The Service Desk Institute is the leading professional organisation for everyone working in the IT service and support industry. Dedicated to setting the standards for the industry, SDI delivers knowledge and career enhancing skills for IT service professionals to enable them to deliver exceptional results for organisations.

It's about People
With ITIL® and a number of other standards and methodologies IT Professionals have become obsessed with ‘process', often to the exclusion of all else. ITIL® includes a more strategic lifecycle approach, however there is still little information available on the key element in delivering excellent service - people.

People deliver processes. People operate in roles. People have responsibilities. Without people there would be no processes and it is people that are required to understand the roles and responsibilities required to deliver processes and services. Many ITSM processes could also be defined as responsibilities and it is therefore vital that people understand the key elements required in terms of approach, skills, tasks and attributes, to carry out service delivery.

The SDI approach is to focus on delivering services to people, who can then deliver better quality to their customers in their roles and jobs. SDI provides practical and vocational training to Service Desk staff and managers on the skills and knowledge required to run successful Service Desks.

SDI individual standards for service desk and IT support professionals set out clear definitions for the key service desk roles of Service Desk Analyst and Service Desk Manager.

These internationally recognised standards provide the basis of all SDI training courseware and exams, leading to qualifications that are recognised worldwide.

SDI also provides a number of other training courses and learning sessions, including simulation games, workshops and individual coaching, to help ITSM professionals improve their skills and knowledge.

Individual Certifications Offered
Service Desk Foundation
The Service Desk plays an important role in end user support. A fullblown Service Desk serves as the front office for the other IT departments and can deal with many customer queries without needing to contact specialist personnel. For the end user, the Service Desk provides the single point of contact (SPOC) with the IT organization, which ensures that they find the right person to help them with their issues or request.

The Service Desk Foundation course is a thorough induction to the Service Desk and its importance to today’s organisation, this course provides a practical introduction in the key concepts, skills and competencies required to deliver professional and effective support.

The course also ensures that analysts work to consistent, industry recognised standards and in line with best practice guidelines.

Service Desk Analyst
Excellent service desk support is vital to ensure a company consistently delivers the required IT service levels. The responsibilities of the support analyst are many and they evolve constantly, so a diverse skill-set is required to meet the challenging demands placed on them. This course equips the support analyst with the skills essential to deliver excellent levels of customer service and support.

Service Desk Manager
Being an effective Service Desk Manager requires a broad range of talents, from people-oriented abilities and an awareness of logistrics to financial acumen and presentation skills. This course provides a thorough understanding of, and qualification in, Service Desk management.

Enterprise Certification Offered
Service Desk Certification (SDC)
The SDI Service Desk Certification programme is the only industry standard based programme designed to recognise truly excellent service desks.

By achieving SDI's internationally acclaimed Service Desk Certification, you are able to demonstrate that your support operation is truly dedicated and committed to providing enhanced IT service and support in line with best practice industry standards.

Based upon the European framework for quality - the EFQM Excellence Model - the Service Desk Certification (SDC) process looks closely at all aspects of the service desk operation in terms of management, staff, resources, tools, training and delivery. It reviews the development and integration of a number of key ITIL/ITSM processes including:

• Incident and problem
• Change and release managementService level management
• Availability and capacity management
• Configuration management
• Business continuity and financial management
• Knowledge management
• Customer relationship management
• SDC also reviews the approach to strategy, planning and continuous