IT Service Management consultancy Pink Elephant EMEA is to remove its ITIL V2-V3 Bridging Foundation course from its public schedule. The course will still be available to clients who request on-site instruction, but only for a limited time.

The decision was based around customer feedback who felt that the depth of guidance offered by ITIL v3 was difficult to get to grips with in a single day. Alan McCarthy, Director, Pink Elephant EMEA said "we did not see much of a rush to go from v2 to v3. People had waited a long time for v3 and once they'd seen it they decided on upgrading their skills on an as and when needed basis."

McCarthy does expect this to improve. " Over the last 3 months we've seen more of an influx in people wanting to upgrade." Despite this, there does seem to be a problem with the perception of what ITIL can do. According to McCarthy, "people don't realise what ITIL will offer in fixing problems and they don't yet see process as being strategic enough. It's still seen as being a little bit fluffy but the gains and cost savings through implementing decent process is phenomenal. One of the problems we face is that it is easier for IT people to justify a tool rather than putting in a lot of effort on process."

One of the problems with process, historically, is that it can often be seen to be out of step with the way people work. Not any more, believes McCarthy. "In the early days of ITIL we had a hell of a job getting people to adopt it. That has changed because the customer base really made it change. Tools are beginning to align themselves with ITIL and make it easier to implement."

One of the claims for ITIL is not just better operational efficiency but cost reduction. McCarthy says "we've been battling that for years but now we have more end user organisations coming out with statistics. Even Gartner and Forrester agree. Companies are now saying we implemented ITIL and reduced headcount by 10% and costs by 20%."

Another issue tends to be around the tools to enable you to deploy ITIL. Here again, McCarthy has seen a significant change over the last few years. "Tool vendors - all the major ones with service management have aligned with ITIL and this has been driven by customer demand. However, what customers have to be careful of is thinking that a tool gives them Service Management. It doesn't. It helps to automate the processes.

"Companies need to be careful that the processes the put in place are the right ones for their business not what a tool vendor wants to sell. This means looking carefully at the tools to find the one that works best for your business."