Hello Aditya,
Yes, this is something that comes up frequently. There are many synergies between TBM and ITIL or ITSM. I'll share a few quick observations here:
- ITIL v3 describes service economics somewhat extensively in the Service Strategy book. It talks about, among other things, costing services and charging for them. TBM more fully defines how to cost and charge for services, defined by the TBM Framework in Create Transparency and Shape Demand disciplines
- ITIL defines the roles of service owners and account managers. These are key roles for TBM, too, whereby service owners are accountable for service costs (not just budget), value, roadmap, strategy, etc. These are core components of the TBM Framework and described fairly extensively in our Foundation Certification program. Furthermore, ITIL describes the account manager role, which is responsible for supporting clients, helping them understand how their consumption drives costs, and what other options might exist for improving value from consuming IT services and products. This is what we generally call a business relationship manager (BRM), and is also a key role for TBM.
- ITIL defines the concept of "variable cost dynamics," which is another element of TBM. We don't use that phrase, per se, but we describe how to measure variable costs and variable cost ratios and evaluate the drivers of costs based on different volumes. This is something that is made much clearer with the TBM taxonomy and model.
- ITIL also describes other concepts, such as service portfolio management, demand modelling, service investment analysis, etc. which all depend on effective cost modelling and consumption analysis, which are delivered by a mature TBM capability.
I've never heard of an instance where ITIL or ITSM were in conflict with TBM or vice versa. On the contrary, I've seen many cases where ITSM maturity accelerates TBM adoption because useful data sets emerge from ITSM-related tools, such as CMDB, service desk, time tracking, etc. Furthermore, TBM bolsters ITSM by providing a clearer financial context for ITSM data and processes. For example, TBM reveals the cost implications of poor CMDB or IT asset data, helping IT leaders prioritize data quality efforts.
So the short of it is they're very compatible and even complementary. There may be cases where ITIL and TBM use slightly different terms to describe the same things, but that should not be a barrier to employing the two together.