Posted on Wed, May 22, 2013
A comprehensive and easy to use service catalog will help to increase your IT department’s efficiency while making the value of your IT work more visible to upper management, giving your department the power to justify department costs with ease and clarity.
Portfolio management must be accomplished with a complete service management tool.
As the nerve center of almost any company, the IT department always has plenty of work to do. From setting up a new email account or installing software for a new employee, or upgrading servers and securing databases, the tasks performed by the IT department and service desk enable the rest of the company to operate smoothly and successfully. High-level management now understands the key role that IT plays in keeping the company’s gears turning, and the importance of ensuring that the IT department itself functions as smoothly and efficiently as possible. A comprehensive and easy to use service catalog will help to increase your IT department’s efficiency while making the value of your IT work more visible to upper management, giving your department the power to justify department costs with ease and clarity.
The use of an effective service catalog has a number of benefits:
- Its ability to facilitate understanding between the user requesting the service and the IT department.
- Each service listed in the catalog includes a service level agreement (SLA) to establish reasonable expectations regarding the time frame of the service, a description of the service and how to fulfill it, who may make a request for the service, and any relevant costs.
- From the perspective of the end user, a service catalog with a straightforward interface allows for the easy submission of work requests and imparts a clear understanding of the path those requests will take and what they should expect in the execution of their requests. They may also have the ability to check on the status or progress of their service request, enabling the user to remain informed and update their expectations for completion.
- For the IT department or service desk employee, a clear service catalog will enable them to ensure that they have all the tools necessary to complete the task, respond quickly and easily to requests, and improve the level of their customer service.
The C2 CATALOG enables your IT department and service desk personnel to justify department costs to management, making it clear that your department is yielding significant savings and even profits for your company.
In your organization, how do you justify the cost of your IT services?
Posted on Wed, May 15, 2013
Information and customer satisfaction is paramount to any organization. It is also important to have the right tools to support this information.
As a function of communication between users and customer service, C2 Profiler allows you to setup interactive polls to make a precise diagnostic or inquire about client satisfaction after an intervention. Fully customizable, these polls can be deployed over the whole service center or specifically sent to the client. For example, on a call to customer service, it enables you to audit a request so as to direct it toward the right resource or rise its priority. Moreover, it helps your support teams be rigorous in their respect of your business or client management processes.
The customer services are unified, whatever the means of communication with your customer support, C2 Profiler offers their homogeneity and undifferentiated service.
Take a look at C2 PROFILER and make benefit your customer service and unparalleled flexibility.
Posted on Fri, Aug 17, 2012
Even Small Companies Can Benefit the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL®)
Introduction
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) integrally supports the IT Service Management (ITSM) function. Included are the checklists, tasks and procedures used by a firm to establish a minimum level of IT-capability; these frequently are not specific to the firm, but are more generally used and accessible by the entire business community. ITIL modalities represent the operational baseline for a firm to generate IT-strategies, implement and measure them. If in doubt of how to proceed, a visit to www.c2enterprise.com can provide the support and guidance needed to level the competitive field in your favor. C2 specializes in services for small businesses.
ITIL for Management
ITIL is not intended to provide set-in-stone directives for IT-use; rather it is a framework upon which to base IT-activity. Comprised of 12 service supervision processes, ITIL offers a useful foundation for administrative applications such as change management, incident investigation, trend analysis, and problem management processing. Enacting these ITIL-based procedures serves the organization through transformation from reactive to proactive maintenance. Firms will not only demonstrate compliance to applied best-practices, but also have a basis from which to measure the improvement. Although ITIL has unquestionably acquired a reputation of being more appropriate and effective for big business, it has many uses for small- and mid-sized IT shops.
ITIL for Smaller Companies
Originally, ITIL was used almost exclusively by large corporations, since the concepts and techniques the Library addressed were written with them in mind. Today, however, smaller firms implement their own best processes and practices through ITIL, to improve the value and use of their information systems. Doing so may require some adaptation of the larger-scale standards to smaller organizations. At www.c2enterprise.com., we advise smaller companies to appoint from among IT-personnel a process-owner, to manage the Library's implementation and application. Equally as important, is careful selection of the ITIL processes most applicable to your needs; C2 has the experience to help with these choices. Implementing the entire range of Library concepts and techniques may not be the best strategy; rather, picking ITIL methods most appropriate to your requirements and strategies is suggested. Indeed, selecting only key ITIL processes for implementation allows more rapid adoption for organizational uses.
Thereafter, incremental addition of ITIL works best for the small-to-mid-sized company. Benefits of ITIL for the small organization include:
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adaptability to almost any corporate culture or need,
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quicker results/reduced costs with fewer people to train,
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standardized knowledge-base for ITIL-applications cuts-across barriers to interaction,
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streamlined IT processing as redundant processes reduced,
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conservation of resources,
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improved data-resource use,
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reduced IT-outage time, and
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lower costs for change ordering, maintenance and other support.
Implementing ITIL ensures your organization makes optimal use of your IT infrastructure, by improving operating efficiency while lowering costs. ITIL drives business value in smaller firms, and should be an integral component of each phase of the service lifecycle.
Conclusion
ITIL is a set of best practice concepts and techniques for addressing the effective management of IT infrastructure, service delivery and support. First conceived for use by larger-scale firms heavily invested in IT, its use has broadened to organizations of all sizes. Smaller firms benefit from adaptation of selected ITIL processes to their specific needs; ITIL interfaces with existing IT, lending itself to a wide range of adaptations and combinations that stimulate change management in corporate culture and procedure. Incremental addition of newer processes is recommended; C2 has the expertise you require to successfully launch the ITIL agenda in your firm. Please visit the www.c2enterprise.com website for further details.
ITIL® is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office.
Posted on Fri, Aug 03, 2012
Interesting interpretation of ITIL® V3
The industry has now adopted ITIL V3 to help them improve management of IT Services. However, if I ask the following question; how many processes do you find in the Service Strategy Phase? You would be surprised at the number of different answers you would get. For instance, many will say four (4) as documented in the book. Another answer would likely be ten (10). Want to know why? The issue is about making the difference between the processes documented in the books and the actual processes you need for a specific phase.
It should be understood that each of the five (5) core books in ITIL® are separated in the main parts: The first is an explanation of the service life cycle phase, the second which is in no way related to the phase itself, are the processes document in the particular book (and not associated with the phase). To see an interpretation of processes for each phases of the Service Life Cycle has documented in the ITIL framework, review the ITIL V3 2011 Model here.
The moral of the story is to be careful how you interpret which process is required in each phase. The real answer should be as many processes you need to be the most efficient and effective in the phase you are improving.
For more details on interpretation of ITSM concepts please contact C2 Enterprise ITSM Mentors.
Yves St-Arnaud,
Vice President, Service Management Practice
ystarnaud@c2enterprise.com
C2
ITIL® is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office.
Posted on Mon, Jun 11, 2012
Accreditation to Deliver the Certification Courses on ITIL® Foundation 
C2 Innovations was recently named Accredited Training Organization (ATO) and is proud to announce that it meets the standards of Accreditation, and is therefore approved by LCS to deliver the certification courses on ITIL® Foundation.
C2 is now granted all rights and responsibilities accorded to an LCS Accredited Training Organization (ATO), including full examination services for the above mentioned certifications.
Loyalist Certification Services (LCS) has a proud tradition of providing responsive, reliable and trusted examinations and certification services. LCS is a division of Loyalist College in Ontario, Canada, which has offered examinations and certification services since opening in 1967. LCS has offered ITSM certifications since 2001. Loyalist College employs six hundred full- and part-time staff with an entire division dedicated completely to ITSM-related certifications.
ITIL® is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office.
Posted on Thu, Jun 07, 2012
Improving Service Level Management…and guaranteeing you meet the service targets.
Designing, Negotiating, Justifying Client Service Levels (SLA/OLA) in REAL 
TIME through a Service Catalog
So now your clients have an idea of the services you provide (or maybe not)...they want these services and more importantly they want very specific service levels (SLA) and demand for each.
As a Manager, What if you had a tool that:
- Ensures you can meet those service levels
- provides financial impact of meeting those service levels
- identifies what resources you need
- generates answers and Agreements (using your template) in real time
A must attend session if you are thinking of moving towards improving ITIL® Service Design or Strategy phases of the service life cycle as well as keeping a link to the Transition and Operations Phases. Limited number of seats available.
Follow this link to register : http://bit.ly/Km0DuA
Yves St-Arnaud,
Vice President, Service Management Practice
C2
ITIL® is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office.
Posted on Thu, Apr 26, 2012
Last day at the HDI 2012 Conference and Expo show in Orlando, Florida. There’s your chance to see our Product Showcase on the Expo hall floor at 12:30 today. Yves St-Arnaud, Vice President, Service Management Practice, will be presenting: Linking IT Operations Knowledge to the Strategic side of the Business
See you there!
Posted on Thu, Apr 12, 2012
C2 announces the appointment of Yves St-Arnaud as Vice President, Practice Management Services
MONTREAL, April 2, 2012 - Stephane Lauziere, president of C2, today announced the 
appointment of Yves St-Arnaud as vice president, practice management services. Mr. St-Arnaud has a mandate to accelerate the growth of products and services offered by C2 in terms of management tools and services to deliver services to all customers of the company.
"Yves St-Arnaud is a seasoned executive whose reputation is well established. He has extensive experience in the IT field and has successfully demonstrated its ability to successfully implement methodologies for improving IT management processes, "said Mr. Lauzière. "His broad experience, particularly in the field of IT service management (ITSM) is a valuable addition to C2, which is working to further expand its operations in Canada and around the world. "
Prior to joining C2, Mr. St-Arnaud was the President and founder of Stay Technologies Inc., a firm specializing in IT service management and an accredited ITIL® training provider, professional services associated with it and the development and integration of technological tool. He helped develop the framework for the configuration information management and change management for the Department of National Defense of Canada. He is also a founding member of the Ottawa-Gatineau Chapter of the itSMF. Recently, he participated in conferences of the itSMF International, itSMF USA, and itSMF Canada as a speaker. Involved for over 10 years in the ITIL® framework, he was a crucial of the success around the launch of ITSM projects for several federal government departments including the Canadian project SMIP/PAGS of Public Works and Government Services Canada.
Mr. St-Arnaud holds a college degree in Computer Science from the College of Ottawa and a BA in Business Administration from the University of Hull. He also holds a professional certification of Project Management (PMP) of the PMI institute and several levels of ITIL® certification to Expert level.
ABOUT C2
C2´s ability to deliver outstanding results has attracted hundreds of clients, including a who’s who of top brands and world-class IT managers across many industries – from retail, gaming, and insurance to financial services, health, education and business to business. We work side by side with our clients to help them develop relevant, effective, IT Service Management (ITSM) Solutions. Our flagship Service Desk solution C2 ENTERPRISE, enable notably to optimize the quality of internal and external services, organizational management processes, centralize all information on a single platform, reduce risk, increase transparency and performance. Thus, our current customers can already attest positive changes and major reduction of their operating costs, they have seen and continue to see through C2.
ITIL® is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a registered Trademark of the Cabinet Office.