Service Catalog - shopping cart

[Timo]

Hi,

Recently more and more I hear the term "shopping cart" associated with a Service Catalog. Vendors (of course) are saying that the shopping cart is what gives the user the ultimate experience. And for the organizations such as Amazon - the example brought up the most often - this works and makes sense. However, in my head I am trying to put this into perspective of a small to mid-size company with the internal IT department basically just supporting IT infrastructure for the 100-300 employees. For those folks what services can you possibly order? New workstation once every 5 years maybe, a blackberry if you get promoted and a beat to death on-boarding workflow. I can;t see buying the latest and the greatest shopping cart type Service Catalog as a distinct advantage for such company while most of the service catalog benefits can be realized through a much simpler customer portal which a list of accessible services (2-3) displayed for each user and integration into the ticketing system.

Any thought or experience out there would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Timo

[MBU]

Timo,
I'm specialized in supporting SME's since more than 10 years. I've discussed this topic several times and we've found different solutions (respecting budget, size, type of services etc.).
There is no 1 solution which fits well for everybody. As you explained YOUR situation I would recommend of what you're thinking.
But, on the other hand, we've implemented a VERY useful SC for an environment of approx. 350 users who access and use it frequently. The users have to link their request/incident via ESS to their specific service from the catalog, they receive the bills via SC (web portal, they find ALL informations there).
Hope this helps a bit. If you want to go to detailed discussion please leave your email, i'll come back to you.
_________________
Michael B.

"I can't say it'll be better if it changes, but I can say it has to change to be good"
G.C. Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)

[Timo]

Thanks for your response, Michael. I might get back to you in a bit on that topic.

Cheers

[Mark-OLoughlin]

Hi,

the shopping cart element is nice and works well. However for smaller organizations, like the ones you describe, where I see the benefit is in using automation and workflow to help with processing the service request.

You don't need to have a shopping cart type system to order a phone. You can use a service request to order the phone and in that background automate the approval process, maybe the order process (or part of it) and use the service request to provide update to the user (or automated emails). In effect a simpel service catalog 9with no cart) that utilises the existing requeat fullfilment process.
_________________
Mark O'Loughlin
ITSM / ITIL Consultant