Enterprise Service Management (ESM) is an approach to service delivery that seeks to optimize internal business processes and improve service delivery across the entire organization.
By integrating people, technology and processes across multiple departments, ESM enables businesses to achieve greater efficiency and scale while reducing costs and enhancing customer satisfaction.
If you are considering implementing ESM in your organization, there are three significant components that you must consider.
Find a No-Code ESM Platform That Works for Both IT and Departments Outside of IT
One of the most crucial components of ESM is using a no-code ESM platform that allows businesses to streamline their operations and automate their service delivery processes effectively. Codeless ESM platforms empower departments to spin up their own service portals without the need for IT assistance. And with codeless integration and automation non-IT personnel can configure workflows, create custom forms and automatically route requests, among other functions.
No-code ESM platforms can be utilized by departments beyond IT, such as HR, facilities, legal, marketing and finance, ensuring that services and departmental requirements are coordinated in one place effectively. Every department can manage incoming requests more efficiently, route tickets to the appropriate department and track progress from beginning to end.
Integrating disparate technologies within the organization has historically been a challenge. However, with the emergence of codeless tools to deliver ESM, it is now much easier for businesses to provide quality services to their customers.
The benefits of using no-code ESM platforms include increased productivity, lower costs and improved customer service. An organization can work without writing a single line of code, enabling companies to scale quickly while minimizing errors.
Invest in Well-Designed Self-Service Portals that Integrate with Organizational Knowledge Bases and are Customizable
When it comes to ESM, self-service capabilities are a critical component. You want to find an ESM platform that allows you to quickly create a self-service portal customized for departmental needs. Each department using the ESM tool can have a portal – and that portal can sync to a single knowledge base.
Self-service portals provide users with direct access to a knowledge repository, allowing them to resolve issues independently. In many instances, user issues may be simple and straightforward to solve, thereby eliminating unnecessary manual human intervention.
With the right self-service portal users get quick answers to frequently asked questions, and can even access chatbots that can give real-time support and help with tickets or forms.
You can integrate your self-service portal with your organization’s knowledge base and configure it to fit your needs depending on the department you are in. These portals can also provide users with updates on ongoing requests or projects happening within that particular department, minimizing the need to follow up on requests manually.
Well-designed self-service portals end up benefiting the organization in several ways. For instance, they reduce the number of requests fielded by IT or other support staff, freeing up resources for projects that require higher technical expertise. Additionally, they improve customer satisfaction as most users receive quick solutions to their issues and can access it 24/7.
Require Integration and Automation Capabilities
With the right ESM platform, businesses can integrate multiple systems, processes and data to provide more effective services. Through integration and automation capabilities, businesses can automate manual tasks, reducing the time needed to deliver services and minimize the risk of human error.
ESM platforms can integrate with prominent departmental technologies such as HR, finance, legal systems and ticketing systems, among others. This results in a unified service desk experience for the end-users and helps bring value to the organization. For example, you can use the integration and automation capabilities within your ESM platform to automate processes like employee onboarding or offboarding. Both tend to be heavily manual processes that involve several departments.
Businesses that integrate their technologies can reduce the number of redundant processes and provide users with a more streamlined experience. This, in turn, leads to an increase in productivity, cost savings and better delivery of services.
The City of Avondale Achieves Efficiency with Enterprise Service Management
City governments must serve their citizens effectively, often with limited staff. The TeamDynamix Enterprise Service Management (ESM) platform plays a critical role in helping multiple branches of the City of Avondale, Arizona, government work better together. With a more efficient organization, the city can respond to citizens’ needs faster and more effectively. By leveraging a single portal with automated request routing and workflows, the team can be more responsive and transparent with citizens.
The government for the City of Avondale consists of 14 departments serving nearly 100,000 residents. Its use of TeamDynamix (TDX) began within the IT department, which was looking for a better way to support employees’ use of technology through ITSM.
“Before, people would have to call or email our help desk with their service requests,” says CIO Jeff Scheetz. “However, now with the portal, IT has been able to create workflows and automation, rather than managing the many email and ticket requests. The workflow ensures that the requests are handled efficiently and provides additional reporting capabilities. Before, it was hard to prioritize tasks without a full view of what was going on.”
In just a little over a year, Scheetz and his staff transformed the delivery of IT service for the city using the TeamDynamix platform.
When other city departments saw how the platform helped improve the delivery of IT services, they realized they could streamline their own processes using TeamDynamix. The Human Resources department is currently onboarding TDX to manage its service delivery, and Facilities and Finance are coming on board as well.
TeamDynamix is helping to improve interdepartmental collaboration. For example, onboarding new employees is a multistep process that used to be quite cumbersome. Once new hires have completed all of the paperwork required by HR, they also need network privileges from IT. They have to be added to the city’s payroll system, and they need access to the building from Facilities.
This process used to involve a lot of paper shuffling, and it could take a while to complete. Now, the entire workflow can be initiated with a single service request that is routed to the various departments automatically.
“We can make sure we’re addressing all of our needs expeditiously,” says Scheetz. Having an automated system that keeps everyone on the same page has made working remotely much easier for city employees during the pandemic. Although in-person operations have resumed, “if someone needs to work from home, we can easily accommodate that now,” Scheetz says.
TeamDynamix has enabled employees to streamline city operations and deliver better service to Avondale residents. The system’s versatility has added a tremendous amount of value to the city government. “Everybody has a limited staff,” Scheetz says of municipal organizations. “Having a system like TeamDynamix makes a huge difference.”
ESM delivers a unified service desk experience across the entire organization, leading to an increase in productivity, cost savings and better delivery of services. The use of no-code ESM tools enables every department to manage its requests, enhancing the collaboration needed to provide quality services. Streamlining such services, users get quick solutions to their issues, which positively impacts customer satisfaction.
Similarly, through integration and automation capabilities, ESM enables businesses to automate repetitive tasks, minimizing human error and leading to cost savings. A mix of factors, including efficient management of tasks, time tracking and status updates, enable organizations to track the resolution process and make timely updates where necessary.
Can your organization benefit from an organization-wide approach to service management? Learn more about ITSM, ESM and smart service management in our latest eBook: Smart Service Management – Working Better Together With a Connected Enterprise.