How Modern ITSM Can Boost Productivity and Innovation

Manish Mishra, Head of MEA Business, Freshworks, delves into how modern ITSM solutions can deliver greater value to business

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As the region gets back on its feet after the economic downturn brought about by COVID lockdowns, business stakeholders will increasingly look to the IT function to enhance the organisation’s digital prowess and make it more competitive. Digital capabilities now extend not only to internal operations and delightful customer experiences but to the growing need for remote work. A KPMG survey from last year revealed almost one in four (23%) UAE employees expected to continue to work from home after COVID had passed. Now, as government restrictions begin to ease, we can see a post-COVID reality approaching, and it is accompanied by a necessity to digitise employee services and workflows as never before. Cloud and Software  as a Service (SaaS) technologies have been fundamental enablers of this trend as they offer a rapid and effective path to digitalisation.

The role of the IT service desk is expanding; yet agents and managers are expected to do more with less. Overwhelmed IT teams are increasingly turning to ITSM (IT service management) and ITOM (IT operations management) solutions to address these challenges, but legacy platforms are encumbered with a range of problems. They are siloed and require special skills to implement, maintain, manage, and upgrade. This leaves organisations at the mercy of third parties who may embark on lengthy implementations and insist on frequent upgrade cycles while delivering suboptimal support.

This, in turn, leads to a poor employee experience and a high total cost of ownership (TCO) that includes exorbitant upfront outlays, ongoing fees, and hidden costs. Some research suggests the average cost of downtime in large organisations is as high as $300,000 per hour, with an average recovery time of 18.5 hours. This is a chokehold on the region’s digital transformation. Here are three ways a modern ITSM solution can resolve these issues and deliver greater value to businesses.

  1. They empower end users

Modern ITSM platforms account for modern workflows. For incident management, they recognise the simple premise that the primary objective is to ensure smooth business operations by minimising downtime. Any unexpected disruption or degradation to a service that negatively impacts end-user productivity must be addressed in an easy-to-understand workflow that allows for the swift logging and classification of an incident and the efficient allotment of a priority to that log-entry. Investigation, diagnostics, and resolutions are therefore quicker and aligned with business goals.

Modern ITSM platforms employ the best practices of easy accessibility, effective communication, and automation (where at all possible). And they allow the integration of KPIs to ensure there is a formal means of motivation for agents.

Another thing modern ITSM does – which is a boon to smooth workflow – is allow the agent to distinguish (at log time) between an incident and a service request. To be clear, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) defines a service request as information, advice, or the procurement of equipment or resources. Because service requests do not require troubleshooting and come with a pre-approved or standard set of workflow steps, they belong in a different work queue. And taking the simple step of categorising them as such avoids opening up a more complex process.

  1. They align IT infrastructure with best practices

ITIL-approved processes enable the ITSM platform to deliver faster response times and greater reliability, as well as predict and proactively prevent issues. A huge part of this provision is asset management. When integrated with ITSM, it provides real-time views of incident histories, as well as any recent configuration changes. Intelligent ITSM platforms can also automate and manage key workflows such as issuing purchase orders. They can allow human agents to better manage contracts, ensuring optimised products and services at competitive prices from suppliers. And they ensure optimised delivery to customers without overextending services beyond agreed responsibilities.

Modern ITSM also provides reliable change management, tracking the costs and side effects of planned changes as well as the roles and responsibilities involved. Problem management – an ITSM process that seeks to prevent incidents – requires robust root-cause analysis (RCA) capabilities, which modern platforms provide. And they also provide knowledge-management capabilities that ensure the insights gained about systems, services, and people are logged for future consultation.

3. They increase agent efficiency

Through a modern ITSM solution, organisations can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to create contextual, intelligent experiences. The technology can steer agents to more efficient actions and quicker resolutions, giving them more time to focus on strategy and innovation. Automation and orchestration will also play key roles in delivering such efficiencies, leading to more seamless service experiences for agents, end-users, and customers. Also, with the widespread acceptance of remote work, delivering these solutions via the cloud makes it possible for agents to seamlessly operate from anywhere, thereby driving both their productivity and job satisfaction.

Also important is the capability for agents and end users to communicate over their preferred channels and switch seamlessly between, say, phone and chatbot or email and a collaboration platform such as Microsoft Teams or Slack. Here too, cloud technologies demonstrate a clear advantage. With technology vendors now designing their cloud solutions with modularity and interconnectivity in mind, expanding capabilities or integrating with other cloud solutions requires little more than upgrading your subscription plan or leverating native APIs.

Chatbots in particular are gaining ground, having found a home in many regional organisations, from utilities to BFSI. Chatbots lead to faster resolution times and a greater prevalence of first-contact resolution. Meanwhile, advanced analytics sifts out actionable insights for the improvement of the entire workflow.

Achieve more with less

Modern ITSM platforms eliminate repetitive tasks and manual processes, and drive service efficiency through no-code workflows and powerful automation. They proactively remediate issues and equip employees with better knowledge and more powerful tool sets. Moreover, they have the ability to integrate seamlessly with the other essential element of the enterprise service equation – customer experience tools. In doing so, they can ensure all stakeholders, from agents through to the back office, have the ability to collaborate and positively drive business outcomes.

This is always-on IT as it was meant to be – pre-approved service requests, 24-7 support, and rapid decision-making. Today’s ITSM suites boost productivity and innovation on both sides of the service desk and allow collaboration on the channel of choice.

Does it streamline service management? Yes. Does it minimise downtime? Yes. Does it give faster time to value? Yes. It does all these things and more. Modern ITSM means you are ready to join the region’s race to economic recovery.

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