At its core, ITSM aims to align IT services with business objectives and coordinate all the moving parts required to keep operations running smoothly.
But as IT infrastructure continues to explode in complexity, ITSM has become more complex in recent years, as it’s now indispensable for enterprises of all types and sizes.
Why?
ITSM brings order and efficiency to IT ecosystems spanning numerous departments, teams, applications, servers, networks, and devices. Through structured frameworks and continual process improvement, ITSM allows organizations to ensure IT reliability and availability, boost productivity, reduce costs and risks, and enhance the end-user experience.
Read on to learn everything you need to know about IT service management, ranging from what it is to best practices and what to look for in terms of tools and software.
What is ITSM?
Information Technology Service Management (also called IT Service Management or ITSM) refers to the activities performed by IT teams to design, deliver, operate, and improve technology services offered to internal and external customers. It coordinates all the various processes required to ensure smooth IT service delivery aligned with business goals.
ITSM is a bit like a restaurant kitchen. A kitchen has all the interconnected moving parts—chefs, line cooks, waiters, dishwashers, food preppers, and so on—required to coordinate seamlessly to deliver a positive dining experience. Similarly, ITSM brings together all the workflows, teams, systems, and processes needed to deliver smooth IT services that allow employees to be productive.
At its core, ITSM is based on running IT departments as a service rather than merely an internal department. This means focusing on fulfilling user needs and ensuring a positive end-user experience, just as a restaurant focuses on satisfying customer dining needs.
ITSM introduces structure through frameworks and continually looks for areas of improvement in process efficiency, much like a kitchen implements structured protocols to continually improve food preparation and delivery.
Some common examples of IT services that ITSM teams handle include:
- Provisioning hardware like laptops, phones, and other devices
- Managing software licenses
- Providing access privileges and credentials
- Setting up new employee onboarding technology
- Maintaining servers and networking equipment
- Overseeing service outages and incidents
- Handling security issues and vulnerabilities
- Managing technology vendors and suppliers
While IT support focuses mostly on troubleshooting specific end-user issues, ITSM takes a broader, organizational view. ITSM aims to coordinate all the interconnected workflows, teams, and systems that allow employees to be productive and the organization to run smoothly.
At the same time, basic IT service desks and help desks are integral components of ITSM. They provide the frontline interface where IT teams interact with end-users to address incidents and fulfill service requests.
However, effective ITSM requires looking beyond isolated support tickets to implement integrated processes that enhance efficiency, transparency, and continuity of technology services across the enterprise, just as a successful restaurant relies on smooth coordination across all roles—not just waiters and chefs working in isolation.
ITSM vs ITIL
While ITSM refers broadly to the strategy of designing, delivering, and improving IT services, specific frameworks provide standardized ways to actually implement this approach.
ITIL, short for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is the most widely adopted ITSM framework. First released in the 1980s, ITIL provides a set of best practices for aligning technology services with business priorities.
ITIL outlines procedures and checklists for everything from incident management to problem management to change enablement and release management. ITIL helps large enterprises coordinate the many complex workflows involved in managing today’s dynamic technology environments.
Organizations are free to adapt ITIL guidelines to meet their specific needs. And an ITSM program does not require ITIL. However, ITIL gives a helpful structure for tying together all the interconnected processes needed to deliver responsive, reliable enterprise IT services.
Benefits of IT service management
With ITSM, organizations get a bird’s-eye view of their entire IT infrastructure and services landscape. Everything is tracked, monitored, and managed through structured processes, so nothing falls through the cracks.
- Boost productivity: By streamlining workflow and standardizing procedures, ITSM enables services to be delivered more efficiently. Resources are utilized optimally, tasks get automated, and productivity shoots up.
- Improve user experiences: User satisfaction increases since ITSM focuses on aligning IT services with actual user needs and expectations. Responses become quicker and issues get resolved faster.
- Lower costs: Eliminating redundant tasks, optimizing resource usage, minimizing outages and enhancing efficiency—ITSM checks all the boxes for driving down costs substantially. The ROI can be significant.
- Increased agility: ITSM processes are designed for flexibility and continuous improvement. This helps organizations can pivot faster to capture new opportunities in dynamic markets.
- Higher IT ROI: With IT services tightly integrated with business objectives, every dollar spent on IT gets maximized in terms of delivering value. The returns on IT investments are amplified.
- Minimal outages: Through rigorous monitoring, management, and optimization of IT services, instances of downtimes and outages become scarce. Reliability and availability shoot up.
- Better decision making: With metrics and KPIs around all services and processes, ITSM enables data-driven decision-making, ensuring choices align with organizational goals.
- Enhanced compliance: Strict control and governance around all aspects of IT make it easier to adhere to industry regulations as well as internal policies. Legal compliance also becomes simpler.
Essential ITSM metrics
Establishing meaningful metrics is essential for monitoring process efficiency and continually improving an ITSM program.
While specific KPIs will differ between organizations, some examples of important metrics for tracking include:
MTTR (Mean time to restore)
MTTR measures the average time from when an incident is first detected to when the related service is fully restored to normal operation. A lower MTTR indicates superior incident response capabilities and helps minimize disruptions. Target MTTR values should be based on service level agreements (SLAs) and improving this metric demonstrates greater rescue agility.
SLA compliance
SLA compliance refers to the percentage of incidents that were resolved within the timeline outlined in the service level agreement (SLA) for that particular service. Higher SLA compliance translates to better customer experience since it means issues are addressed promptly. Low compliance signals potential inadequacies in support capabilities or insufficient SLA targets.
To ensure strong SLA compliance, organizations should implement robust SLA management processes that continuously monitor service levels versus targets, rapidly identify any breaches, trigger required escalations, and provide detailed reporting on overall SLA attainment.
First contact resolution rate
First contact resolution rate calculates the portion of incoming support tickets that get fully resolved during the user’s first interaction with the service desk, without requiring reassignment or reopening. A higher first contact resolution rate shows greater efficiency by eliminating ticket ping pong and redundant efforts. Best-in-class ITSM programs strive for 80 to 90%+ first-contact resolution.
Change success rate
Change success rate measures the percentage of authorized technology changes that were successfully implemented without disrupting services. Higher change success rates reflect smoother change management processes and help minimize business risk. Failed changes can cause outages and rollbacks which impact productivity.
Cost per ticket
Cost per ticket calculates the total monthly operating expense for IT support and operations divided by the number of tickets handled. A lower cost per ticket indicates greater efficiency in staffing, process automation, and resource utilization. However, cost per ticket should be tracked in balance with customer sentiment to avoid over-optimization.
End-user satisfaction
End-user satisfaction provides subjective feedback directly from IT customers on their perceived quality of services. IT teams can gather this through surveys, interviews, app store ratings, NPS scores, and monitoring online reviews. Higher satisfaction demonstrates ITSM efficacy in fulfilling user needs. However, continuous improvement requires soliciting open-ended feedback that goes beyond mere satisfaction ratings.
Tracking these ITSM key performance indicators (KPIs) over time provides quantified insights into process improvements. Comparing metrics against industry benchmarks and slicing data across different segments also helps teams prioritize enhancement initiatives. The ultimate goal is orchestrating services focused on delivering business value.
ITSM processes and frameworks
At its foundation, ITSM introduces repeatable processes for more efficient technology management aligned with business objectives.
While specific steps vary across frameworks, some widely used ITSM processes include:
Incident management
Incident management refers to the procedures IT teams follow when an unplanned service disruption occurs, such as an outage or performance slowdown. The goal is to restore normal operations as swiftly as possible.
When an incident arises, it is logged into the incident management system, assessed for severity and priority based on its business impact, and routed to the appropriate responders. The responders diagnose the issue, deliver a temporary workaround to restore service quickly if needed, then investigate root causes and implement permanent solutions so the problem does not happen again.
Throughout the process, learnings are documented so that fixes for recurring issues can be automated or permanent solutions applied proactively. Effective incident management minimizes disruption and risk to the organization.
Problem management
Problem management focuses on getting to the root cause of service incidents to prevent recurrences in the future. By thoroughly analyzing events, alarms, and tickets, problem management identifies broader, systemic technology issues that could pose risks if left unaddressed.
Teams leverage techniques like machine learning to predict potential problems proactively. The goal is to mitigate business risk by resolving the underlying defects that lead to repeat incidents. This prevents the same issues from continually causing outages and disruptions.
Change management
Change management oversees the end-to-end process of planning, scheduling, testing, reviewing, approving, executing, and reviewing changes to technology in order to minimize disruption to services. Change management coordinates modifications both big and small, from major upgrades to minor configuration tweaks. Seamless change management and DevOps integration enable rapid, reliable innovation.
Release management
Release management refers to controlling the coordinated deployment of software updates, patches, new functionality, and other releases sequenced across dependencies, teams, and endpoints. Comprehensive release plans aligned to business priorities ensure changes roll out without compromising operational stability or service quality.
Service catalog management
Service catalog management is all about maintaining dynamic, up-to-date documentation on all live IT services offered to end users along with clear instructions for fulfilling associated requests. Service catalogs provide a one-stop shop for employees to review everything IT offers, understand eligibility for specific services, request access, check status updates on tickets, and more.
Configuration management
Configuration management involves discovering and automatically mapping relationships between critical IT infrastructure components like servers, networks, and endpoints and maintaining this accurate Configuration Management Database (CMDB) as the foundation enabling other ITSM processes. Detailed CMDB dependency mapping is key for smooth coordination and change enablement.
Knowledge management
Knowledge management refers to capturing, organizing, distilling, and disseminating constantly updated information across IT teams and end-users through knowledge bases to improve efficiency, transparency, decision-making speed, and service quality. Leveraging techniques like machine learning and AI, advanced knowledge management systems push relevant content to users and technicians when they need it most.
Continual service improvement
As the name implies, continual service improvement is all about proactively identifying opportunities to enhance processes through metrics analysis, feedback collection, benchmarking, and disciplined implementation of process innovations or emerging best practices. Continual service improvement relies on consistent evaluation of practices against business objectives coupled with a culture embracing positive change.
ITSM software and tools
Specialized software provides automation for many ITSM processes. This increases efficiency, reduces errors, improves traceability, and allows teams to scale.
Here are some important features to look for when evaluating ITSM tools.
Intuitive and unified platform
An easy-to-use system with integrated functionality covering multiple ITSM processes eliminates the need to jump between different tools to manage separate workflows. Consolidating on a single, unified ITSM platform minimizes complexity.
Powerful ticketing system
Robust ticket management functionality allows support teams to log requests with custom fields tailored to their unique workflow. Rules can then be defined to automatically route tickets to appropriate groups along with notifications to ensure prompt response. An integrated knowledge base aids in swift resolutions while multiple interaction channels like email, portal, chat, and call provide end-user convenience.
Customizable workflows
The ability to visually map an organization’s specific or ideal processes using a graphical workflow builder enables teams to model workflows aligned to their existing environment and preferences rather than needing to conform to pre-defined rigid templates. Customization avoids ITSM tools dictating counterproductive practices.
Asset discovery and CMDB
Discovery capabilities that automatically track IT assets and collect relevant metadata fuel the configuration management database (CMDB) which maps the relationships between these configuration items. An accurate CMDB is crucial for supporting efficient change management, problem diagnosis, and other critical ITSM processes.
Self-service portal
An intuitive self-service portal allows end-users to easily access knowledge base articles for self-remediation of common issues, submit incident tickets or request services without assistance, and transparently view status updates and track progress. This prevents wasting IT support resources on simple requests.
Reporting and analytics
Real-time dashboards provide high-level visibility into ITSM metrics while drill-down historical reporting facilitates detailed analysis for diagnosing performance issues and identifying improvement opportunities. Combining both real-time monitoring and retrospective reporting arms IT leaders with data to make optimal decisions.
When evaluating tools, focus first on aligning capabilities with fundamental ITSM process needs for your organization rather than getting distracted by expansive feature checklists. Once core service desk functions are smooth, then additional advanced functionality can be incorporated over time as processes mature.
8 ITSM best practices
While frameworks and software provide the foundation, successfully adopting ITSM relies on proper change management and process integration.
Here are eight best practices to consider.
1. Get stakeholder buy-in
Initiatives flounder without enthusiastic stakeholders. Take time to clearly communicate the benefits of ITSM, such as enhanced efficiency, cost savings, and risk reduction, that appeal to leadership and staff across the organization. Provide training through presentations, workshops, and documentation to create more ITSM awareness.
2. Start small
Rather than attempt a full-scale ITSM overhaul all at once, focus initial implementations on a few critical processes like incident management and request fulfillment. Establish mature workflows for these foundational building blocks before expanding scope to additional areas. Taking an incremental approach prevents getting overwhelmed while allowing the flexibility to tweak processes over time.
3. Set realistic goals
Rather than setting arbitrary targets without context, carefully base goals on benchmarks aligned with business objectives and current baselines. Establish a starting point by assessing the as-is state across metrics like ticket backlogs, time-to-resolution, change failure rates, and end-user satisfaction ratings. Then define realistic targets based on industry standards. For example, 80% SLA attainment or 50% first contact resolution.
4. Solicit ongoing feedback
Continually gather feedback from both the IT teams involved in service delivery as well as the end-users ultimately served by new ITSM processes. Send periodic surveys, hold focus group interviews, compile analytics, and raise the topic in recurring staff meetings. Consistently sampling perspectives across stakeholders identifies tangible improvement opportunities and prevents disconnects between implementations and actual needs.
5. Allow customization
Balance utilizing established frameworks as guiding models with tweaking processes to align with teams’ and organizations’ specific preferences and workflows. Dictating rigid conformity to standardized models often backfires. Enable a degree of customization while still maintaining focus on the ultimate objectives.
6. Encourage collaboration
As ITSM requires tight coordination between typically siloed teams, use tools and strategies promoting transparency rather than restricting information access. Establish cross-departmental working groups, create open channels for ongoing communications, and break down knowledge barriers through documentation.
7. Automate where possible
Leverage process automation capabilities offered by mature ITSM software tools to offload repetitive manual tasks. Beyond saving time and effort for staff, automation increases consistency in following defined processes, reduces human errors, and boosts overall productivity. Start by targeting work streams that become ticket backlog bottlenecks.
8. Maintain focus on users
Consider enhancing the end-user experience and aligning services with customer needs as the ultimate objective above all else. Ensure new ITSM processes directly contribute towards improving user productivity, satisfaction, and job effectiveness rather than getting distracted by theoretical models or losing sight of real impact. Keep the recipients of IT services at the core of decision making.
The future of ITSM
As technology environments continue increasing in scale and complexity, ITSM will grow more essential than ever for coordinating service management workflows across dispersed teams, distributed networks, hybrid cloud ecosystems, and multiplying endpoints.
AI and machine learning will assume many repetitive support tasks. While frameworks will provide guidance, prescriptive solutions will give customized recommendations for continual improvement initiatives.
And with business functions relying more and more on technology, the lines will continue blurring between IT departments and the wider organization. In many ways, the future of IT service management is not about isolating the IT department, but rather integrating service management philosophy more broadly across the entire organization.
How Auvik can help
As a network management platform, Auvik helps IT teams visualize network infrastructure, monitor performance, and run efficient operations. Combined with ITSM software suites, Auvik keeps service desks in tune with underlying network health and behavior.By maintaining up-to-date network topology documentation and detecting potential problems before they disrupt services, Auvik helps boost ITSM programs. Schedule a demo today to see how Auvik’s robust network monitoring can bolster service management for your organization.
