A service removes costs and risks
A service is a means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage the specific costs and risks. That last clause is the definition's working half.
Why it is like this
It is what distinguishes a service from a product handover: the provider keeps the costs and risks it is better placed to carry, and that transfer is what the customer is buying.
Not to be confused with
A synonym for a system or an application. A service that pushes its operational risk back onto the customer — "you patch it, you monitor it" — has stopped being a service in ITIL's sense while keeping the name.
In practice
Managed database versus a VM with a database on it: the same technology, and only one of them removes the backup, patching and failover risk from the customer.
Source: ITIL 4 Foundation (AXELOS / PeopleCert), 2019 edition — §2.3 — service. Read on .
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Odd one out Check yourself
Three of these are part of ITIL's definition of a service. Which is not?
Show the answer
It is delivered through technology
Nothing in the definition mentions technology. A canteen is a service; the definition is deliberately technology-free.