IT departments need to develop a deep understanding of service management and to apply service management concepts to the delivery of IT within the organisation. This results in communication barriers, misunderstandings and the sidelining of the IT from the strategic aspects of the business. The concept of internal customers may be a foreign concept in the IT department. The IT service is inherently unstable in terms of both technology and business processes. Rapid technology change brings about instability, difficulty in developing services and barriers due to the complexity of the service being delivered.
Constant changes require particular attention to service development and design.
Any business change can have a major impact on the nature of an IT service, its content and process. A constant need for changes in process and data put significant strain on service delivery. The services are particularly critical to the organisation, requiring 7x24 availability. The large variety of services within an IT department and the range of customer involvement increases the complexity of service management. Many IT services require a high level of customer participation.