A finance director approves the annual budget that pays for a collaboration service, but never logs into it. Which service consumer role is the finance director playing?
ITIL 4 Foundation, objective 1. Key concepts of service management medium
Draft — not checked yet. This question was written from the published exam objectives and cites the clause it comes from, but nobody has yet read it against that clause and signed for it.
It is kept out of search results and out of mock exams until they have. Read the source below before you take the answer as settled.
The options
Not correct Service provider
Wrong. The provider is the organization in the role of supplying the service. The finance director sits on the consuming side.
Not correct User
Wrong. A user is the person who actually uses the service. The director explicitly does not use it.
Not correct Customer
Wrong, though this is the tempting answer. A customer defines the requirements for the service and takes responsibility for the outcomes of consumption. Approving money is authorization, not requirements definition.
Correct Sponsor
Correct. The sponsor is the role that authorizes the budget for service consumption. Whether the sponsor ever touches the service is irrelevant.
Why
ITIL splits the service consumer into three roles: customer (defines requirements and owns the outcomes), user (uses the service), and sponsor (authorizes the budget). One person can hold several of them, but here only budget authorization is described, so the role is sponsor.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- ITIL 4 syllabus clause 1
- What it says
- Sponsor: the role that authorizes the budget for service consumption.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 1 and space the ones you get wrong.