In case you haven’t noticed we live in a very much service driven world. If we look around we see banking apps, cloud storage, HR platforms, logistics chains, services are everywhere. In fact the data states, that the service sector dominates most advanced economies, often contributing over 70% of GDP. Yet, despite this reality, many organisations still struggle with defining business services in a way that makes sense to the business, let alone to their customers.
This disconnect is more than just a terminology problem. It’s a structural weakness and one that impacts transparency, alignment, measurement, and ultimately, trust.
From Goods to Services | A Shift in Logic
Historically, much of business thinking has been shaped by a goods-dominant logic, the idea that value is created in production, transferred through exchange, and consumed as a finished product. Services were once seen as secondary, simply supporting products.
But today’s economy tells a different story. In a world dominated by service-dominant logic, value is co-created through interaction and outcome. Whether it’s delivering IT capability, customer support, or legal advice, it’s about delivering a business service. For example, when you log into your banking app to pay a bill, you’re not thinking about servers or network protocols, you’re engaging with a service designed to help you complete a task. The technology is invisible, what matters is the outcome.
Defining business services is central to this shift. It’s no longer about tools or platforms, it’s about the outcomes they enable.
Why Organisations Struggle to Define Services
Despite their importance, many organisations fail to define business services clearly or they have a list of services that can only be translated internally by the IT department OR IT have a list of services that doesn’t align to what finance have or what the business see on the monthly invoice. Why?
- Too Technical. Services are often described in infrastructure or application terms, not business outcomes.
- Weak or No Service Ownership. Without a service owner, definitions grow ad hoc and inconsistent.
- Tool First Thinking. Many focus on what is already in the ticket system, its working and its what we IT call it.
- Avoiding the Mess. Clarity can expose duplication, inefficiencies, or missing capabilities.
- Its just too hard. There’s often something half-working in place, and change feels complex or risky. The effort needed to reframe or rework services is seen as outweighing the benefits.
- No Business Involvement. Service definition is too often left to IT teams alone, IT have poor communications with the business and no engagement with those who actually consume or rely on the service.
- Legacy Thinking. Some organisations still see services as ‘support’ rather than strategic enablers which stifles the effort to define them properly.
- Stuck in a Product Mindset. Many IT teams still think in terms of delivering things, servers, tools, tickets, rather than outcomes. This goods-dominant mindset limits the ability to see IT as a service provider, and reinforces the disconnect between what’s supplied and what the business actually values.
When this happens, service conversations become unproductive. What’s being delivered? Who owns it? How’s it performing? These basic questions often go unanswered.
The Business Case for Getting It Right
A clear, well-defined business service is not just a line item. It’s a powerful enabler of..
- Alignment between IT and business teams. Everyone knows what’s being delivered and why it matters.
- Transparency in cost, usage, and value. Clear services allow you to map spend to outcomes and manage consumption effectively.
- Better decisions across budgeting, delivery, and support. With visibility comes better prioritisation.
- Improved customer experience. Users know what to expect and how to get it, faster, clearer, better.
- Stronger governance through measurable outcomes. SLAs, compliance, and performance management all become more meaningful.
- Improved IT team understanding. Once IT sees what it truly delivers, technical staff gain a stronger sense of purpose and impact.
- Better business conversations. When services are named and framed in business terms, IT can speak the same language fostering trust and collaboration.
- Focus on what matters. Clear services help IT move from firefighting to proactive delivery, optimising what actually supports the business.
With properly defined business services, things like SLA reporting, portfolio management, or technology cost modelling become possible and valuable.
Start Small, but Start
You don’t need a full blown service catalogue on day one. Start with five services the business recognises. Document them in plain terms. Assign ownership. Link them to outcomes. Iterate from there.
What matters most is starting a dialogue with the business. It won’t take long to uncover which services are truly important and which ones are quietly draining time and resources. Focus on those high-value capabilities first. Ask, What’s the service called? Who owns it? Who uses it?
From there, you can begin to shape a clearer picture. Even simple steps like noting the primary service provider and consumer roles, writing a short service description, or capturing a basic view of business touch-points and dependencies will begin to sharpen understanding.
You don’t need to define everything at once, but thinking about the business service in layers helps. What does the service enable? How is it measured? What applications or customer facing interfaces support it? Are there known costs? These prompts don’t require a tool or framework to begin, just a whiteboard, some curiosity, and the willingness to ask good questions.
Over time, you’ll build a business service model that reflects reality, a customer-centric view that connects applications, technology capabilities, and business outcomes. And eventually, you’ll start to surface the strategic components, value streams, key tech platforms, product mappings that turn a loosely defined service into something you can manage, invest in, and evolve with confidence.
But none of that happens unless you take the first few steps.
Start small. But start.
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