What is IT Service Management?
IT Service Management (ITSM) is a framework of best practices for managing IT services. It refers to all the processes used to manage and deliver IT services to customers or end-users in a business or organization.
ITSM ensures that IT services are managed efficiently, effectively, and with customer satisfaction in mind.
ITSM covers a broad range of IT activities, including incident management, problem management, change management, release management, service level management, and more.
What Are the Goals of ITSM?
For IT Service Management to be successful, you need to have the right mix of people, processes, and technologies. ITSM ensures that IT services are implemented, managed, and delivered in a way that meets a business or organization’s needs. It also provides added value to employees, clients, consultants, and other interested parties who interact with your business or organization.
To be successful, an ITSM strategy should be focused on the following goals:
- Service over systems: Unlike other IT management practices that focus on hardware, networks, and systems, ITSM aims to improve IT customer service. The focus is on how services, not systems, can be delivered to meet stakeholder needs. Companies use ITSM to provide value to customers or internal stakeholders. Using IT Service Management best practices, like ITIL, can ensure a high value of service is being provided.
- Alignment with business objectives: ITSM provides a structured approach to service management, allowing organizations to standardize the delivery of services based on budget, resources, and results.
- The end-user experience: The customer experience can be a crucial differentiator for enterprise organizations, and an effective ITSM strategy should aim to deliver a great experience to both customers and employees alike. With the right ITSM solution in place, you can provide a positive IT experience that improves customer and employee satisfaction scores for all IT interactions.
Organizations across all sectors, including healthcare, government, technology, financial services, and enterprise businesses, use IT Service Management. While each sector may have its unique challenges when it comes to IT, there are some standardized IT services and processes that don’t change.
As a result, there are some ITSM frameworks that can be used in both centralized and decentralized systems. The most comprehensive and widely used ITSM framework is the ITIL framework.
What is ITIL’s Role in ITSM?
ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library and is a set of specific methods, practices, and processes for managing an organization’s IT operations and services. With ITIL, the focus is on ensuring that IT services can keep pace with business needs.
The ITIL framework covers all aspects of IT infrastructure, from the foundation itself to its management and services.
ITIL helps organizations of all sizes to maximize and optimize enterprise value using ITSM for the benefit of their customers.
ITIL is based on principles that focus on value creation and continuous improvement, which can take a variety of forms.
As with any framework, most organizations start with the basics and work their way up to full ITIL alignment – because of this, it’s important that whatever ITSM tool you use is ITIL-aligned and allows you to implement as much or as little of ITIL as needed.
There is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach to ITSM
The IT Service Management landscape is always changing, and emerging trends continue to shape the discussion around ITSM. As such, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to service management and delivery.
An ITIL approach doesn’t need to be an administrative burden on your IT organization. ITIL should be used flexibly to meet the unique needs of a given organization. Again, the goal of ITSM is to apply service management principles in a way that improves the entire organization – it shouldn’t bog your IT department down and drain your resources.
No matter your approach, implementing ITSM best practices should enable you to standardize and optimize the way your organization responds to the ever-increasing demands while keeping operational costs low and customer satisfaction high.
Oklahoma City was on a mission to be more ITIL-aligned, but the ITSM tool they had in place wasn’t the best fit for their needs. The city switched to TeamDynamix ITSM and saw immediate improvements.
“TeamDynamix has brought simplicity to our operations,” Dusty Borchardt, Business Systems Manager for the city, said. “This is the first IT Service Management platform we’ve implemented that everyone loves to use.”
Finding the right vendor for your business or organization can be critical to your ITSM success. To help, you can get tips and questions to ask vendors during your evaluation process.
What Are the Benefits of ITSM and ESM?
Enterprise Service Management (ESM) is simply an extension of ITSM principles to departments outside of IT. By adopting an ESM strategy, companies can provide a unified service experience, breaking down silos between departments and fostering better collaboration.
In fact, ESM is the most widely used and clearly defined framework for IT management. Many business leaders take ITIL best practices and apply them to any department that provides services (like HR, facilities, operations, finance, etc.) – not just IT.
What does ESM look like at an enterprise level? Close your eyes and imagine a central hub – like an Intranet. You go there, and there are buttons for things you want to request – like “Request IT Service” or “Request a Parking Permit.” There could even be a library of information where you can read about how to potentially purchase your own monitor and charge it back to the business, or you can read about how to fix your blinking voicemail light on your office phone.
This central hub is your company’s core brain – it’s a library or knowledge base of critical information with embedded buttons that will automatically route your service request to the right place or even a Virtual Support Agent that you can chat with to resolve problems without needing to submit a ticket.
Human Resources often serves as a great example for ESM because everyone in the company relies on HR for information and service delivery.
Services could include a request to change a name, to add a dependent, to change an address, or even to report a compliance issue. You can read about more HR use cases here.
The Power of IT Service Management Tools
ITSM has transformed the operational approach within IT departments. Rather than functioning solely as system integrators, IT teams now serve as service providers dedicated to meeting both customer and employee requirements with optimal effectiveness.
To meet these requirements, you need the right ITSM tool in place.
Specifically, you should look for a fast, intuitive no-code AI ITSM/ESM platform that integrates with your other systems and facilitates:
- Incident and problem management – TeamDynamix allows for proper hierarchies with Service Request, Major Incident, Incident, Problem, Change, and Release work classifications. Live dashboards provide managers with the ability to see real-time spikes in incidents, allowing for the initiation of Major Incident/Problem Management workflows.
- IT Asset Management and discovery – View asset and CI details, status, relationships, and ownership. With integrated ITAM, CMDB, and discovery, technicians can plan for changes and view CI configuration history, impact maps, and blackout/maintenance windows on dashboards.
- Self-service and an easily searchable knowledge base – A support call costs $22, but self-service costs just $2 per incident. Drive self-service adoption with a stellar, searchable portal, service catalog, and knowledge base. Create multiple portals, leverage AI, chat with VSAs, integrate with business applications, and build workflows – all without coding or scripting.
- Conversational AI with automation – Change the way you chat with conversational AI virtual support agents (VSA). Traditional chatbots aren’t built to understand natural language – because of this, they often fall flat. Look for a no-code AI ITSM tool that offers conversational AI virtual support agents. These AI-powered agents are powerful and can help deflect as many as 60% of tickets from the help desk.
- ITSM workflows and AI – Reduce resource drain with automated AI ITSM. Automatically update the Active Directory, create on/off-boarding workflows, integrate with the HRIS platform, and manage ticket triage all without any coding or scripting. Leverage a library of pre-built ITSM integration points with a visual flow builder to create the workflows that make life easier. Use the ITSM workflow builder or go to the next level with no-code iPaaS for enterprise automation. Employ AI Agents to help build forms and automations, suggest ticket resolutions and more. IT teams using TeamDynamix’s AI Service Assist can save as much as 7 minutes per ticket and see 40-90% faster ticket resolution.
- ITIL change management – Poor change management can cause your ticket volume to skyrocket. TeamDynamix incorporates CMDB-related functionality to service asset and configuration management, meaning each asset and CI is affiliated and visible. Change schedules and history can be easily viewed, and all requests are tracked. You can facilitate new technology and maintain continuity by using a single platform to organize and manage plans, execution, and communication.
- ITIL release management – The last thing an organization wants is costly, unexpected downtime following a technology update or rollout. It’s critical to ensure that the implementation of new technology is executed without disruptions. ITIL-aligned release management helps to keep your production environment running smoothly.
- Enterprise integrations – TeamDynamix is built for ease of use, from how you configure the platform to how you integrate your ecosystem. Quickly and easily connect ITSM/ESM and PPM with other applications throughout your organization.
- Dashboard reporting – Identify issues before they become big problems, support key stakeholders, identify trends, and get the data you need to communicate the value of IT. Share ITSM dashboards with key stakeholders, publish externally, and integrate with third-party data tools. Highly configurable role-based dashboards and reporting offer a single view across tickets and projects.
- Tickets and projects together – Bring tickets and projects together for a single view of work and resources. When tickets related to releases and changes, or solutions to problems, require significant effort, they can evolve into projects. With one platform for AI ITSM/ESM and PPM, all work, resources, and timelines are in a single view.
What Are the Must-Have ITSM Software Features?
When evaluating ITSM software for your organization, here’s a list of features and functionalities that are non-negotiable:
- End-user Self-Service – Make sure your ITSM tool has an intuitive and configurable portal with WCAG compliance.
- Knowledge Management – You’ll want your ITSM tool to have a knowledge base that’s integrated with ticketing so you can share information with techs and end-users.
- Multi-site and Multi-Department Capabilities– The ability to have one platform that can be used across multiple locations and departments is critical to achieving ESM; the solution should allow for the codeless creation of new applications without the need for additional service hours.
- Service Catalog – For the best user experience, make sure users can request products and services through a catalog that integrates with ticketing.
- AI ITSM/ESM, PPM, Automation, and Conversational AI on One Platform – When you have an ITSM/ESM platform that includes AI, PPM (Project Portfolio Management), enhanced enterprise automation and integration (iPaaS), and conversational AI VSAs, you get a view of all work going on in your entire organization, from ticketing to change management and projects.
- Codeless Integration and Workflow – With a no-code platform, you can supercharge your organization. Take advantage of codeless configuration, workflow building, and automation with integration to other enterprise systems using iPaaS functionality coupled with your ITSM tool.
- Conversational AI – Incorporating conversational AI virtual support agents into your ITSM tool can be a great way to reduce the resource drain on your IT help desk, improve customer service, increase the adoption of self-service, and reduce ticket volume.
By measuring your ITSM options against this list, you can find a tool that can be customized to fit your needs and scale for the future.
What Questions Should I Ask When Shopping for an ITSM Tool?
To help find a flexible, easy-to-use no-code AI ITSM tool, consider the following questions during your vendor evaluation:
- Are you able to create custom ticket types and workflows?
- Can you set up incidents and problems separately?
- Can you tailor the user portal to your brand and the specific data you want?
- Can users create a custom desktop?
- How easy is it to create reports and dashboards?
- Can you easily spin up new applications without IT resources?
- Are you able to import and export data?
- Does it offer ITSM and PPM with enhanced enterprise integration and automation on one platform?
- Can you use AI Agents to save your technicians’ time, improve responses, or build out KB articles?
The best out-of-the-box IT Service Management software is the one that supports your desired approach and is easy to use for your team.
Working Better Together: ITSM/ESM, PPM and iPaaS on One Platform
The service desk is often the frontline for capturing changing business needs and requirements. When you combine your AI ITSM/ESM with Project Portfolio Management (PPM), you can better understand your resource capabilities and engage in true resource capacity planning.
With resource capacity planning, you get a big-picture view of your entire organization, allowing you to balance workloads across projects and support – not just IT- and to see the different types of work that need to be done at any given time.
As a result, all work can be completed more effectively and efficiently as employees and teams are focused on work that plays to their strengths. And because you have a full view of the work and the time it will take, you can avoid overcommitting or underutilizing your resources across the entire company.
Hema Nekkanti, project management office manager for the City of Sunnyvale, touts the benefits of bringing ITSM and PPM together on a single platform: “With one platform now we can actually see the tickets that are being worked on as well as the projects that are in the pipeline,” she said. “This gives us the ability to actually allocate the resources appropriately, and there’s no resource conflict.”
CIO Kathleen Boutte said she also highly values the resource management visibility she gets from TeamDynamix using ITSM and PPM together, “We really needed that visibility, and it’s why this has been such a great tool for us. Having both the service side and the project side means I can see whether my team is working on a ticket or a project and how busy they are. I get visibility into their availability, and I can forecast more accurately to know that I am not overworking staff or that we’re not just sitting on the bench twiddling our thumbs.”
In addition, adding enhanced integration and automation to your IT Service Management/ESM practices through the use of iPaaS is a great way to free up resources and boost efficiencies. By investing in smart service management for your organization, you’re investing in service management that supercharges your entire enterprise and allows everyone to interact in real time.
When you combine no-code AI ITSM, PPM, and iPaaS on a single platform, you can automate tasks, both simple and complex, and connect disparate systems throughout your organization – all through a codeless platform, meaning anyone can use it. You no longer need to be bogged down by repetitive or mundane service requests.
How Can You Reduce IT Toil?
Having high levels of toil throughout your organization can lead to problems, including burnout, human error, and employee discontent.
At Pima County, one of the goals of bringing on TeamDynamix for ITSM is to reduce toil.
“Our IT service desk is our entry point to our entire IT organization,” Mark Hayes, former IT leader at Pima County, said. “If all they’re doing is handling tickets and doing the same mundane, manual tasks over and over, that’s not particularly great training. So, investing in tools that allow our employees to engage in meaningful work is something that’s important to us as an overall IT organization.”
With TeamDynamix now in place, Pima County is automating as many of the manual ITSM processes as it can.
“The drudgery of working through mundane, repetitive tasks doesn’t exist just in IT,” Hayes said. “I think the more we can reduce toil within the departments that we support, the more people are going to buy in and understand the value of what we’re trying to achieve. There’s nothing like success to breed more success, and once other departments see the benefits, they’re going to want these tools too.”
Can You Relieve ITSM Ticket Volume with Automation?
When contemplating the use of AI, automation, and integration as part of a broader ITSM/ESM strategy, it’s important to consider the different ways your ITSM tool with AI and automation can be used to extend ESM even further.
Organizations leveraging AI-powered ITSM/ESM are seeing drastic improvements in efficiency and user satisfaction.
As TeamDynamix has found, real-world outcomes of using AI ITSM include:
- 40-90% faster ticket resolution times thanks to predictive insights.
- Up to 50% faster service delivery driven by effective ticket deflection.
- Reduced technician burnout and turnover by removing repetitive, low-value administrative work.
- Better end-user satisfaction through instant, accurate responses across their preferred channels.
If you want to see how organizations are supercharging their IT Service Management, read: Automate IT – A Playbook for Supercharged ITSM. To read more about how AI is changing the service desk, check out: The AI Service Desk Advantage