Suppose you have ever requested the help of the IT department at your company. In that case, you are probably aware of how many different issues they must deal with on a daily basis: password changes, hardware problems, software implementation, and more.
Your company might not be an IT company or may not even necessarily be connected to the technology industry, but there will most definitely be an IT department on hand to help teams deliver the best products or services to your customers. Strong organisations have a strong IT team behind them, guiding them through the opportunities and hurdles we face in an increasingly technological world.
However, with so many tasks demanding our attention, it is common for these same divisions to let things slip, delaying deliveries, disrupting production, and potentially compromising customer relations.
ITSM is a system that facilitates the delivery of IT services, improving customer experience, agility and productivity — and it might be the answer to all your IT woes. In this article, we’ll talk about what ITSM is and how using it can benefit your company.
What is ITSM?
The acronym ITSM makes it seem like the concept is more complicated than it is. Still, it simply stands for Information Technology Service Management, and, as we explained previously, it is a system that will significantly improve IT services.
ITSM is a strategic approach to IT management and a methodology for improving the development of services within your company. It will help you implement IT technology that will benefit processes and prepare your employees and customers for a better work dynamic.
When implementing an ITSM system, your company can define roles and responsibilities throughout the enterprise, determine priorities, and establish a better flow of communication among teams and sectors.
ITSM is an approach for continuous improvement, providing more than simply improved IT services. It will actually result in a more efficient and productive way of delivering these services.
ITSM, ITIL and DevOps: What’s the difference?
When looking into IT Service Management, or ITSM, you will come across a couple of other valuable abbreviations that are also part of the IT services framework.
The most common frameworks for this type of service are ITSM and DevOps. Although these two frameworks are sometimes treated as competing approaches, when they are combined, they can offer a more well-rounded outlook on IT services.
So, let’s define each approach and understand how they can fit into your business model or how they can best meet your needs.
ITSM
As we have explained, ITSM stands for Information Technology Service Management and serves as the framework for how IT teams will deliver their services to customers.
Under the ITSM framework, teams can choose to follow an ITIL approach and include some elements of DevOps to create a more complete, well-rounded solution to their IT needs.
Therefore, ITSM is not a system that is different from ITIL or DevOps but a broader term that can include both approaches. It is an understanding that IT services can be improved, optimised, and streamlined for increased customer satisfaction.
ITIL
ITIL is the most common approach to ITSM. It stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library and is a set of best practices focused on IT teams.
ITIL offers an approach that streamlines processes, which will improve productivity, reduce costs, and provide a vastly improved customer experience.
To put it simply, ITIL is a set of practices covering everything an IT team might encounter in their day-to-day routine. With ITIL, companies are able to integrate IT services into their businesses altogether.
The approach is currently in its 4th iteration, now much more focused on flexible IT teams as a way to encourage agility and adaptability. It motivates departments from all over the company to collaborate and contribute towards improving processes, getting feedback from customers, and constantly getting better.
DevOps
Like ITIL, DevOps is also a set of practices — combining development (Dev) and operations (Ops) — designed to improve and optimise IT services. However, the DevOps framework is more focused on speed and agility, aiming to develop, test, and release IT solutions faster and more efficiently.
This approach also has collaboration at its core, with developers, users, and customers working together to create the best tools on the market to meet the needs of their customers.
While working under the DevOps framework, teams will use technologies and tools that will enable them to develop software and apps alongside other departments without the need to go back and forth with comments, requests, tests, and ideas.
Enhanced speed is the main benefit of working with the DevOps approach. The strategy fosters adaptability and efficiency without ever overlooking quality. Through the use of a series of standards and best practices, it is possible to monitor deliveries, track productivity, and even increase safety.
As DevOps is primarily focused on the development of software, apps, and IT solutions, working under this framework does not mean that companies won’t also be able to follow the ITIL approach. The two methodologies can perfectly complement each other, providing the absolute best results for your customers.
The core elements for implementing a successful DevOps framework are continuous integration and deliveries and microservices, infrastructure, monitoring, and communication.
Why is ITSM important?
Now that you understand what ITSM is and the frameworks available to improve the relevant processes, you are aware of just how important this approach can be for your business.
In an increasingly digital world, IT services become more and more essential, which results in even more tasks for IT departments and IT companies. Creating a streamlined IT service management framework leads to improved deliveries, faster responses, and more value to your customers. ITSM helps you prioritise solutions over problems, provides alternative ways to resolve tasks to make them easier to handle, and lets you focus on the things that matter most.
Even though ITSM carries Information Technology in its name, the system’s benefits are far from being limited to just the IT department. With improved services, the entire organisation will quickly see results in productivity and efficiency.
The benefits of ITSM
As we discussed previously, the benefits of implementing an ITSM system in your company go well beyond the IT department and can be felt all over your organisation.
By aligning priorities and optimising services, it is possible to make great strides towards continuous improvement, providing the best service for your customers, and even reducing costs.
ITSM approaches also contribute to creating a collaborative environment within your organisation, bringing teams together through sharing knowledge while also encouraging growth.
Agility
Agility is one of the most essential and commonly experienced benefits resulting from the implementation of ITSM into your business model.
With the best IT Service Management practices, your team can quickly adapt to changes and respond faster to any incidents that may occur. The IT department will have a better understanding of what to prioritise and will have better tools to handle each of these issues.
Implementing a chatbot or an automated response to common issues and frequently asked questions, for instance, can provide a faster and more efficient solution to issues that do not require the full attention of IT professionals but can still be urgent matters to customers and fellow employees from other departments.
Tools and software applications developed according to your company’s and your customer’s needs and expectations will also lead to increased productivity, which in turn means more time to focus on the things most important to growing your business.
Cost reduction
Implementation of ITSM practices helps to decrease the number and severity of IT problems, meaning that there are fewer interruptions to your company’s workflow and much better use of valuable IT resources.
Since ITSM significantly improves productivity and reduces risks, your company is better prepared to deliver products and services quickly, increasing your customer satisfaction ratings and allowing your business to grow without the limits imposed by easily avoided IT issues.
Scalability is also an essential aspect of ITSM. As your business evolves, your IT department might face new problems and receive more tickets. Having a well-established ITSM approach and providing your employees with everything that they might need can significantly improve the speed at which your company will adapt to new challenges.
Customer service
Due to the fact that ITSM allows your IT department to prioritise solutions to the most pressing issues in a more efficient way, this can quickly provide results with improved customer service as a result.
Your clients will be more satisfied with the service they are receiving. ITSM, after all, is highly focused on the end users, ensuring they get exactly what they need when they want it and at the most optimal speed.
With the right approach, the system also helps identify issues before they become more significant problems, providing increased IT support and an improved IT experience.
How does ITSM achieve results?
ITSM will provide companies with all these benefits by creating a series of processes according to their needs.
Here are the key features of ITSM and how they will lead to improvements:
Tracking incidents
Understanding what issues and problems may arise is one of the most critical aspects of ITSM. When implementing an ITSM system, you need to be well aware of what incidents might disrupt your production or service and what your employees and customers are likely to request from your IT team.
By tracking incidents and predicting issues, you will also be able to prioritise solutions to the problems that could significantly impact or harm your business.
Managing problems
One of the benefits of ITSM is the speed at which problems can be resolved. The reason for this is that any detected pain will be adequately managed. The idea is to eliminate any possible mistakes and change the infrastructure to prevent you from experiencing recurring incidents.
More than simply fixing an isolated issue, ITSM helps you to analyse a problem, limit its impact, and prevent it from happening again.
Tracking changes
Technology is ever-changing, and it is crucial not only to allow these changes to happen but also to both embrace them and plan for them. An ITSM system will help you implement changes and updates quickly on a more consistent timeline while also preventing errors and avoiding incidents.
Follow up on requests
Ensuring requests are processed and followed up on while also ensuring that customers are provided with the services they need is an important aspect of a streamlined IT service. The issues that inevitably come up, no matter how simple, must be resolved in a timely fashion. It is essential to have everything mapped out in such a way as to prevent them from becoming more significant problems.
ITSM allows you to identify which tasks are yet to be completed or to monitor the quality with which they were delivered.
Continuous improvement
Constantly improving is one of the most important aspects of ITSM and a key pillar of the ITSM standards and frameworks.
As the IT department improves, issues are resolved faster and productivity increases, creating more room for growth and, consequently, more requests. With enhanced collaboration and better communication between departments, ITSM allows you to identify new opportunities.
ITSM is not stationary, and by even predicting scalability, the system can guide your company through consistent and efficient growth.
Conclusion
ITSM can be a game-changer for companies facing the same issues and endlessly struggling with their IT needs.
Even though there are no guaranteed recipes for success when it comes to IT Service Management, implementing a framework that improves agility, efficiency, productivity, and customer service will always lead down the path to great results.
As we have shown, there are many different ways of approaching ITSM. We hope this article has helped you better understand what is available for your company and how this approach can benefit your business.
IT services are becoming more essential than ever in an increasingly competitive market and with technologies dominating every industry. Ensuring that your needs are met and that customers are satisfied with your product or service will make you stand out from the crowd. The same can be said internally. Ensuring your employees are content and well-cared for results in them providing better services and increasing their productivity.
If you are still trying to figure out where to begin, you can start by contacting an expert in ITSM systems. ITSM companies will be able to identify the most critical issues you might face and help you implement the approach that best fits your needs.
