Different Career Paths for an ITIL Certified Professional

The changing world demands change in every field to cope with the competition in the market. Nowadays, organizations need to focus on changing and enhancing their IT infrastructure. Well, that is the best way for an organization to understand and analyze the capabilities of all the staff from leadership to teams.

In order to compete and thrive in this era of technology, an organization has to invest in its digital front. This investment isn’t a loss, but a profit as every other organization is investing its capital in enhancing their technological capacity. Having an updated technical front is beneficial in all types of ways, may it in the view of competition or maintaining workflow.

 Well, doing this is not that easy, but with the help of a framework, with the help of a framework, every change can be used as an opportunity to push the work towards the betterment of the organization. ITIL or Information Technology Infrastructure Library framework is the best framework that provides an organization with a set of flexible practices that are efficient enough for all sorts of transformation. Most important for technological transformation, and it promotes alignment of the IT workforce with the business goals. 

Later in this context, all the dilemmas and doubts related to ITIL will be cleared, but now it is important to understand what ITIL is?

ITIL? What is it?

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can be defined as a framework, as discussed in the above context. ITIL can be described as a series of best practices meant for IT Service Management. 

The ITIL practices ensure a satisfactory outcome for customers, while these practices are worthy enough to help manage and save time and money for the ITSM team of an organization. The ITIL framework is known to provide a productive, stable, and sustainable IT environment in ITSM. 

Whenever it comes to technology and practices regarding technology, then it is highly important to update these practices with time. The ITIL is now updated to its latest version i.e., ITIL version 4, which has integrated Agile practices with the frameworks like DevOps and Lean Six Sigma. Its moves are like Agile while it uses technology like DevOps and Lean.

For such qualities, the ITIL framework has become a popular ITSM framework in for decades. Now each and every organization irrespective of the type of industries are leaning towards the ITIL framework. ITIL framework has become globally recognized, and all organizations want to hire professionals with the ITIL Certification.

What makes ITIL so Popular?

ITIL framework has become highly popular across the globe. At the same time, the whole business and corporate world are competing in with technology. The ITIL framework has all the qualities to help these organizations beat their competitors. Now many organizations across the globe are interested in investing money and time in understanding the ITIL practices. By understanding the ITIL framework and the ways to implement it, a company can align IT with the motives of its corporate sector. 

ITIL framework is pretty versatile as it not only helps an organization to meet and fulfill the demands of clients, but it also encourages businesses to diminish the service cost with better productivity.

Not only that but when it comes to the size of the business, then one can stay assured that ITIL is flexible enough for all sizes of businesses. The ITIL framework provides a set of principles abiding which will be fruitful for any business. Now let us jump into the ITIL certification and benefits regarding the same.

ITIL Foundation Certification

The ITIL Foundation Certification is the basic certification, which enriches an individual with foundational knowledge and skills that can be used in ITSM. As it is the foundation certification, it gives the basic outlook of operating models of the ITIL framework in ITSM. 

It empowers and educates an individual about the fundamentals of ITIL principles, guidelines, policies, and activities that can be implemented to manage ITSM. While it also equips an individual with skills to improve and develop the delivery of IT products and services of an organization continuously.

By getting this certification, an individual gains all the fundamental knowledge of ITIL practices to enhance the ITIL service lifecycle.

The ITIL framework is chunked into several phases, which makes it easier for an individual to grasp better about the ITIL framework.

There are 5 phases, and those are:

• Service Strategy
• Service Design
• Service Transition
• Service Operation
• Continual Service Improvement (CSI)

Advantages of ITIL Foundation Certification

When it comes to advantages of ITIL certification, then there are plenty of reasons to support the same. But most importantly, the most considered benefit of certification is that it can be the leading reason for an individual’s handsome hike in matters of salary.

It is recorded that ITIL certification, is ranked 7th in the list of IT certifications. Reports and surveys have also shown that an ITIL certified professional earns more the 40% in comparison to those who do not possess the ITIL certification. On average, an ITIL certified professional earns about $130,589, which is indeed lucrative.

This is just one of the best benefits of ITIL certification there are even more benefits of having the ITIL certification and those are:

• Organizations across the globe want to hire an ITIL certified professional because these professionals have acquired all the knowledge and skills through the ITIL certification training that will allow them to manage the IT environment of any organization. Not only that, but these professionals have immense abilities to maintain a healthy IT lifecycle. They have all the qualities to ensure better productivity, efficiency, and are able to provide better services that will satisfy a customer’s requirements.
• Now, these ITIL professionals are trained to align the business objectives with IT service management. This indeed is beneficial for both organization and customer as this alignment helps an organization to fulfill all the needs of its customers with fruitful and satisfactory outcomes. This strengthens the customer relationship with the organization while increasing the profit and demand of the organization.
• The ITIL certification also helps an individual to become the most valuable part of an organization. Who knows the common language of business and IT. This empowers the individual to communicate between business and technology, which is highly appreciated by all sorts of organizations.

Different career paths for an ITIL certified professional

As per the above context, one can surely understand the value of an ITIL certified professional in an organization. Well, the ITIL certified professionals are always admired across organizations because they not only help in managing the IT Lifecycle of an organization, but they also help their organization to build a better business relationship while providing satisfactory results to the customers.

The ITIL certifications are designed like a ladder. Let us understand them:

Level 1: ITIL Foundation Certification:

The ITIL foundation certification educates and trains an individual to understand and practice the basic fundamental principles of ITIL. As it is discussed in detail in the above context, it is not necessary to repeat the same.

Level 2: ITIL Strategic Leaders Certification or ITIL Managing Professional Certification:

In level 2, there are 2 types of certifications which are meant for different career path on the basis ITIL practices.

• ITIL Strategic Leaders Path

The ITIL Strategic Leaders Certification allows an individual to align IT and Business Strategies. It consists of 2 modules, and those are:

• ITIL Strategist, Direct Plan and Improve (DPI)

This module is similar to the ITIL Managing Professionals Certification, which will be discussed later in this context.

• ITIL Leader, Digital and IT Strategy (DITS)

This module educates an individual to help and tie a knot best business and IT, with the help of a suitable strategy.

1. ITIL Managing Professionals Path:

This path is meant for those who work hand in hand with IT teams of an organization to run and complete a venture successfully.

There are several modules that come under this path, and those are:

• ITIL Expert, (CDS)

This module is targeted IT products and services, and works on techniques and plans to improve the same.

• ITIL Expert, (DSV)

This module educates an individual about the management of relationships between IT products and service delivery and development.

• ITIL Expert, (HVIT)

This module concentrates on ways and techniques to increase the speed of delivering IT products and services.

• ITIL Expert, (DPI)

This module concentrates more on emphasizing continuous learning and improvement.

Level 3: ITIL Master Certification:

This is the ultimate ITIL certification, which is meant for those professionals who have successfully achieved the ITIL Managing Professional Certification and ITIL Strategic Leaders Certification paths. As this is a master’s certification, so it demands five years of experience in ITSM Leadership or Management.

The ITIL Masters are the most knowledgeable and highly skilled professionals who know each and everything about the principles of ITIL framework and have the meticulous ability to implement the policies and principles of the ITIL framework in an organization.

Conclusion:

Since ITIL certification is versatile and flexible, an individual can choose from different options of jobs according to their best skill. It is indeed a beneficial and fruitful certification to achieve for an individual who is interested in working in the ITSM field.