Improve Customer and Business Partner Satisfaction with Service Delivery

This IDC Perspective discusses the improved customer and business partner satisfaction with service delivery. Enterprises increasingly demand that IT deliver more than technical services. Customers and business partners expect seamless digital experiences, reliable operations, and responsiveness to change. Yet despite widespread adoption of frameworks such as ITIL and standards such as ISO/IEC 20000, many IT organizations remain reactive, focused on incident response and compliance rather than anticipating needs or enabling business outcomes. This misalignment creates significant challenges. IT leaders are drawn into firefighting, business stakeholders escalate concerns without effective filtering, and financial models obscure the true cost of IT services. Standards and processes exist, but SLAs, reporting, and continuity plans often feel disconnected from customer expectations and business priorities. The result is diminished trust, wasted executive attention, and reduced satisfaction among both customers and partners. The service delivery model addresses these challenges by evolving service management from a compliance exercise to a business-facing operating model. As Gerald Johnston, adjunct research advisor for IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP), notes: "CIOs who adopt service delivery move beyond running IT as a utility. They position technology as an active partner in shaping organizational success, building trust across the enterprise, and delivering real value to customers and business partners."