Laying the Foundation for Enterprise Service Management

For years organizations tried to take IT Service Management (ITSM) platforms and turn them into enterprise service platforms and the biggest pushback would come from the various departments – mostly around the fact that they felt that a square IT solution was getting forced into round hole. Since then, much has been learned and the platforms have extended and expanded.

Here are some key elements to keep in mind:

• IT still needs a true ITSM platform: For the IT group, you need a full blown ITSM platform that can support ITIL with change management, asset management, a service portal, knowledge base and much more. These boxes need to be checked before extending across the enterprise.
• Easy and Fast to Spin Up New Applications: Gaining traction across the enterprise means that the platform needs to be easy to use, own and operate. What does this mean? To start, spinning up a new area for Marketing or HR for example cannot take highly technical resources – it should be easy to quickly spin up a new app.
• No Coding / No Scripting: Configuration should be done via screens. Nobody in HR or Marketing wants to be heavily reliant on IT, nor does IT want to take on yet another project. So, the configuration of the new app needs to be something that can be done on the screen.
• Click and Drag Portal Design: If you want to make a new form that is “Request Name Change” and add specific fields to this form, give it a nice name, hook it up to the central portal with a nice big orange button – these are all things that the HR team should be able to do themselves, without the need for IT support.

Enterprise Service Management needs to be easy and sustainable to take off.  Once it does, it will offer your internal and external customers the nirvana of going to “one place to get everything I need.”