ITIL shapes help-desk overhaul at JPMorgan Chase

"We were able to reduce the need for people to call the desk because those issues don't arise as often or can be resolved more easily," he explains. "Being able to identify and solve common problems gives us the chance to improve existing services and introduce new services that bring value to the customers."

According to Barnes, industry research firm Gartner in the past has ranked JPMorgan Chase's service desk as one of the most mature in the financial services industry, but he says he is not getting complacent with that status. He says this year's goal is to reduce service desk calls by another 500,000 through various techniques including self-service features, consolidated password platforms and single-sign-on processes.

While working with ITIL processes has proven successful for JPMorgan Chase, Barnes advises others not to "bite off too much or jump in too deep" with any best-practices framework until it proves its case to the business.

"No matter the framework, if it doesn't bring you to market faster and better, then you have to ask yourself, 'Why I am doing this?' The key is to go into process improvements with your eyes wide open and take baby steps and let it prove itself," Barnes says. "ITIL has got to support and enable your core product. For us, incident management showed us value, and we will continue to explore ITIL and how it fits best for our company going forward."

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