Service Catalog

Last Updated: August 27, 2013

Definition - What does Service Catalog mean?

A service catalog is a comprehensive list of IT services that an organization offers to its employees or customers. This catalog is the only portion of the company’s service portfolio that is published and provided to customers as a support to the sale or delivery of offered IT services.

The catalog includes:

The service name and its description
All services listed by category
All supporting services to the main services
Service level agreements and fulfillment time frames for the services
Contacts and escalation points (owner and representative)
Service costs

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Techopedia explains Service Catalog

The service catalog is a part of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Service Design, which is a set of defined practices and guidelines for IT service management (ITSM) meant to align IT services with business needs. The service catalog allows a consumer or a business manager looking to buy a service to quickly narrow down where to find details on the services they are seeking. Service catalogs may also be offered online.

From a user perspective, the catalog will make it quicker to find out what services are on offer, their descriptions and how to acquire them or inquire about them. For a business unit manager in charge of selling a company’s IT services, the catalog serves as a way to publish appointed services to end users. This happens after the manager and analysts determine what questions to ask the users, any approvals that are required for the request, and all other requirements needed to fulfill the request for service.