Note: This book is available in several languages: Japanese, English. The Service Catalog means many different things to many different people. However most would agree that a catalog that helps customers and users to quickly identify the services they require clearly adds value. In turn this helps organizations identify key services that support business processes, understand the contribution made by those services and manage them appropriately. This well-constructed book provides practical advice and information that will help organizations to understand how to design and develop a service catalog and to understand the role that the service catalog performs within the service portfolio. Readers will gain practical information and knowledge that will help with: understanding the full concept of the service catalog understanding the scope of the service catalog building an appropriate service catalog for your organization identifying the true value that the service catalog can deliver to your organization understanding services and the value that they provide to your organization and customers managing the service catalog In addition, a complete service catalog schematic is provided and the service portfolio pyramid, which is unique to this book, is introduced showing how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Widely researched and reviewed by some of the world’s leading experts, this book provides a down-to-earth and practical resource for not only those who are developing Service Catalogs for the first time but also for those looking to refine their services according to agreed and established best practice concepts.

The Service Catalog is a fundamental IT tool covering the services themselves, default capabilities, measures and primary means of access and provision. In short, it represents the value IT provides to facilitate business operations. Written by industry experts and using real case studies, this valuable title takes the reader beyond the theoretical to focus on the real business benefits of Service Catalogs and how to implement them successfully within an organization: Services are made standard and rational, leading to lower costs and increased service availability Standard ‘service products’ enable forecasting of demand, leading to better volume discounts from vendors and improved inventory and capacity planning Controls over consumption of services are enhanced The fulfillment of IT services is improved with the catalog. Standardization of services leads to recurrent workflows, rather than relatively expensive one-off projects

Media product portfolios are rapidly becoming the predominant shared characteristic of media companies worldwide. The phenomenon involves firms from all kinds of media--newspapers, magazines, television, radio, cinema--and is found in enterprises ranging from small, local firms to large, globalized companies. This volume is the result of a coordinated effort of scholars in the United States and Europe to explore the characteristics, processes, challenges, and implications of media product portfolios. This book breaks new ground by introducing the concepts of product portfolio management and applying them to media companies in a comprehensive manner. It draws from knowledge and methods of analyzing product portfolio management in other industries, applies that knowledge to media industries, and analyzes current practices in media firms. The process and issues of portfolio strategy, development, and management are complex and wide ranging. The book explores the development of media product portfolios from an interdisciplinary perspective, providing insight from business, economic, organizational, and communication approaches. The book explores why and how firms develop portfolios, how company strategy and organizational development relate to portfolios, the role of leaders in developing portfolio activities, economic and economic geography issues in portfolios, production issues, challenges in managing multiple products and operations, issues of marketing and branding issues in portfolios, personnel implications, and the unique challenges in the internationalization of media portfolio operations.

Gain the practical knowledge you need to plan, design, deploy, and manage mixed cloud and on-premises IT management systems. Drawing on his experience as senior principal software architect at CA Technologies, Marvin Waschke lays out the nuts and bolts of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)—the 5-volume bible of standard IT service management practices that is the single most important tool for aligning IT services with business needs. Many enterprise IT management applications, and the ways they are integrated, come directly from ITIL service management requirements. Types of integration include integrated reporting and dashboards, event-driven integration, device integration, and application data integration. Enterprise integration depends critically on high performance, scalability, and flexibility. Failure to integrate applications to service management requirements results in such wryly anticipated spectacles as the annual crash of the websites of Super Bowl advertisers such as Coca-Cola and Acura. Waschke weighs in on the debate between those who advocate integrating "best-of-breed" applications and those who favor a pre-integrated set of applications from a single vendor. He also rates the strengths and weaknesses of the major architectural patterns—central relational databases, service-oriented architecture (SOA), and enterprise data buses—for IT integration of service management applications. He examines the modifications to traditional service management that are required by virtualized systems of datacenter management and application design. Clouds present special problems for integration. How Clouds Hold IT Together details solutions for integration problems in private, community, and public clouds—especially problems with multi-tenant SaaS applications. Most enterprises are migrating to the cloud gradually rather than at one go. The transitional phase of mixed cloud and on-premises applications presents thorny problems for IT management. Waschke shows the reader how to normalize the performance and capacity measurements of concurrent traditional and cloud resources.

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many will agree that it is time for a fresh approach to portfolio management. The Complete Guide to Portfolio Construction and Management provides practical investment advice for building a robust, diversified portfolio. Written by a high-profile investment adviser, this book reveals a practical portfolio management framework and new approach to portfolio construction based on four key market forces: macro, fundamental, technical, and behavioural. It is an insight that takes the focus off numbers, looking instead at the role of risk and behavior in finance. As we have seen with the recent finance meltdown, traditional portfolio management techniques are flawed. Investors need to understand those flaws and learn how to incorporate risk management and behavioral finance into their asset management strategies. With a foreword by industry leader Francois-Serge L'habitant, this is your one-stop guide, with new ways for you to manage, grow and preserve your investment portfolio, even in uncertain markets.

Theoretical and empirical analysis of the structure of household portfolios.

The Service Catalog is a fundamental IT tool covering the services themselves, default capabilities, measures and primary means of access and provision. In short, it represents the value IT provides to facilitate business operations.Written by industry experts and using real case studies, this valuable title takes the reader beyond the theoretical to focus on the real business benefits of Service Catalogs and how to implement them successfully within an organization: Services are made standard and rational, leading to lower costs and increased service availabilityStandard service products enable forecasting of demand, leading to better volume discounts from vendors and improved inventory and capacity planningControls over consumption of services are enhancedThe fulfillment of IT services is improved with the catalog. Standardization of services leads to recurrent workflows, rather than relatively expensive one-off projects