What is ISO/IEC 20000-1?

• What is ISO 20000-1 Certification?

ISO/IEC 20000 – most commonly referred to as just “ISO 20000” – is an international IT service management (ITSM) standard which enables organizations to ensure that their ITSM processes are not only in line with the business’s needs but international best practices as well. The benchmarking offered by ISO 20000 can offer improved insight for businesses to measure service levels, assess performance, and improve upon the delivery of services.

Like other ISO standards, ISO 20000 can also give certified organizations a competitive edge over others; voluntary certification demonstrates a willingness to prove superior quality of service, and certified companies are generally seen as being more reliable. For existing customers, certification may mean a greater likelihood of remaining with a provider rather than switching to another.

The most recent version of ISO 20000-1, issued in 2018, added a number of updates to the standard in order to make it more effective. Most notably, the 2018 release incorporated the high-level documentation structure used in other ISO standards, with the intent of making it easier to integrate an ISO 20000-1 certification with other certificates such as ISO 9001:2015. 2018 also saw the removal of references to the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) methodology in favor of the requirement to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve an SMS (Service Management System). There are also fewer explicit call-outs for documented procedures, with preference given to requirements for documented information and record-keeping.