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Blog posted by: Javier López Casarín – CEO/President Grupo/Fundación Reinventando a México, 02 May 2018.

CEO Javier López Casarín’s group of companies in Mexico is adopting ITIL best practice principles – including ITIL Practitioner – as part of programme to raise service quality standards and increase professionalism. Here, he describes why the group has embarked on this journey:

Technology is part of our lives in every way and technology disruption will show who is ready to “surf the wave” and who isn’t.

This means being continuously prepared to raise standards of service quality: that affects the way we sell products, the way we train our employees, how clients see us and the way we deliver services.

In Mexico we’ve had a wake-up call and things are starting to move with adopting best practices. Best practices will improve our development, make us more efficient and are something that all companies should be thinking about.

For us, a new door has opened and new vision of the future revealed; this is the start of a long-term process for our group. With more than 300 employees and a presence in six Mexican states, achieving best practice certifications over a number of years will give us new ways of doing things, new processes and competitive advantage. And working with ITIL will also help us on the path to achieving ISO 20000, ISO 27000 and the Service Desk Certification Programme by SDI; so, ITIL is at the core of our Continual Service Improvement plans.

Adopting ITIL

As developers and owners of our technology, we haven’t previously had someone to observe and tell us whether what we’re doing is right or wrong. So, having a “teacher” with broader experience is helping to guide us, identify errors in our processes and advising us on getting where we want to be.

When viewing ITIL for the first time, I realized it contains a lot of information but is very clear in the way it’s presented and the way it has to be done. By starting to use ITIL Practitioner, we’re looking at what’s happening outside Mexico in the rest of the world with best practice. Having ITIL in our DNA will help us to grow.

Innovation and best practice

The book I’m currently writing about innovation asks the question: are we innovating in Mexico?

My conclusion is that, in our country, we’re not used to investing in research and development and even less in best practices. More than 90% of companies in Mexico are family-owned businesses and it’s difficult to change long-standing mentalities.

However, with Mexican government organizations finally taking best practice seriously, it’s time for more companies to invest in becoming better at what they do. Adopting best practices should be treated in the same way as companies pay for light and heat in their buildings – it’s a must! When a greater number of organizations start to treat training and development as something permanent the professionalism in the market will reach a new level. In the same way as healthy eating and exercise, it has to become a philosophy for life.

Our teams within the group are excited about this because it’s an investment in them; they know I’m pushing them a little further than they’re used to, but we need to emulate what other parts of the world are doing well through using an established, international framework such as ITIL.

Today, there is more change than at any time in human history. Though it can be overwhelming for many people, you can choose either to embrace it or fall behind forever.