IT is now part and parcel of running a modern business. Even if your business is a family-owned restaurant or a large manufacturing company, you’ll require some IT systems and services to meet your objectives effectively. IT service management (ITSM) emerged as a discipline because of this increasing dependence on IT systems in the business world.
Different ITSM tools and platforms help manage the various IT services involved in the internal business workflows effectively. But there still remains some hesitation among businesses about whether they should opt for ITSM options. Particularly, SMEs, because they usually have a limited budget.
In this article, we’ll highlight the five most appealing benefits of ITSM for businesses to help you make up your mind.
Understanding IT service management
ITSM is a discipline, a set of approaches, and principles that help an organization optimize the use of its IT setup and concomitant services. It covers and aligns all the different IT processes with business needs.
These are some of the key processes managed under ITSM:
- Incident management
- Problem management
- Change management
- Service request management
- Service level management \
- Asset management
A brief history of IT service management
ITSM in its early days, simply meant keeping the lights on. IT professionals were required to keep IT systems up and running all the time without any downtime or disruptions. However, this approach was reactive because IT managers waited for a problem to arise and then fixed it.
Things changed in the late 1980s when the UK government developed a set of best practices to improve IT efficiency across public institutions. This initiative led to the creation of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which is the foundation of modern ITSM.
Within a decade, ITSM grew into a recognized discipline with its own set of rules and practices. Today. It has matured beyond ITIL and expanded to include service design, transition, and continual improvement.
Modern ITSM tools like ServiceNow ITSM, InvGate Service Management, BMC Remedy, and Cherwell offer the latest cloud and AI capabilities to manage IT processes according to modern needs.
Five benefits of ITSM for businesses
The complete range of the business advantages of ITSM would take a lot more than five points to do justice. However, these five core benefits will give you a general idea of where and how IT service management can enhance your business workflows.
1. Improved efficiency and productivity
IT systems don’t remain static. There are continuous changes, user requests, and issues that need to be solved on the go. ITSM introduces standardized processes for handling incidents, changes, and service requests.
Instead of dealing with ad hoc or manual workflows, IT teams follow structured methods, which help reduce downtime and repetitive tasks. For businesses, this means faster issue resolution and smoother operations across departments.
2. Enhanced service quality and user experience
Almost the majority of customers reach out to businesses through online or digital channels. Therefore, your IT systems must respond to their queries and requests as quickly as possible. Even a little bit of downtime will result in lost customers and reputational damage.
ITSM frameworks focus on delivering consistent, high-quality IT services that meet user expectations. Through defined SLAs and continuous monitoring, teams can measure and improve performance as well.
Such proactive issue resolution provides a smooth user experience and enhances service quality.
3. Greater visibility and control
Businesses these days use a ton of IT platforms and systems that all work in tandem. However, IT teams can sometimes get lost in this web of interconnected IT systems. They struggle to know which software needs which platform for its input, and its output feeds into which service.
ITSM gives organizations a centralized view of all IT assets, configurations, and processes through CMDBs and dashboards.
This visibility helps team leads make sense of their IT setup, which helps in making data-driven decisions about investments, performance, and risk. And for C-level executives, it also means clearer accountability for their invested resources.
4. Cost optimization
There are quite a lot of redundant, repetitive, and minuscule tasks in day-to-day business operations that consume a lot of time and money. These manual tasks are a burden both on the employees and the exchequer.
ITSM tools take this burden away by automating tasks, preventing incidents, and improving change management. This helps reduce waste and unnecessary spending.
With lower operational costs, businesses can allocate resources more efficiently and achieve maximum ROI.
5. Aligning IT with business goals
Finally, every part of a business, whether it’s IT or human resources, is a cog in the wheel of business objectives. If IT systems are working perfectly but aren’t helping in achieving business goals, they are almost good for nothing.
Therefore, IT must be a strategic partner in achieving business objectives. ITSM is like the lever in the business that helps align IT initiatives with organizational goals such as innovation, customer satisfaction, and market agility. In this way, IT becomes a driver of business growth rather than just a cost center.
Conclusion
IT is ubiquitous in every facet of life now. Businesses can use it to avail numerous benefits, but only if they manage their IT systems effectively. IT service management gives a framework for businesses to make that possible.
The ITSM industry has evolved significantly in the last decade, as modern ITSM tools can manage the IT operations of big enterprises with 100% effectiveness. For SMEs, ITSM is no less important because it gives them a chance to compete with the top dogs in the market. They can expand and manage their operations through ITSM, which isn’t possible with manual methods.
