BS 15000 is the first worldwide standard specifically aimed at IT Service Management. It describes an integrated set of management processes for the effective delivery of services to the business and its customers. BS 15000 is aligned with and complementary to the process approach defined within the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) from The Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

The International standard for IT Service Management, ISO20000, was published on 15th December 2005, and has now replaced BS15000. BS 15000 is a British standard applicable to all sizes of organisation providing IT service management activities who wish to benchmark their existing IT service management.

This standard gives the requirements for an IT Service Management System. Such a system can be used by the IT department of a company or by an outsourced provider of IT services to ensure that a world class service to their internal or external customers.

It covers the entire spectrum of IT provision, including :

• Setting up contracts and service level agreements (SLA)
• Planning capacities
• Acquiring hardware and software.
• Releasing to the production environment .
• Dealing with incidents and problems including disasters.
• Upgrades and changes.

The emphasis of the standard is in bringing business benefit through management and communication – the driver is always what the business needs, not what IT can provide. Management controls specified by the standard ensure that the risk of not meeting needs is reduced and costs are contained especially when IT systems are changed.