Why Implementing IT Service Management Is More Crucial Than Ever The importance of digital tools came to the forefront during the pandemic, and this is the year that you need to live up to your customer's expectations.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
After suffering from the catastrophic pandemic in 2020 and 2021, this is an important year for organizations operating in major industries worldwide. The Covid-19 situation resulted in a sharp drop in the demand for all non-essential products and services. When people were not allowed to go out of their houses, companies with a traditional approach were forced to close their doors and let go of their valuable employees.
However, organizations have started getting back on track. The pandemic has made everyone realize the importance of digital tools and platforms. Organizations with a robust digital infrastructure were able to sustain the pandemic without facing many hurdles. Online collaborative platforms helped employees stay in touch with their peers and work in a virtual workspace.
This has resulted in more responsibilities being shouldered by IT teams within organizations. As more and more processes are carried out digitally using advanced tools, an organization's IT infrastructure needs to be managed with utmost precision. This has made it important for organizations to focus on improving their ITSM processes.
What is ITSM?
IT Service Management (ITSM) is the process of delivering IT services and support to users by the IT department of an organization. These services can be provided to customers and internal employees to get their IT-related issues resolved in the best way possible.
ITSM revolves around designing, creating and delivering robust IT services to the users through digital platforms. The key difference between IT and formalized ITSM is that ITSM is used to optimize the IT infrastructure of an organization. The core of ITSM deals with providing IT as a service to the end-users and providing them with seamless support across multiple channels.
A dedicated IT service desk allows you to provide ITSM solutions to your customers or employees and streamline your IT processes. Implementing an IT service desk in 2022 is an important decision and requires you to consider a range of factors before going ahead with the same. Gone are when employees and customers were content with generic IT support provided to them by an organization. Today, users demand personalized support from an IT service desk that understands the context of their issues and tailored solutions that are best suited for them.
Related: Using HR Helpdesk to Enhance Employee Productivity
Why is implementing ITSM in 2022 more crucial than ever?
If you are still on the fence about implementing ITSM within your organization, here are some essential reasons why the technology is needed now more than it ever has been.
1. Catering to changing needs
The needs of both employees and customers have changed significantly. They require quick and personalized IT support from an organization to get their issues resolved. Also, the increasing use of mobile devices requires an organization to set up ITSM solutions compatible with a range of digital devices.
Employee needs in particular have significantly changed in the post-pandemic world. Employees working across the world prefer flexible work hours and are willing to work remotely as long as it does not affect their work. This has given rise to hybrid workplaces. It is extremely difficult for IT teams to cater to the employees' ever-changing needs with a traditional approach. This makes it important to implement robust ITSM tools for providing proactive support to employees.
2. Establishing clear connections between individual contributions and organizational goals
Implementing ITSM allows you to align the IT services provided by the professionals with the goals to be achieved by your organization. It gives an organized structure to the IT services provided to your customers and employees and allows you to measure their effectiveness periodically.
Implementing ITSM allows you to streamline processes like change management, incident management, request fulfilment and more, leading to increased transparency for services delivered by your IT professionals across the organization.
The lack of ITSM in 2021 is likely to indicate that many professionals are working on the same project without clarity on who should be making important decisions. In such situations, IT employees are often confused about:
Their definite roles and responsibilities while working in the IT team.
Their priorities while working on every project.
The services they are required to support.
The service levels and standards to be maintained.
Their integration with their peers in terms of making decisions, solving issues and delegating responsibility.
With the help of ITSM, you can get rid of these issues by:
Creating well-defined processes for addressing all the crucial issues faced by the users.
Establishing the roles and responsibilities of each IT professional.
Prioritizing the IT processes while working on every project.
ITSM helps you organize the overall approach to providing IT services to the users and clear all confusion.
Related: Tips To Evaluate Your Organization's ITSM Needs
3. Implementing change management seamlessly
New technological trends are emerging, and new tools are being introduced to the market at an astonishing rate. This makes organizations change their approach to work and the tools used to carry out their processes regularly. This calls for seamless change management.
Without effective change management, it becomes difficult for an organization to ensure that everyone is on the same page and every employee can operate the new tools at an optimum level.
ITSM helps you streamline change management by providing your employees with all the required resources and materials regarding the new tools on a centralized platform. With a modern IT service desk, you can add all relevant resources to your enterprise knowledge base and drive the necessary change.
Moreover, if your knowledge base has all the required information about the new tools to be implemented, you can provide quick answers to all the questions and queries they may have about working with them. This helps ensure that all your employees have adopted the change and are well-versed in the new tools.
4. Optimizing your collaborative platform
Over the last two years, online collaborative platforms like Slack, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have had immense adoption across industries. These platforms have helped organizations to operate virtually and employees to interact with their peers.
ITSM allows you to optimize your collaborative platform by integrating your IT service desk with the same. This makes it easier for your employees to obtain quick IT support from their work platform. Also, the integration allows you to centralize the IT support provided to all the employees within your organization, irrespective of the department they work in.
Modern IT service desks are equipped with the technology of conversational AI that allows your employees to interact with AI chatbots. When you integrate a modern service desk with your collaborative platform, your employees can seamlessly chat with the virtual assistants from their respective accounts.
Once an employee asks a question, the chatbot scans your knowledge base for the solution and returns a suitable answer within a few seconds. This way, modern ITSM tools help you automate the first IT support level without getting the agents involved.
Moreover, if your employee is not satisfied with the primary support, the AI chatbots route their cases to a suitable support agent via an automated ticketing system. A simple chat from the collaborative platform allows your employee to create a support ticket and send their cases to an agent within seconds. A modern IT service desk tracks the case and closes the ticket automatically once the issue is resolved.
5. Implementing microlearning with ITSM
Effective employee onboarding and change management require your employees to get trained in specific tools and skills. Modern IT service desks allow you to provide seamless training to your employees via microlearning.
Microlearning is a modern learning methodology that involves consuming training content that takes no more than 10 minutes of the learners' time. With the help of modern ITSM tools, you can add the training resources to your knowledge base and have your employees access the same from their respective devices. If you have integrated your service desk with a collaborative platform, your employees can get trained while working on the respective platform.
Microlearning helps you get your employees trained without getting them exhausted by reading lengthy handbooks and manuals. A modern IT service desk allows you to track your employees' progress and ensure that the training sessions are successful.
This makes the implementation of ITSM instrumental in boosting self-reliance and confidence within your employees as they train themselves through microlearning.
