Do we do services, well what do we mean by a service, according to the English Oxford Dictionary service means the act of helping or doing work for another or for a community etc. So by definition an IT service can be anything that helps an individual or a group, whether that is automated via technology or provided by IT consultants. I have spent a number of years as a consultant and have come to the conclusion that whilst technology has matured and can undertake more and more complex tasks the methods and toolsets available to consultants have not changed much and neither has the customer.

Twenty years ago I was reviewing customers IT processes to enable a baseline to be produced from which to measure their service improvement process, last year I was doing the same.

Does that mean we haven't moved on? I think not! Technology is significantly more complex, the problems it solves are more varied and its impact on everyday life more considerably, from our mobile phones and MP3 players through to our GPS systems. What has remained the same is the customers and the consultants, people are not changing as fast as technology, in fact adapting our toolsets and environment means as a species we are less and less likely to evolve. No matter how automated a process and how reliable the infrastructure people will always need 3rd party objective measurement to show that:

• they are managing the IT the best way,
• they are better than their competitors,
• they are getting the expected return on their investment
• they are world class

In fact as technology becomes more and more complex, fewer and fewer in-house IT departments will have the expert skill sets required to ensure optimum performance. So although through constant innovation technology can automate more and more it will never replace the need for people entire nor for IT consultants.