The operating model for Customer Value Realization

The product economy is built. Value Realization is the work that runs it.

Explore the Model

For product companies

A new chapter — adoption becomes outcome.

For services firms

A new edge — past go-live, into renewal.

For ITIL & SIAM

A new path — lead Value Realization.
The shift

The same shift,
everywhere.

Across every industry, customers reward the value they realize — not the output.

Customer Success grew up inside product companies — a discipline of adoption, retention, and value proven inside the product. ITIL and SIAM grew up inside enterprise IT and services — disciplines of governance, integration, and service quality across complex supplier ecosystems. They evolved on parallel tracks, solving different halves of the same problem: how customers actually realise value from what they buy.

CSOM™ is the operating model that joins those tracks — pairing the outcome lens of Customer Success with the operational rigour of ITIL and SIAM to make end-to-end Customer Value Realization a repeatable practice.

Hospital

Recovery.

Not the procedure.

A patient comes for the recovery. The procedure is just the means.

Airline

Journey.

Not the flight.

A traveller comes for the journey. The flight is just the conveyance.

Enterprise

Outcome.

Not the deployment.

A business buys software for the outcome. The deployment is just the start.

This is that same shift, in the world product companies and services firms share.

Before we go further

Not another thing
to add.

The operating model under what you already run.

CSOM™ builds on what you already run. It’s the operating model that lets ITIL, SIAM, and Customer Success compound — so each discipline shows up in outcomes the customer can feel.

Six things CSOM™ isn’t, and what it is.

The hidden asset

The expertise
hiding in plain sight.

Value Realization at scale isn’t a new craft. It’s two existing crafts, being asked to work as one.
  1. Governance across complex ecosystems.
  2. Outcome measurement that holds up at portfolio scale.
  3. Multi-stakeholder coordination when nobody has full authority.
  4. Service integration when the value chain crosses organisational boundaries.
  5. Continual improvement as a working discipline.
  6. Customer outcomes and value realization, proven at portfolio scale.
Every one of those is what product companies now need to make Customer Success work at portfolio scale.
Every one of those is what senior ITIL and SIAM practitioners have spent careers building.

The match is real. What’s been missing is the bridge — a body of knowledge that names this expertise in language product companies and customers use, gives practitioners a path into the work, and gives product companies a way to recognise the people who can do it.

CSOM™ is that bridge.

The model

Seven disciplines.
Two orbits. One sun.

Customer Value Realization at the centre.

Two orbits bind the seven: Data & Intelligence on the inside, Continual Improvement on the outside. Every discipline is accountable to Customer Value Realization at the centre.

01

Leadership

Sponsors the operating model and holds outcome accountability — across services and products, end customer and end provider.

  • Operating-model sponsorship
  • Outcome accountability
  • Cross-domain direction
02

Organisation Design

Roles, capabilities, and structures built around the customer — not the org chart.

  • Customer-centred structure
  • Capability architecture
  • Role & accountability clarity
03

Program Management

Executes, coordinates, and tracks delivery against outcomes — not just milestones.

  • Outcome-based delivery
  • Cross-team coordination
  • Complexity management
04

Change Management

Drives adoption across people, process, and culture — an ongoing discipline, not a one-time event.

  • Behaviour & belief shifts
  • Adoption across lifecycles
  • Ongoing culture work
05

Service Management

How services are designed, delivered, and supported at scale. Rooted in ITIL, adapted for the customer outcome.

  • ITIL foundations
  • Service design & delivery
  • Support at scale
06

Ecosystem Integration

Multi-vendor, partners, and platforms working as one coherent system. Grounded in SIAM principles.

  • SIAM principles
  • Multi-vendor orchestration
  • Partner & platform fit
07

Customer Success

Onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion — turning a transaction into a relationship and a product into a result.

  • Onboarding & adoption
  • Retention & expansion
  • Transaction → relationship
The two orbits
Inner

Data & Intelligence

The sensing layer. Telemetry, AI, and analytics that surround the system — proving the Value Sun is shining.

  • Telemetry & signal
  • Models & attribution
  • Decisions across the stack
Outer

Continual Improvement

The compounding layer. Feedback loops, maturity models, and learning systems that evolve the model as fast as the world around it.

  • Retro & review rhythm
  • Maturity & measurement loops
  • Compounding gains

Seven disciplines. Two orbits. One outcome.

Who it’s for

Three audiences.
One operating model.

Two sides of the vendor bridge, and the people who lead it.

Same operating model, three entry points: ship outcomes, deliver outcomes, or become the practitioner who can.

For product companies

You’ve shipped the features. CSOM™ ships the outcomes.

You’ve built and shipped at pace. The next chapter is making sure customers adopt the value they paid for. CSOM™ turns feature adoption into outcome adoption — the only kind that renews and expands.

  • Close the feature-vs-outcome gap
  • Protect NRR and CLV
  • Feed adoption signal back to Product
  • Works across SaaS, platform, and hardware+SaaS
For services & SI

You’ve delivered to go-live. CSOM™ delivers to value.

Your SOW ends at go-live. Your customer’s journey starts there. CSOM™ reframes implementation as value realization — the dimension that lifts services work above project delivery.

  • Outcome-based SOWs, not deployment-based
  • Bridge the post-go-live gap your customers feel
  • Connect implementation to renewal and reference
  • Works across SI, consultancies, and managed services
For practitioners

Your certifications got you here. CSOM™ takes you further.

You’ve mastered ITIL, SIAM, or Customer Success — the output layer. CSOM™ is the operating model that turns that craft into value realization. The career lever your badges can’t give you.

  • Bridge ITIL + SIAM + CS into one operating model
  • Move from output specialist to outcome architect
  • Works across services firms, product companies, and hybrid roles
  • Trained and taught by practitioners who’ve built one
See training →
The primary audience

For ITIL and SIAM practitioners.

The next chapter for the craft you’ve already built.

CSOM™ gives senior practitioners a body of knowledge to anchor what comes next — whether they lead from a services firm, cross into a product company, or build the bridge between the two.

What CSOM™ adds to what you already know

If you know…
You’re strong at
CSOM adds
ITIL
Process, service design, incident & change management.
Customer journeys, value-stream thinking, outcome measurement and provable customer value.
SIAM
Multi-vendor coordination, governance, integration models.
Customer Success principles, ecosystem value design, a unified experience across vendors.
Customer Success
Relationships, adoption, retention.
Service-management rigour, analytics, organisational design, the structural backbone.
All three
Rare depth across process, integration, and customer experience.
Leadership influence, change management, programme delivery, whole-model design.

What CSOM™ gives you as a practitioner

  1. A body of knowledge for the work ahead. ITIL, SIAM, and CS each addressed a part of the picture. CSOM names the operating model that brings them together for Value Realization.
  2. A framework you can carry across industries and scales. Services firms, product companies, hybrid environments — the same model, applied where the work is.
  3. Recognition for craft you already have. CSOM names what senior practitioners have been doing for years and gives it a vocabulary the product economy can hire and budget for.
  4. A path that meets you where you are. Lead Value Realization from a services firm, a product company, or anywhere the bridge between the two needs to be built.

Be among the first practitioners trained in the model.

Notify me when training opens
A secondary audience

For Customer Success leaders in product companies.

A body of knowledge for the operating model behind the function.

Most CS playbooks describe what CSMs do. CSOM™ describes the operating model the whole organisation runs on.

It draws on the rigour services-side practitioners have built in ITIL and SIAM, names the dimensions Value Realization needs at scale, and gives CS leaders a shared vocabulary for the work the function is now being asked to do.

What CSOM™ offers a CS leader

  1. An operating model behind the function. The layer beneath what individual CSMs do — the structure that turns one-off heroics into repeatable practice at portfolio scale.
  2. A vocabulary that crosses to the rest of the business. Boards talk in NRR, expansion, advocacy. CSOM connects those metrics to the disciplines that produce them — and to the language Product, Services, and the C-suite already use.
  3. A talent lens for the work ahead. CSOM-trained ITIL and SIAM practitioners bring two decades of operating-model rigour to Value Realization at scale. Many CS leaders are discovering this talent population for the first time.
  4. A complement, not a replacement. CSOM doesn’t compete with Gainsight, SuccessCOACHING, or any existing CS certification. It addresses a different layer — the operating model the function sits inside.

Two ways to engage as the body of knowledge develops.

Notify me when the book launches Express interest in contributing
A secondary audience

For services firms.

A shared vocabulary for the work that begins at go-live.

Services firms have mastered the work that ends at go-live — deploying, integrating, and running complex products at scale. The work that begins at go-live — adoption, value realization, outcome measurement — is now an equally significant chapter of that work.

CSOM™ gives services firms a body of knowledge for that chapter — and a vocabulary that aligns with how product companies and customers talk about outcomes.

What CSOM™ offers a services firm

  1. Recognition for the value your post-implementation work creates. The stretch where margin compounds, references emerge, and renewals are decided — named in the language product companies and customers now use.
  2. A common language with product-company customers. Conversations with product vendors and end customers about adoption, NRR, and value realization run more smoothly when both sides share a vocabulary for the work.
  3. A professional development pathway for senior practitioners. ITIL and SIAM practitioners inside services firms have spent careers building exactly the rigour Value Realization requires. CSOM names that craft and gives it a forward path.
  4. An open framework, not a competing offer. CSOM is an independent body of knowledge. It is not a methodology services firms license, a service line they buy, or a consultancy that engages with their customers. It is a body of work the industry can read, contribute to, and build on.

Senior practitioners and services-firm leaders are invited to shape the body of knowledge.

Express interest in contributing
Author & community

The author and the community.

A body of knowledge written from inside the work.

CSOM™ is authored by a practitioner with 25+ years across ITIL, SIAM, and Customer Success.

The Customer Success Body of Knowledge — the canonical reference for the framework — launches in 2026. The full author profile, contributor list, and supporting body of knowledge will be published alongside.

A community body of knowledge in development

CSOM is being developed as a community body of knowledge. Senior practitioners with deep ITIL, SIAM, and Customer Success experience are invited to contribute as co-authors, reviewers, and case-study contributors. The framework’s strength comes from the breadth of practitioners who shape it.

If you’ve spent a career building the disciplines CSOM names, the door is open.

Express interest in contributing
Stay close

Stay close to the work.

Three ways to engage with CSOM as it develops.

CSOM is in active development as a body of knowledge, with the Customer Success Body of Knowledge book launching in 2026 and training following soon after. There are three ways to stay close to the work:

Book

Be notified when the book is published.

The canonical reference for the framework. Launching 2026.

Training

Be notified when training opens.

The first SIAM training taught inside a Customer Value Realization operating model. First cohorts in 2026.

One email when training is ready. Nothing else.

Contribute

Contribute to the body of knowledge.

Help shape the body of knowledge. Co-authors, reviewers, and case-study contributors welcome.