The Quasi-Service Provider Model: Exploding the Holy Grail

by Paul Allen

The idea of running IT as a business has gained much traction in recent years -- especially with the continued upsurge in all things IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). The holy grail of business-IT alignment will only be achieved, so this argument goes, when the internal IT department acts as a quasi-service provider that is subjected to the same principle of service-level management that we apply to our external providers.