Skills are like your bike, it needs regular maintenance and upkeep, a little cleaning and polishing, some fresh oil, some periodic servicing, and much more. How relevant and current your skills play an important role in maintaining and growing your employability as well as a defining role in the success you enjoy in your career. Tech companies, Reuters reports, laid off over 150,000 workers, globally. As major economies of the world are slowing down, more layoffs are expected in the coming months. In such times, praying the layoff storm doesn’t hit you, and leaving your destiny in only fate’s hand wouldn’t exactly be the best choice to make. Not just to prepare for contingencies and rainy days, but to keep growing in your career, keeping your skills sharp and current is super important.
Evaluating the value of your skills from time to time is critical. The simplest thing you can do is log into LinkedIn, and just do a random search for available jobs that require your specific skillset. How many open jobs showed up? Did the listings fill up a few pages? Well, then dig deeper into the specific qualification being sought, and the approximate salary range and see where you stand, then evaluate your next steps. However, if only a handful showed up, it could be a cause for concern, unless you have a very niche skillset with a unique job that maybe does not usually get listed on LinkedIn at all or a person with your skillset is already a unicorn of sorts. What are the top 10 certifications of the current year and do you have any of those credentials on your resume? If not, maybe consider doing that.
How was ITIL born?
In the 1980s, the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency of the UK government created a list of recommendations and guidelines to govern the way private sector and public sector organizations manage their IT functions, using this set of standard practices. Since then, the importance of computing and governing it appropriately has only increased. Government agencies and private sector companies slowly began incorporating IT management practices into their culture, but it created a lot of confusion, in the absence of proper standard frameworks. Thus, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library was born. ITIL is a framework that details an array of processes, procedures, tasks, checklists, best practices, guides, etc. that are applicable and relevant to all organizations. It was born as a kind of blanket solution for everybody’s IT service management challenges.
IT Service Management – a timeless skill
A skill that has stayed important, relevant, and sought-after for decades now would be the governance of IT processes and the people. Having a relevant, efficient, and effective framework to understand IT functioning and invest in its continual improvement, never goes obsolete, does it? It is something that is always needed in an organization. IT functions always need to be connected to the organization’s overall business strategy, focusing on looking at IT teams as support functions and as partners in the business. In this context, ITIL has managed to stay relevant and contemporary, for the past more than three decades that the library has been around. The latest iteration – ITIL 4 leans heavily into business, striving to help organizations through digital transformation, and helping them weather the changing times and future-proofing the business. Moreover, as the world sees path-breaking transformation in the artificial intelligence space, IT governance, and service management become even more important.
Why is ITIL still relevant and will continue to remain so?
One of the most important and core concepts in ITIL is continual improvement. This concept stands the test of time and is relevant not just for organizations but also for individuals in their respective careers. So, while ITIL is a very important framework with a bunch of guidelines, best practices, etc., it stays relevant and does not become obsolete because it goes through regular updating. The ITIL v3 came out in 2011, which was an upgrade to the previous version. ITIL v3 retired and gave way to ITIL 4 in 2019, adding new concepts while editing some existing ones to keep up with the changing times. ITIL 5 is in the works and would be launched in due time, adding yet another outstanding update to the framework. Everybody with existing ITIL credentials would then be required to re-train and re-certify, ensuring that everybody with the ITIL credentials has the most current and relevant skills. This is continual improvement in individual terms – continually working towards improving one’s skills and knowledge to ensure one remains relevant and competitive, and that they do not become obsolete.
There is an increased focus on more strategic aspects of service management in recent times. This has necessitated a growth in integration between the development side, the operation side, and the business side, with all these functions coming together to build a valuable, sustainable business, revolving around value co-creation. ITIL, in this regard, has a very strong foundation, helping it be perfectly placed to continue evolving and meeting the needs of businesses globally. The future of ITIL would be significantly defined by its ability to adapt to ever-changing business needs. New technologies and approaches are being rolled out frequently, and ITIL would continue to evolve to keep pace with these developments. The major factor in favor of ITIL is its flexibility, giving it the ability to easily keep up with changing times, as it has for all these decades.
To some, ITIL often seems like a very rigid and very prescriptive framework, but if one digs deeper, one could find plenty of scope for improvisation. After all, ITIL was developed as an approach that could be adapted to the individual requirements of everyone, every organization. So, there is always a lot of flexibility and adaptability to help all kinds of organizations adopt the ITIL framework.
Three key ways that ITIL is still relevant and will continue to remain so would be:
- As a guide of best practices for IT operations management
- As a framework to identify areas of improvement in IT operations
- As an inspiration to develop new approaches to IT service management
ITIL will continue to evolve and revise its standards and frameworks to keep up with the newer developments in technologies and changing business needs. Over time, ITIL has become widely accepted and adopted, and its spread continues to expand.
Conclusion
Continuous development is crucial to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced corporate world. OCM is critical to continuous improvement because it ensures the efficiency of all changes. Organizations that embrace OCM may make changes more quickly, enhance employee buy-in, minimize resistance to change, and guarantee that changes are sustainable. Implementing OCM in continuous improvement necessitates a systematic approach that includes identifying the need for change, developing a change management plan, assessing the impact of the change, developing strategies to manage change resistance, communicating the change, training employees, and monitoring and evaluating the change. By following these procedures, organizations may guarantee that they are well-positioned to prosper in a continuously changing business climate.
Get ITIL Certification for Better Continual Development
Improve your skills and future career prospects with ITIL 4 certification at Cognixia!
Cognixia is the world’s leading digital talent transformation company, committed to helping you shape your future & career by providing insightful digital technology training and certifications. We are here to give you the best online learning experience possible by expanding your knowledge through immersive training sessions and increasing your skill set. Individuals and organizations can both benefit from Cognixia’s highly engaging instructor-led courses.
We are an AXELOS Authorized Training Organization (ATO) that offers learners a complete portfolio of ITIL online training & certification programs. Our ITIL 4 Foundation certification course is considered one of our portfolio’s most sought-after online training programs.
The ITIL training via Cognixia is provided by the industry’s most experienced, expert ITIL trainers and is delivered in line with the sofficial AXELOS guidelines & curriculum.
With Cognixia’s ITIL 4 Foundation certification program, you get the hands-on practice that helps you clear the main ITIL certification exam effortlessly. Not just that, with our ITIL training course, you get the perk of lifetime access to the training’s learning material & video lessons via our LMS.
Learn and improve from the comfort of your home with our intuitive & comprehensive ITIL 4 Online Training.
This ITIL training course will cover the following concepts:
- The concept of a service
- Services, costs, risks. and service management
- Service relationship management
- The 4 dimensions of service management
- Guiding principles of service management
- Service value system
- Service value chain
- General management practices
- Service management practices
- Technical management practices
