The changing workplace and the fresh face of ITSM
Supported by new generation tools, IT service desks enable employees to benefit from technology seamlessly and uninterruptedly, with increased functionality and ease of use. While the interaction of human and technology increases the service quality in enterprises, new generation technologies play a role in reshaping ITSM.
IT Service Management (ITSM) is a term that covers all processes followed by IT support teams in organizations. In a more formal definition, ITSM is a combination of methods, techniques, and technologies applied to the implementation and management of quality IT services. ITSM, which has become a discipline on its own all over the world, is carried out by service providers with qualified people and knowledge specialized for this job. ITSM refers to the set of processes and activities driven by specific procedures and structured policies performed by an organization to design, plan, deliver, operate and control the information technology services offered to customers. Read on to discover more service desk developments!
Organizations implement ITSM for a variety of reasons. First, as IT infrastructures become more complex, managers find it difficult to focus on actual problems, business continuity and quality. IT management primarily must develop strategy and identify technology needs appropriate to the growing business. ITSM provides a company’s mix of people, processes, and technology to match its infrastructure management goals. Again, with the support of teams and technologies, it helps the IT organization to reduce its expenses by regulating its activities.
ITSM has also developed over the years with the impact of factors such as business needs, working culture, technological innovations, and ever-changing IT environment in companies. IT help desks, today, offer comprehensive IT service support to manage the expanding range of IT operations and align with strategic business objectives. Supported by new generation tools, IT service desks enable company employees to benefit from technology seamlessly and uninterruptedly, with their increased functionality and ease of use.
Undoubtedly, development is continuous. ITSM also continues its development. What kind of ITSM structure will we encounter in the future?
Let’s look at the details of the issue to get an opinion.
ITSM focuses on user experience
Employees want to have IT support by their side when they need it. The reason is very simple; for an employee, what matters is their job, not the technology. Increasing expectations of IT workers are causing IT management to focus on providing a better user experience.
Enabling multi-channel communication processes, deploying chatbots within the organization, providing an attractive IT experience by presenting IT service catalogs to employees. Encouraging the use of self-service support applications with access to a developing knowledge base are practices that enhance the user experience. A good experience improves the reputation of the IT department, while also improving the quality of communication between end users and IT teams.
As shadow IT spreads…
Today, the use of technology is a process that is widely adopted. For this reason, organizations are now promoting bring-your-own-device (BYOD) or choose-your-own-device (CYOD) approaches. Each alternative brings another risk along with it, like the shadow IT threat. Some challenges arise with BYOD, such as asset management, software license compliance, and expanding IT support to a wider range of devices.
In the “new normal”, organizations may face increased IT costs and business disruptions if they cannot develop an appropriate strategy. Employee personal devices can increase the complexity of the IT environment and reduce IT visibility by weakening impact analysis to detect issues. However, every problem has a solution.
Mobile device management skills such as remote device remove, deploying profiles, restricting devices’ access to Wi-Fi and VPN, adjusting devices’ email settings can help support teams cope with the BYOD culture.
The rise of the ‘social IT’ approach
Employees now use many other tools besides email to express their demands. Social media platforms, such as WhatsApp, take the lead among these technologies. IT service desk professionals can choose to leverage the power of social media as a powerful ITSM enabler.
You can integrate social media platforms with your help desk tools so that help desk personnel receive and answer calls.
The impact of business intelligence
The biggest benefit of ITSM processes to corporations is the ability to mobilize a common mind. Requests from hundreds of employees are an important source of information that showcases the current state of IT assets within the organization. With a well-functioning help desk service, IT management has access to huge amounts of data from which they can get critical insights after a while. These insights can uncover business and IT issues at an early stage, reducing costs and risks while improving the quality of IT service delivery.
We’re seeing help desk software integrate with business intelligence solutions that offer valuable analytics to highlight valuable insights from help desk data. For example, a basic SLA compliance level chart only shows when SLA compliance levels rise or fall, but you need analysis to understand why SLA levels change. In-depth analysis with business intelligence tools can help identify factors that negatively impact SLA compliance levels and ways to correct them.
As the star of enterprise service management shines
In the future, ESM (Enterprise Service Management) is expected to be the natural successor to ITSM. ESM applies the principles, processes, and best practices of IT service delivery to every functional area within the enterprise. ESM helps to integrate different departments effectively and speeds up the flow of interdepartmental operations. While many vendors are talking about ESM capabilities in their tools today, we currently expect the industry to go a little further to realize a complete ESM solution.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) support
Artificial intelligence technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision and robotics have reshaped the way people live and work. IT service desks will get benefits from these technologies. It is an inevitable development that AI-powered chatbots and virtual service assistants will be the first point of contact for AI and IT service desk.
AI-based machine learning technologies in infrastructure will provide IT service desks with tools capable of learning without being programmed. Machine learning can enable IT desks to proactively answer questions and issues, as well as improve search capabilities and knowledge management. Thus, IT service operations will be managed more efficiently, with easier classification and routing.
Undoubtedly, complex problems always need people. Therefore, while the issues that arise because of new generation technologies used in IT infrastructures the competencies of the IT operations teams will develop in parallel in this continuum.
