address various scenarios, making provisions for critical systems and resources in each scenario.
Finally, the HDI Support Center Standard provides specific guidelines for information security
management, to ensure the safeguarding of organizational, customer, and personal information collected
by the support centre. The HDI Support Center Standard recognizes the key role the support centre
plays in the communication of information security policies across all operational support groups, as
well as the role support teams play in enforcing information security management policies. The standard
further prescribes that monitoring systems and tools be put in place to secure support centre facilities,
protect personal and organizational information, and secure supporting systems.

4.3 SERVICE TRANSITION

The HDI Support Center Standard, support centres should be involved with and support the service
transition processes in several key areas.
The HDI Support Center Standard recommends that support centres participate in the change
management process by fielding representatives to the change advisory board (CAB) so they have
visibility into changes under review and input into the decision to approve, reject, or defer proposed
service changes. The support centre is also frequently responsible for implementing standard changes is
also reflected in the guidance provided for request fulfillment.
10 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre

The HDI Support Center Standard provides specific guidance for service asset and configuration
management (SACM) by requiring that the support centre have access to relevant asset and
configuration data to facilitate troubleshooting during the incident management process. The standard
also mandates the documentation of staff responsibilities, processes, and procedures to enable the
support centre to respond correctly when inconsistencies are detected between the configuration in the
live environment and the defined configuration in the CMS.
Change evaluation is a process that is triggered by change management, in the case of new or major
changes to services. In these cases, the change evaluation manager will often engage support centre
teams to provide more comprehensive feedback on the performance of new or changed services.
The HDI Support Center Standard provides guidance for incident and request reporting, in order to
determine whether target services levels were met in the areas of availability, response to incidents/
requests submitted, and resolution/fulfillment times. Feedback from first- and second-line support teams
may also be provided, in order to assess the supportability of the new or changed service.
The support centre should be fully integrated into the support model that is engaged when new or
changed services go live, via the release and deployment management process. The HDI Support Center
Standard stresses the importance of the involvement of support centre resources in release and control
processes (e.g. change management, release and deployment).
Finally, the HDI Support Center Standard provides extended guidance for the support centre in the
knowledge management process by specifying that support centres deploy knowledge management
systems and tools to capture, store, and share knowledge effectively. Knowledge resources should be in
place to add to the knowledge base on a regular basis, and knowledge engineers should be appointed to
review and validate that knowledge.

4.4 SERVICE OPERATION

During service operation, the support centre is the primary function that carries out incident
management and request fulfillment, and routinely communicates with customers and users.
The HDI Support Center Standard includes several activities for developing and maturing a high-
performing incident management process. For example, the standard recommends documenting logging
procedures and logging incidents consistently. It also stresses the importance of a documented ticket
categorization and prioritization scheme that is followed and improved upon. The HDI Support Center
Standard adopts the ITIL approach, that an incident’s priority level should be based on both urgency
and impact. It is important to allow for controlled priority changes, and, as with ticket categorization,
the process of prioritizing should be consistently followed and improved upon. Finally, with regard to
status level reporting, the HDI Support Center Standard mandates that status level descriptions should
be clearly defined and documented, updated in a timely manner, and communicated on a regular basis
to internal support groups, as well as to customers and users. All stakeholders should have a clear and
current understanding of incidents in progress so they can set expectations accordingly.
The ITIL framework outlines general processes and activities for the optimal handling of service
requests. The HDI Support Center Standard extends this guidance by prescribing that documented
procedures for request handling be in place and followed consistently. Customers should be notified
when a request is completed, and, to that end, service requests should be properly logged to distinguish
them from incidents, categorize them correctly, prioritize them based on impact and urgency, and track
their status.
Problem management supports, and is supported by, the support centre in several ways. While ITIL
provides foundational guidance for service providers, the HDI Support Center Standard goes further by
requiring the documentation of the role of support centre staff within the process. The HDI standard
also stresses that the process provide timely access to an informative and helpful known error database
of reported problems, workarounds, and solutions, and that the support centre materially participate in
problem management activities.
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center 11
Standard for a high-performance support centre

The HDI Support Center Standard specifies that the support centre function should be tightly integrated
with the operations function (i.e., the command centre or network operations centre [NOC]), so that
they may be informed in a timely manner by event management in the case of a significant event,
particularly those that are likely to trigger incidents. The support centre should be involved in the
continual review and improvement of event management, and its role should be clearly communicated
to all support staff.

4.5 CONTINUAL SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

The HDI Support Center Standard assumes that the support centre is the function that gathers
feedback via surveys from users and customers about the perceived quality of IT services, providing
valuable input to continual service improvement (CSI) activities with regard to potential improvement
opportunities (e.g. processes, supporting technologies, individual services). The HDI Support Center
Standard provides specific guidance about the types of surveys and feedback processes the support
centre should carry out on a regular basis. To gather comprehensive, regular feedback, the support
centre should plan, administer, and report the results of:
Periodic customer satisfaction surveys
Ongoing event-based surveys
Other channels of feedback.
The HDI Support Center Standard also supports the practice of reporting on performance to service
level goals and targets, the results of customer and user satisfaction surveys, and other feedback
received from customers and users. Such reporting enables management to identify key opportunities
for improvement. The HDI standard also identifies the most common performance metrics used in most
support centres, providing specific guidance for establishing a balanced and complete set of metrics and
KPIs with which to measure and assess support centre performance.

5 Additional guidance for high-performing support centres

In addition to extending ITIL’s guidance in support-specific areas, the HDI Support Center Standard
provides additional guidance in the following areas:
Effective distribution and communication of information: That management facilitate the timely
distribution of performance information to support centre staff
Effective reporting systems and tools: That a reporting system is in place to collect and process
data and information from a variety of sources, incorporate goals/targets, and enable management to
assess actual performance to goals/targets
Effective job descriptions: That all support positions have clear, documented job descriptions, with
assigned roles and responsibilities, that are readily accessible and accurately reflect the work
being done
Orientation training plans: That orientation training plans are mandatory, so that new team
members can be brought up to speed quickly and effectively
Ongoing training programme for continued staff development: That the support centre has an
ongoing training programme that includes a skill inventory and requires that a skills-gap analysis be
performed periodically to evaluate and improve team skills
Workforce management for optimal staffing: That a staffing model is in place to manage scheduling,
taking into account the need to achieve target service levels
Measures for ensuring staff satisfaction: That a support centre maintain an adequate level of staff
satisfaction, to ensure optimal performance, low costs, and high user and customer satisfaction
Rewards and recognitions: That a support centre maintain a programme for acknowledging the
contributions of individuals and teams
Attention to the physical environment and ergonomics: That the physical support centre
meet employees’ physical and ergonomic needs, with particular regard to seating, desktop display
stations, and phone equipment; that the facility support the delivery of support services; that the
facility is conducive to the interaction of teams; and that the facility allows for personalization
12 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance support centre

Providing for an incoming communications distribution system: That a distribution system is in

place for each incoming communication channel, and that the system allow for automated routing,
has a means of displaying the volume of activity, displays alerts, and is integrated with the incident
and request ticketing system
Provisions for investigation and diagnostic resources: That support staff have quick and easy
access to support documentation, along with access to common support systems for the purposes of
replicating, if need be, reported incidents
A service management system (SMS): That an SMS is in place to track and manage all incidents
and requests; that all support groups use the same system; that it is extended to users; and that it
has the capability to proactively notify users
Remote support tools to speed incident and request handling: That a remote support tool is in place
to enable staff to view remote workstations and components and take control, if necessary,
to effect support.

6 Better together: adopt ITIL with the HDI Standard and meet
today’s challenges
To meet future challenges, service organizations should adopt ITIL to lay a foundation of industry Best
Practices in service management. Then, service organizations should integrate the complementary
HDI Support Center Standard, availing themselves of proven support-specific guidance for planning,
implementing, and maintaining a high-performing support centre.
It is clear that ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard are better together. Combined, they deliver an
integrated framework for a service management practice that is positioned to:
support an increasingly remote and mobile workforce through the use of monitoring systems, remote
support tools, and a skilled support staff;
support customers and users through multiple channels, enabling service providers to move from a
command-and-control support structure to a true community support model;
support the continuous deployment of service releases, through the application of continuous
training, integrating the support centre into release and control processes, and optimized
knowledge management;
exercise strong communication, troubleshooting, and relationship management skills, in the
support of services comprised of multiple technologies in multiple customer environments;
develop and optimize both user and customer satisfaction, through the use of effective
communications skills, feedback processes, and metrics focused on ensuring high levels of staff,
user, and customer satisfaction.

A combined and integrated approach, using ITIL for general foundational guidance and the HDI Support
Center Standard as special guidance for the support centre, is the best solution, one that will enable
service organizations to meet the critical challenges that are already upon us.
 Better together: ITIL® and the HDI Support Center 13
Standard for a high-performance support centre

7 About AXELOS
AXELOS is a joint venture company, created by the Cabinet Office on behalf of Her Majesty’s
Government (HMG) in the United Kingdom and Capita plc to run the Global Best Practice portfolio.
It boasts an already enviable track record and an unmatched portfolio of products, including ITIL®,
PRINCE2® and RESILIA™. RESILIA is the new Cyber Resilience Best Practice portfolio.
Used in the private, public and voluntary sectors in more than 180 countries worldwide, the Global
Best Practice products have long been associated with achievement, heightened standards and truly
measurable improved quality.
AXELOS has an ambitious programme of investment for developing innovative solutions and stimulating
the growth of a vibrant, open international ecosystem of training, consultancy and examination
organizations. Developments to the portfolio also include the launch of PRINCE2 Agile®, the ITIL®
Practitioner qualification and a professional development programme for practitioners, fully aligned with
AXELOS Global Best Practice.

8 About HDI
HDI is the professional association and certification body for the technical service and support
industry. Facilitating collaboration and networking, HDI hosts acclaimed conferences and events,
produces renowned publications and research, and certifies and trains thousands of professionals
each year. HDI also connects solution providers with practitioners through industry partnerships and
marketing services.
Guided by an international panel of industry experts and practitioners, HDI is the premier resource for
best practices and emerging trends.
HDI is a division of UBM Americas, a part of UBM plc.

9 Trade marks and statements

AXELOS, the AXELOS logo, the AXELOS swirl logo, ITIL, PRINCE2, PRINCE2 Agile, MSP, M_o_R,
P3M3, P3O, MoP, MoV are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited. RESILIA is a trade mark of
AXELOS Limited.
© Copyright AXELOS Limited 2016.
COBIT is a registered trade mark of ISACA®
Reuse of any content in this White Paper is permitted solely in accordance with the permission terms at
https://www.axelos.com/policies/legal/permitted-use-of-white-papers-and-case-studies.
A copy of these terms can be provided on application to AXELOS at Licensing@AXELOS.com.
Sourced and published on www.AXELOS.com.
Better together
ITIL® and the HDI Support Center
Standard for a high-performance
support centre.

AXELOS.com

White Paper
January 2016