Why Services Are the Basis of Business Value

Services are the basis of business value because a service helps a consumer achieve an outcome while managing cost and risk on the consumer's behalf. Work should therefore be organised around the consumer outcome rather than the provider's structure, treating service management as an enterprise discipline centred on services, stakeholders and value.

• Name the business outcome the service supports, rather than describing only the applications or teams behind it.
• Identify the value-creating moments and separate enabling components from the service itself. Availability alone does not equal value.
• Test the definition with consumers. In the article's example, an onboarding service is judged by how quickly a new colleague becomes productive, not by whether each supporting system was technically available.
• Measure outcome attainment, consumer effort, and the cost and risk transferred as a set, with agreed baselines, data sources and owners. Pilot on one representative case before extending to a wider service population.
• Avoid three pitfalls: describing only applications or teams, assuming availability equals value, and ignoring the consumer's work. Review results with delivery teams and consumers, because operational success and experienced value can diverge.