The State Of It Service Management: 5 Trends To Watch

What is ITSM?

An IT service management (ITSM) process involves designing, delivering, managing, and improving an organization's IT processes and services that enable an organization to grow. Enterprises have used ITSM to manage IT services' processes, activities, and delivery for a long time. From the past few years, ITIL – ITSM framework has significantly influenced our thinking of managing a service desk and delivering IT services.

ITSM has also been implemented through many different product platforms, such as incident management, problem management, change management, asset management, etc. ITSM processes can positively impact an organization's overall performance.

Why ITSM is important in 2022?  

It's no secret that employee support plays an essential role in employee productivity. Providing seamless and personalized support to your employees will lead to higher productivity, an improved work environment, and more productive organization. However, it is true that not every organization can respond to the specific needs of its employees, especially in this pandemic era. Even though employee service desks have been in practice for several years, they have not been able to provide the kind of assistance that would be needed in 2022 and beyond.

Due to its fragmented, delayed, and often complicated approach, traditional ITSM tools are no longer relevant in this new normal of remote work. Moreover, modern employees need modern tools that can ease their daily tasks. Thus, it is important to choose an ITSM tool that makes use of advanced technologies and helps you pay personalized attention to all the employees.

Trends of ITSM  

From leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology to optimizing processes already in place, here are the top ITSM trends to look out for in 2022.  

1. Revolution of AITSM
   
   A Gartner report estimates that IT leaders spend more than $750 million on unnecessary or unused features in ITSM tools. Therefore, it is crucial that you assess all the features of ITSM tools. But most organizations find this challenging to accomplish. That’s where AITSM- a new ITSM trend comes into play. Utilizing AITSM can reduce money wastage and assist you in accelerating digital transformation.
   
   The term AITSM refers to intelligent automation as the driving force behind ITSM. AITSM would be a great addition to your ITSM strategy because it will allow you to increase the efficiency of real human agents. This will help you complete your tasks and requests more efficiently and effectively. With AITSM, it is possible to create automated responses to various problems. It will also allow you to identify experts in a given field.
   
   
2. Invest in predictive capabilities
   
   Clearly, the pandemic outbreak has forced us to switch towards distributed working and digital transformation. While 2021 gave birth to the trend of proactive support. As this movement grows in 2022, it will bring predictive capabilities to automatic self-healing to take proactive IT support to the next level. Rather than shifting left and relying on self-help, tomorrow's service delivery will be proactive and predictive. The goal of proactive and predictive service management is to reduce downtime by actively searching for issues before they occur instead of reacting to tickets.
   
   
3. The hyperautomation trend is here to stay
   
   Though the concept of hyperautomation has been at the top of ITSM trends for years, it continues to grow rapidly, mainly due to the ongoing pandemic. The studies we conducted showed that hyperautomation focuses on three main priorities:
   
   

• Improving work quality
  
  
• Accelerating business processes
  
  
• Improving decision-making.
  
  

The goal of hyperautomation is to use multiple technologies, such as AI, robot process automation (RPA), and machine learning to automate processes significantly more effectively. When companies can combine hyperautomation with their subject matter expertise (in all areas), they will:  

• Enhance the quality
  
  
• Cost-effective
  
  
• Improve speed and efficiency
  
  
• Provide real-time, continuous intelligence for data-driven decision-making
  
  4. Implementing Enterprise Service Management (ESM)
  
  A standard operational practice of ESM has emerged among organizations with mature ITSM processes and ITIL 4 aspirations who are now seeking to extend the same excellence standards as other departments. A company should treat every asset they have as a resource or work with a certain status as part of their ESM strategy. Businesses can then improve the efficiency of service provision across all departments.
  
  5. AI security
  
  Ever since technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) were adopted, cybercrime has increased dramatically. ITSM organizations must take security seriously and identify and close any risks-and AI security, as well as security analytics, can help.
  
  According to another Gartner report, AI security will focus on three critical areas in 2022 such as safeguarding AI-enabled systems, enhancing security through AI and anticipating attacks on AI-enabled systems. 
  
  

Conclusion  

It is a high priority for many businesses to guarantee the efficiency and scalability of their IT service management processes. Therefore, many companies have begun to invest in new ITSM trends and are reaping benefits such as:  

• Reduced costs for IT operations
  
  
• Better returns on IT investments
  
  
• Less downtime
  
  
• Establishing repeatable, scalable, and manageable IT processes
  
  
• Enhanced productivity of IT help desks
  
  
• Increased transparency in IT services and processes
  
  
• Minimizing repeat incidents in the IT domain