Why ESM and DX Success Needs More than ITSM Processes
Enterprise service management – the use of IT service management (ITSM) thinking, practices, and technology to improve the operations and outcomes of other business functions – has been one of the hottest ITSM trends for the last half-decade. It’s understandable given the almost ubiquitous need for digital transformation across business functions in organizations of all sizes, especially since the start of the global pandemic brought with it a need for digital workflows to better enable remote working employees and teams.
Early 2021 research found that over two-thirds of organizations already have an enterprise service management strategy in flight. But what does enterprise service management mean for your IT organization’s adoption of best practice ITSM processes? Especially when the SysAid 2021 State of Service Management survey and report found that 47% of respondents who use a basic help desk say that ITIL is not a big focus for them and 37% of respondents who use an advanced service desk say that they lack the time and/or resources to adopt ITIL.
On the face of it, it can make you question whether organizations are suitably equipped to extend their ITSM capabilities to other business functions. It also opens up the concept of enterprise service management to questions around what it is and isn’t. To help, this blog talks about why it needs to be more than the sharing of ITSM processes (and the enabling technology).
Putting those ITIL adoption statistics under the microscope (and into perspective)
The first thing to say is that the survey’s ITIL-related percentage figures aren’t a surprise. That, while ITIL is the most popular body of ITSM best practice guidance globally, industry surveys have traditionally found ITIL adoption to be at circa 60% of organizations, leaving 40% that don’t use it.
It’s also worth considering what the organizations that don’t use ITIL do. They might rely on a different body of ITSM or IT management best practice such as COBIT, IT4IT, or VeriSM. Or they might have IT service delivery and support practices that have been around for as long as people can remember. Which, when examined, will look – at least in part – very similar to the best practices contained within ITIL or the other available bodies of best practice. Especially if they use a fit-for-purpose ITSM tool where the common tool capabilities have used ITIL best practices as a design blueprint.
So, the use of best practice ITSM processes is likely more prevalent than the statistics suggest. After all, why would any organization not seek to do the best job it can in terms of IT service delivery and support? Including making operations as easy as possible for overworked ITSM practitioners.
But is the existence and sharing of best practice processes everything that’s needed for enterprise service management, plus back-office digital transformation, success?
The ingredients for enterprise service management success
Hopefully, you already know the answer to the above question.
If I can remind you of the earlier enterprise service management definition – the sharing of ITSM thinking, practices, and technology to improve the operations and outcomes of other business functions – then there’s likely the need for far more than the ITSM processes. It might be the use of ITSM tools to enable the process but, for me, there’s a far bigger need – or ingredient – for enterprise service management success.
This ingredient is also relevant to ITSM success and something that’s communicated but not always “received” in ITIL training – that service management (whether IT or enterprise) is about better business not “the mechanics” and process adoption. With both the processes and technology “a means to an end” not the end itself.
You can think of this as people having an appreciation of why things are done, and not just the “what” or “how.” In many ways, while ITIL has always tried to educate people in the reasons for ITSM (and then service management), the introduction of the Service Value System and “management practices” in ITIL 4 – to help people to rise above the processes – was part of this.
Sadly, however, this appreciation can easily be missed when applying ITSM or service management best practices in enterprise service management scenarios.
Let’s talk about the “why”
If someone asked you why human resources (HR), say, should use ITSM-based request handling capabilities – for requests for help, information, service, or change – what would you say? Would it be something like, “Well, it’s a set of proven activities that provide best practice processes”? If so, then the real “why” has been missed. This answer – and please pardon my lazy use of management buzzwords – is “down in the weeds” rather than appreciating and selling the bigger picture.
Simply knowing that IT’s incident management process and enabling technology, say, is based on best practices isn’t the best way to help deliver enterprise service management success. Nor digital transformation success. Sure, it’ll help the status quo, but we need to mix in that important ingredient – the “why” – that’s too often missing in both ITSM and enterprise service management initiatives.
This “why” could take a variety of forms. It might be that service management is about better business operations and outcomes, not simply better processes. Or that service management is about continual improvement. It could relate to achieving key business goals. It could relate to providing consistent service and support capabilities across business functions to better enable employees and their productivity. It could even leverage some of the ITIL 4 content. For example, bringing in some of the simple, yet excellent, ITIL Guiding Principles that include:
- Focus on value
- Collaborate and promote visibility
- Think and work holistically
Or the “why” could relate to multiple of these reasons.
The important thing is for people, no matter the business function they work in, to understand the “why” of what they’re doing. To do more than simply following the process instructions just because they’re told to. It’s not a guarantee of enterprise service management, or digital transformation, success but it does bring with it a far higher probability of the new ways of working delivering on their promises.
