CSI-03070; No of Pages 8

Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computer Standards & Interfaces

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/csi

Information technology service management models applied to medium and small

organizations: A systematic literature review
Karin Melendez a, Abraham Dávila a,⁎, Marcelo Pessoa b
a
Departamento de Ingeniería, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú
b
Polytechnic School, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: (ANTECEDENT) The main responsibility of the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) as an organi-
Received 24 June 2015 zation is to provide services in high level quality. That implies that the services will be an appropriate service and it
Received in revised form 29 September 2015 will ensure continuity. In this context, the organization needs to adopt the best practices in service management
Accepted 6 October 2015
to be more efficient and competitive. Some ITSM models collect the best practices of recognized organizations.
Available online xxxx
These models are mainly applied by large organizations. (OBJECTIVE) The objective of this study is to gather ex-
Keywords:
periences in the application of ITSM models in small organizations. (METHODS) To achieve this objective a sys-
Service process model tematic literature review was performed. (RESULTS) We found primary studies applied to IT areas from some
ITIL large and medium companies but there is a few in small companies' context. (CONCLUSION) During the SLR
ISO/IEC 20000 we have identified some improvements and difficulties in many organizations, we have founded when applying
CMMI-SVC ITSM models. The principal difficulty was the lack of knowledge of its personnel and consultants have, for
Small organization adopting a model. On the other hand, companies who succeeded in the application of an ITSM model, had founded
some benefits, such as processes improvement, higher user satisfaction, and service cost and time reduction.
© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
2. Information technology service models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3. Conducting the SLR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.1. Planning review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.1.1. Research question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.1.2. SLR protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.2. Implementation review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.2.1. Definition of research question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
3.2.2. Selection of articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4. Summary of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.1. Research methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.2. Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
4.3. Results by type of organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5. Analysis of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.1. P1.1: About proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2. P1.2: About outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2.1. Improvements achieved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2.2. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
5.2.3. Difficulties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
6. Final discussion and recommendations for future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: kmelendez@pucp.edu.pe (K. Melendez), abraham.davila@pucp.edu.pe (A. Dávila), mpessoa@usp.br (M. Pessoa).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
0920-5489/© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
2 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Process commons between ISO/IEC 20000, ITIL®2011 and COBIT®5 [35].

ISO/IEC 20000 ITIL®2011 COBIT®5

Configuration management Configuration management and service assets DS9 manages the configuration
Change management Change management AI6 manages changes
Delivery management Release and deployment management AI7 installs and accredits solutions and changes
Service validation and testing
Change evaluation
Incident management Incident management DS8 manages service desk and incidents
Request management
Problem management Problem management DS10 manages problems
Capacity management Capacity management DS3 manages performance and capacity
Demand management
IT service continuity management IT service continuity management DS4 ensures continuity of service
Availability management Availability management DS3 manages performance and capacity
Service level management Service level management DS1 defines and manages service levels
Business relationship management Services catalog management DS2 manages third-party services
Supplier management Supplier management
Budgeting and accounting for IT services Financial management for IT services PO5 manages the IT investment
DS6 identifies and allocates costs
Information security management Information security management DS5 ensures systems security

1. Introduction
Since the last decades – since the early 80s to the present – the use of
Information Technology (IT) became the most important support for
business, regardless of the company size or sector it belongs [1].
In pursuit of return on investment and the use of IT in business,
the measurement of the services provides managers with strategic
information to make a decision [11]. The mass use of IT systems and
the increasing reliance of enterprises on these systems, result in
the need for greater quality, reliability and safety. Large organiza-
tions created internal complex structures for operations and some
activities were outsourced. On the other hand, small and medium
organizations cannot maintain a similar infrastructure because it's
expensive.
In recent years, opportunities for IT providers have grown. In this
context, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) become an important el-
ement to offer IT services [42], the same situation happens in very small
organization (e.g., IT area).
There are many definitions of the size of enterprises. A very small
organization and a very small entity “is defined as a company, unit,
area, department or project up to 25 people” [17]. In addition to this,
the European Union is defined as a small business, including a software
company, that has “less than 20 employees” and the medium-sized soft-
ware company count is “between 20 and 100 employees” [40].
Some studies of service management in SMEs mention that there is a
gap between the knowledge of ITSM frameworks and their implemen-
tation [12] [23] [30]. Kuller's study mentions that 52% of European
SMEs know ITSM frameworks but only 10% applies a model. For some
authors [12] [15] [23] [29] [30] the main problems are: the complexity
of the models and the lack of knowledge and guidelines for the adoption
of models.
The ITSM claims to align IT efforts with business needs and manage
provision of IT services with effectiveness [5]. In recent years, process
models for ITSM and their application in organizations have grown sig-
nificantly. There are several models and standards that represent the
best practices for ITSM, like the IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®2011)

1. Identifying the need

Phase A. Planning
Review 2. Development of review
protocol

1. Identifying research

2. Selection of primary studies

Phase B.
Implementation 3. Assessment of study quality
Review
4. Monitoring and data mining

5. Data synthesis

Phase C. Report review

Fig. 1. Stages of systematic literature review, Kitchenham, adapted from [22].

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 3

Table 2 Table 5
Viewpoints for research questions. Exclusion and inclusion criteria list.

Field Description Item Criteria Type

Population For our SLR are the models of IT service processes. C.1 Reject repeated studies. Exclusion
Intervention In our case are the IT medium and small businesses or organizations C.2 Keep studies which titles are related with ITSM and medium Inclusion
(units or areas) that have adopted models of service processes. and small organizations.
Results For us, the results are the information that shows the application of C.3 Keep studies which abstracts could answer the research Inclusion
process IT services in medium and small organizations. questions.

[37], CMMI® for Services Version 1.3 (CMMI-SVC) [6], COBIT®5 (Con-
trol Objectives for Information and related Technology) [2], Microsoft®
Operations Framework 4.0 (MOF 4.0) [36], HP Service Management
Framework [2], and among others; but according to Mesquida [33] in
his systematic review only ISO/IEC 20000, ITIL®2011 and CMMI-SVC
are the most used.
This article presents a systematic literature review (SLR) on IT ser-
vice models that have been applied to small organizations. The article
is organized as follows: in Section 2 the service process models are pre-
sented; in Section 3 the method of SLR and its activities are described;
Section 4 summarizes the results obtained; Section 5 includes an analy-
sis of the results by answering the research questions and Section 6 final
discussion and recommendations for future works are shown.
2. Information technology service models
In the eighties, reflecting the growing complexity of IT in organiza-
tions, standards were developed based on concepts of IT management.
Those standards, that collect the best practices, afford to guide and man-
age IT services with efficacy [1] [2]. Some of the models are:
• ITIL is a collection of guidelines for help to conduct IT services [1]. This
model is focused on ITSM lifecycle [37].
• ISO/IEC 20000 is an international standard for ITSM, promotes the best
practices for planning, implementing, and improving a service man-
agement system [16].
• CMMI-SVC provides best practices in a service provider organization;
these practices are focused on activities for providing quality IT ser-
vices [6].
• COBIT5 is a framework for governance and management of IT organi-
zation; it provides the elements to help increase the value from infor-
mation systems [7].
• MOF is a framework that includes ITSM lifecycle, combines business
goals and IT goals; it permits to establish and implement reliable
and cost effective IT services [36].
Table 3
General question.
General research question Motivation
P1. What outcomes have been Their outcomes on the implementation of
developed in the ITSM for medium models (including standards) for ITSM
and small organizations? medium and small organizations. We can
find about improvements, recommendations
and difficulties.
In Ref. [35] we find a comparison table between the process models:
ITIL, ISO/IEC 20000 and COBIT5, see Table 1.
3. Conducting the SLR
The SLR is widely used in medicine due to the study of evidence
and development of empirical research, more rigorous research than
software engineering, according to Keele [21]. However Kitchenham
et al. [49] found out that the SRL is being used more and more in the
field of software engineering, being considered as a good research
methodology for software engineering topics. Kitchenham [22] shows
us a framework for a reliable, rigorous and auditable software engineer-
ing research. This framework has three phases: planning review, imple-
mentation review and reporting review [10,22], which can be seen in
Fig. 1. Then we will proceed with the development of activities for
each phase.
3.1. Planning review
The SLR was performed in order to answer the question: What expe-
riences have been developed in ITSM for medium and small organiza-
tions? The following activities are described:
3.1.1. Research question
One of the first elements to be defined in the review protocol refers
to the research questions [22]:
• Kitchenham [22] considered a research question from three view-
points (see Table 2).
• Therefore, we define the general question in Table 3 and research
questions in Table 4.
3.1.2. SLR protocol
As part of the strategy to search for primary studies, some exclusion
and inclusion criteria were defined to use in the selection process, as
shown in Table 5. To obtain a subset of relevant primary studies, the se-
lection process was performed described in Table 6.
Table 6
Exclusion and inclusion criteria.
Stage Description
1 The C.1 was applied to the group of studies obtained from digital libraries.
2 The C.2 was applied to the subset of studies obtained in stage 1.
3 The C.3 was applied to the subset of studies obtained in stage 2.

Table 4
Specific questions.
Specific research question
P1.1. What ITSM proposals have been
adopted in the organizations?
P1.2. What outcomes have been
obtained in the adoption of the ITSM
proposals in medium and small
organizations?
Table 7
Classification scheme.
Motivation
Dimension Categories
Compile the proposals, models or
standards that are related to the ITSM Research methods Empirical: case study, experiment, survey.
and they have been adopted in the Not empirical: transverse, longitudinal.
organizations. Proposals Framework, model, method, methodology, tools, knowledge.
Compile the improvements, Organization type • Company
recommendations and difficulties in Small: b20 employees [40], medium: N20 employees and
medium and small organizations in the b100 employees [40], large: ≥100 employees [9].
application of models and/or standards
for the ITSM. • Unit or area of a company

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
4 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Table 8 Table 11
Search structure. Number of items obtained and selected.

AND Proposals 4th Stage

OR OR OR OR Not selected Selected

CMMI-SVC Service process Small setting Lesson learned Framework – [5,25,34]

20000 Services processes Small entities Case study Model [14,13,43] [28,32,19,39,23,1,38,30]
ITIL Service management system Medium company Action research Methodology [8] [2]
Model IT service management SME Experience Method – [12,45]
Framework – – Implementation Knowledge [37,11,4,44,42,27,41,26,40,33] [20,15,31,29,9]
– – – Adoption Tool – [3,24]
– – – Critical factors Total 14 studies 21 studies
– – – Success factors

Then, to evaluate the quality of the last subset of studies the follow- Table 12
Results by publication type.
ing questions were considered:
Publication Total studies ≤2011 N2011
• Has the selected study been published in journals, conferences, meet-
ings or any workshops? Conference 17 11 6
Indexed journal 4 1 3
• Does the selected study allows for answering the research questions?

Finally, as strategy for data extraction and data synthesis, we create
dimensions and categories to classify data (Table 7). It was important
for classifying data, comparing and contrasting evidences to generate
answers to the research questions.
The dimension “Proposals” consider the following definitions:
• Framework. — A design of a model or code that would be reusable, re-
fined or extended to provide support for many applications [18,46].
• Model. — A representation of relevant aspects about the entity under
study [18,46].
• Method. — A usual or regular way to do something [48].
• Methodology. — A group of practices, techniques or procedures orga-
nized in a systematic way and used by practitioners [18,47].
3.2. Implementation review
The activities described in the previous section were performed by
the following protocol review to solve the research questions.
3.2.1. Definition of research question
To build a search string we followed a strategy defined in Section 3.1.1.
The group of logical sentences for the search string is listed below.
• Population: (“CMMI-SVC” OR “20000” OR “ITIL” OR “model” OR
“framework”) AND (“service process” OR “service processes” OR “ser-
vice management system”)
Table 9
Digital libraries used.
Digital library
Science Direct, IEEEXplore, ACM, Wiley, ProQuest
EBSCO, SCOPUS
• Intervention: (“small setting” OR “small entities” OR “medium compa-
ny” OR “SME”) AND (“enterprise” OR “organization”)
• Results: (“lesson learned” OR “case study” OR “action research” OR
“experience” OR “implementation” OR “adoption” OR “critical factors”)
• Final judgment: Population AND Intervention AND Results
These sentences are shown as a structure in Table 8, and they were
adapted for each digital library used. Digital libraries that are used in
this SLR are shown in Table 9. An evaluation is performed over the
search results based on the selection criteria.
3.2.2. Selection of articles
The results of the research in digital libraries produced a total of
1103 studies, but the exclusion criteria were applied in the first stage
of selection, achieving a subset of 380 studies. Then, the inclusion
criteria were applied in the following steps producing the results as
shown in Table 10.
During the review of abstracts, we found relevant information about
models and service management processes. However, at the end of the
fourth stage, we could notice that some of these articles can answer the
first research question; they are not related to model implementation
experiences in organizations. Finally, a subset of 21 primary studies
were obtained, which were analyzed by the researchers (See Table 11).
To assess the quality of primary studies we checked if the publica-
tions were subjected to a rigorous review process. It was found that
17 items were presented at scientific conferences and the remaining
in indexed journals (See Table 12).
Additionally, Fig. 2 shows a progressive evolution of research on pro-
cesses of ITSM, therefore, a clear concern to develop the ITSM topic. The
largest numbers of studies were found between 2010 and 2013, coincid-
Total studies
ing with periods of publications of international models for IT services.
Jul, 2014/Sep, 2014
Nov, 2014/Jan, 2015

Studies per year

8
Table 10 7
Number of items obtained and selected.
6
Database Date Discovered 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5
selection stage stage stage stage
4
Science Direct jul-14 121 56 12 6 2 3
ACM jul-14 62 40 11 4 0
2
Wiley jul-14 93 15 9 1 0
IEEE Explore aug-14 47 0 28 18 12 1
ProQuest sep-14 436 80 51 6 3 0
Scopus nov-14 127 54 17 3 3 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
EBSCO jan-15 217 135 9 2 1
Total 1103 380 137 40 21
Fig. 2. Number of primary studies included.

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

Table 13 Table 16
Research methods. Service processes worked in the primary studies.

Research methods Total studies % Service processes Reference %

Empirical 19 90.5% Quality assurance of service [25] 5.9

Case study 16 Resource configuration [45] 5.9
Experiment, survey, other 8 Service design [28] 5.9
Not empirical 2 9.5% Services strategy/strategic service management [12,28,45] 17.7
Transverse 2 Accident management [45] 5.9
Speculation, literature review, other 0 Service level agreements management/service [2,19,30,31,34] 29.4
Total 21 100.0% level management
Change management [31,34,39,45] 23.5
Incident management/incident resolution and [3,5,12,20,24,30,31,34] 47.1
For example, the updated version of ITIL was released in 2011; ISO/IEC prevention
Configuration management [25,34] 11.8
20000 standard had updates in some series in 2010 and 2011, and Service availability management [5] 5.9
also CMMI-SVC in 2010. Delivery management/service delivery [12,45] 11.8
Help desk management [25,28] 11.8
Problem management [5,24,30,31,34] 29.4
4. Summary of results Services catalog management [1,15] 11.8
Financial management [1] 5.9
Based on the strategy of extraction and synthesis of data we notice Management and evaluation service [32] 5.9
the following: Continuous improvement [28] 5.9
Request fulfillment [20] 5.9
Access management [20] 5.9
4.1. Research methods Service system development [12] 5.9
Service system transition [12] 5.9
Capacity and availability management [12] 5.9
The majority (90.5%) of the studies choose an empirical research. Service continuity [12] 5.9
From those empirical researches were case studies (16), in which Work planning [12] 5.9
some elaboration and application of models or processes for IT services. Work monitoring and control [12] 5.9
Some of these articles also conducted surveys (see Table 13). Quality management [34] 5.9
Customer satisfaction management [34] 5.9
Cost budgeting management [34] 5.9
4.2. Proposals Service desk [34] 5.9
Quality assurance of service [25] 5.9
Resource configuration [45] 5.9
We notice that the studies about the process models for IT services
are the most important topic in researches (38.1%) as shown in Table 14.
Primary studies were based on IT service models recognized inter-
nationality. These models are shown in Table 11. We remark that (29.4%) were the most worked service processes. It does not perform
ITIL®2011 was the primary framework (85.7%) within the research 100% because some references describe more than one process.
followed by COBIT5, CMMI-SVC and ISO/IEC 20000. In Table 15 it is im-
portant to note that ITIL®2011 is the most referred framework and the
4.3. Results by type of organization
oldest one used in the studies (Table 14).
For the preparation of proposals, the primary research focused in
Based on the types of organization defined in Table 7 we can see that
the needs of their organizations to work some processes of IT services
there are more studies on companies (76.2%) than the units or areas of a
(see Table 16). The names of the processes indicated in Table 16 corre-
company (23.8%). More studies were found in the largest companies
spond to the names used in the organizations mentioned in the primary
(23.8%), in SMEs (14.3%) and business units (23.8%) as shown in
studies. Some studies [9,15,23,29,38] do not mention process adoptions
Table 17.
therefore they were not considered. Incident management (47.1%), ser-
From previous results, we notice that there is a concern for defining
vice level agreements management (29.4%) and problem management
and evaluating service processes, because there have been efforts to cre-
ate and adopt process models to improve service management process.
Table 14
Additionally, these applications have been made in large IT work envi-
Proposals or service process models.
ronments, as well as business units or areas. There are few studies
Proposals Reference % about the adoption of process models in small organizations (9.5%).
Framework [5,25,34] 14.3%
Model [28,32,19,39,23,1,38,30] 38.1%
Methodology [2] 4.8% 5. Analysis of results
Method [12,45] 9.5%
Knowledge [20,15,31,29,9] 23.8% With the data and information obtained in the previous section we
Tool [3,24] 9.5% can answer the research questions.
Total 100%

Table 17
Results by type of organization.
Table 15
Frames of reference used in the primary studies. Type of organization Total studies %

Company 16 76.2
Model/framework 1st edition Studies %
Large 5 23.8
ITIL®2011 80s 18 85.7 Medium 3 14.3
CMMI-SVC 2009 8 38.1 Small 2 9.5
COBIT®5 1996 7 33.3 Not specified 6 28.6
ISO/IEC 20000 2005 7 33.3 Unit/area 5 23.8
MOF 4.0 1999 2 9.5 Total 100

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
6 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Table 18
Process models for IT services.
Model
Implementation model for the integration of IT services tailored for
small businesses.
Model for managing the service catalog.
Model management level agreements based on KISMET services.
Two models to incorporate changes to services and changes to
processes in service management systems.
Compatible with ITIL and COBIT models.
Model for managing a catalog of IT services to small and medium
enterprises.
Design of a maturity model for ITSM information systems industry
heavy equipment manufacturing.
MM-ITSM. Maturity model for service management
Table 19
Improvements achieved.
Experience 1: improvement achieved
Improvement in service catalog management
Improvement in customer service incidents
Reduction of costs and time
Improvement in processes of ITSM, including: service operations,
service changes, service level agreements and service strategy
Improvement in communication with users
Improvement in user satisfaction
Improvement in service availability and effective management of
service operations
Awareness of the importance of adopting a service model
Companies show good internal practices
5.1. P1.1: About proposals
According to the results of the reviewed, we found that, in most
cases, proposal or models, they were created in accordance with the
needs and problems of the organizations. These proposal or models
were based on most recognized frameworks. Table 18 presents articles
describing the created models.
Most of the proposals founded were created for processes as service
management and incident management. We did not find any model or
Reference proposal that has worked or applied all the processes of international
[28]
models for ITSM. Additionally, these proposal or models were mostly
applied in organizations such as: large companies, small–medium en-
[32] terprises and units or areas of a company (See Table 17).
[19]
[39]
5.2. P1.2: About outcomes
[23]
[1] Any of the models found cannot be generalized because they are in
accordance with a very particular need of the organization that imple-
[38]
mented them.
[30] However, due to the creation and implementation of these models, it
can be identified: improvements that organizations achieved, recom-
mendations and difficulties.
5.2.1. Improvements achieved
Reference As a result of the implementation of models, the organizations
[32,1]
achieved better performance in key activities. In most cases, the concern
[5,2] was to improve service management and incident management, among
[5,23,29] other processes. Improvements in communication with users and better
[2,5,28,39,45] understanding for the service are provided (see Table 19).
[28,32]
[2,23,9] 5.2.2. Recommendations
[5,29] Following the recommendations proposed in various investigations
(Table 20), we can mention that to implement the process models it
[25,9]
[31,9] must be determined: the problem to be solved and be clear about the
business goals. The application of the model should not only solve the
problems or needs, but have a positive impact on business objectives.
Training is an essential task before the creation or adoption of a
model and then in the model application stage. Responsible for creating
a model or adopting one must have knowledge of existing good prac-
tices, models or international standards. When you have created the
model for the organization and guidelines for adoption, it is important
to plan a training phase where all members of the organization have
knowledge of the processes and activities to be performed.

Table 20
Recommendations.

Experience 2: recommendations Reference

Needs, problems, business goals Determination of needs [2]

Review of the needs of small or medium enterprises [1]
Alignment with business objectives [3]
Identification of the problem [38]
Training Training in service processes [25]
Training in ITSM [15,23]
Review of existing models [38]
Training in methodology [2]
Lack of knowledge of ITIL makes difficult to adopt model [15]
Well-trained staff allows better adoption of ITIL [20]
Identification of professional skills [38]
Definitions Definition of IT services and service catalog [15,19]
Definition of service categories [19,1]
Services must be grouped into categories [32]
Definition of a service catalog [15,1]
Definition of service level agreements [19]
Model Definition of a model based on previous requirements and needs [23]
Merge several types of models or modify frameworks [23,31]
Definition of IT service processes [15]
Others Involvement of senior managers and managers [2,24]
Cooperation with universities to generate greater confidence [2]
Operational processes require a cohesive team and strategic or tactical processes require team coordination and cooperation [31]
Definition of responsibilities and roles [25]
Assignment of service level manager [19]
Generation of a master work plan [2]
Implementation of service strategies [15]
Monitoring the quality of service [2]
Definition of monitoring indicators for service process management to identify improvement needs [34]
Provide monitoring the implementation of service processes and get feedback [24]

Please cite this article as: K. Melendez, et al., Information technology service management models applied to medium and small organizations: A
systematic literature review, Comput. Stand. Interfaces (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2015.10.001
 K. Melendez et al. / Computer Standards & Interfaces xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Table 21
Difficulties.
Experience 3: difficulties Reference
Difficulties in recruiting processes [15,12]
Framework complex [23,12,30]
Lack of awareness on the need to optimize IT processes [23]
Lack of resources for small enterprises to adopt current models [12,23,29]
Lack of knowledge for the adoption of a model [15,12,23,29,30]
Lack of motivation [15,23,12]
Research suggests defining the IT service catalog and service level
agreements as part of service management improvement of the organi-
zation. This helps to describe better the processes or strategy to adopt an
existing model. Some authors [12] [23] mentioned that ITSM frame-
works are complex, for example: Kuller, in his research, did not consider
complete models but he combined several models based on require-
ments and needs of small and medium enterprises.
Some additional recommendations are: to achieve the involvement,
through the participation and commitment of heads of organizations, to
include experts in the field, to define a plan for improvement work.
5.2.3. Difficulties
Finally, as additional experience, we can discuss the difficulties (see
Table 21) what researchers found. One of these difficulties for organiza-
tions is to select an existing model and processes to develop; we can
state that this is related to the recommendation about training. Addi-
tionally, there are very complex frameworks, which added to the lack
of motivation, that make it difficult to the development of a process im-
provement project.
6. Final discussion and recommendations for future work
We can state that there are a few studies on the application process
model for IT services in small organizations. Bartolini [3] wrote that the
interest in IT process management has a few years so there are few stud-
ies in academic literature [3].
Studies found that organizations are becoming aware of the impor-
tance of service process model implementation. Some organizations
know about best practices or the models like ITIL®2011 and ISO/IEC
20000; however, the problem is how these organizations apply these
models. For that, we suggest that organizations need to define a strategy
to adopt a model such as ISO/EC 20000, but also they have to be sure
about improvement needs to apply good practices.
In accordance with the aforementioned, we need a theme to develop
in future work that is to define a roadmap or a base model or combined
frameworks with low complexity for organizations. This can facilitate
the processes improvement for IT services in the SME.
As we can check, there are particular initiatives for large or medium-
sized organizations but not for small organizations. If we consider that
some authors mentioned: (a) the complexity of some models and
(b) that small organizations with fewer resources and their processes
are less complex than large organizations; therefore, a low-complexity
model could be more helpful for these organizations.
Acknowledgments
This work is framed within ProCal-ProSer Contract N° 210-FINCYT-
IA-2013 (Innovate Perú): “Project 210-FINCYT-IA-2013. Productivity
and Quality Relevance Factors in small software development or service
organizations adopted ISO standards” and, the Department of Engineer-
ing of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
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