In this age, businesses that provide the best service survive, and when technology becomes the only means to deliver the best service then IT service management is not a question of why but a must.

ITSM enables organizations to build a business around better IT support structures, so they can create the best product or service experience.

In this blog, we will talk about some of the fundamental questions around ITSM like:

  • What is ITSM?
  • What are the Benefits of ITSM?
  • What are the main processes of ITSM?
  • What is the difference between ITSM and ITIL?
  • How ITSM align IT with our business?
  • What do you mean by a service desk in ITSM?
  • What are a few popular frameworks for ITSM?

What is ITSM?

ITSM refers to a set of processes, policies, and procedures that helps an organization to plan, manage and implement IT services. The primary aim of ITSM is to align IT with the needs of the business by transforming IT from a firefighting team to internal service providers.

What are the Benefits of ITSM?

When talking about the benefits of ITSM it can be divided into two parts:

Some IT benefits of ITSM:

  • It helps in setting service expectations and standards.
  • It helps in measuring performance.
  • It helps to perform root cause analysis of recurring problems.

Some business benefits of ITSM:

  • Ensures IT services are available for business-critical operations.
  • Ensures visibility of services that are available to the employees.
  • Promote self-service among employees that translates into cost-saving to the business.

What are the main processes of ITSM?

Processes of ITSM

 

Problem Management: Enables an organization to perform root cause analysis of one or more similar incidents.

Asset Management: Provides complete visibility of all the IT assets of an organization.

Change Management: Gives a change model to perform major changes in the IT infrastructure.

Incident Management: Enables an organization to capture the initial response to an incident or a request for service by customers.

Availability Management: Helps an organization to optimize its IT service capabilities.

Service Level: Helps in maintain a certain level of commitment when delivering IT services.

Project Management: Helps to perform a new addition to the IT infrastructure in an orderly manner.

Knowledge Management: Helps an organization to create a repository of solutions to known issues.

What is the difference between ITSM and ITIL?

Even though they are sometimes used interchangeably, these two terms are not the same but are related.

ITIL is a framework that tells how to implement ITSM in the best possible way.

Unlike ITIL, ITSM focus on the service delivery experience, which is not technical.

We have written a blog that goes into detail about the difference between ITSM and ITIL.

How ITSM align IT with our business?

Businesses all around the world are going through digital transformation; this transformation has also bought about changes in the expectations of business leaders, some of which are:

  • Achieve cost efficiency by optimizing business processes and operations.
  • Achieve readiness for future changes.
  • Improve risk management through better compliance with regulatory requirements.
  • Better knowledge sharing across the organization.

An ITSM solution bridges the expectation gap and helps businesses in their transformation.

An ITSM solution brings in the maturity to implement automation and streamline IT service delivery processes according to the business goals.

What do you mean by a service desk in ITSM?

A service desk takes care of the service delivery aspect of ITSM.

In more technical terms, a service desk is a single point of contact for employees to communicate incidents and service requests. Apart from communication, a service desk facilitates data exchange across all the modules of an ITSM solution and important features like relationship mapping, root cause analysis, etc.

If you view the service desk function-wise, then it is primary in ITSM. You will find this emphasis in the ITIL guidelines as well.

Generally, ITSM is implemented in an organization in the form of a software solution. The solution incorporates all the best practices related to ITSM that are taken from a framework. For example, the Motadata ITSM solution follows ITIL guidelines in its product offering.

In a survey conducted by Forbes, 47% of respondents answered that they use ITIL.

Apart from ITIL, there are:

Conclusion

In this blog, we have discussed that ITSM is an important activity for modern businesses and has a direct impact on the ability of an organization to serve its end users.

The benefit of ITSM changes the nature of the relationship between IT and the business; making IT more accountable for the outcomes of the business.

If you are looking for an ITSM solution that would help you in your digital transformation then try Motadata ITSM for 30 days for free.