Implementing an ITSM Tool? Here are 8 Tips that Will Take You on the Road to Success

Meeting the service needs of modern customers has become extremely difficult for organizations, especially due to the presence of inefficient manual processes. These processes impact employee morale and also tend to impact overall productivity, which eventually affects customer service. If employees are frustrated and unmotivated, it will naturally impact their yield and throughput.

The Growing Adoption of ITSM

Modern ITSM tools have made it extremely easy for organizations to overcome all the challenges brought about by traditional, inefficient processes. Streamlined workflows, automated processes, and intuitive self-service capabilities have completely transformed the service landscape.

By automating previously manual processes, ITSM executives are able to better meet customer needs – within time and budget. They are also able to get access to all relevant data and information about customers (and their needs) and use it to make informed decisions. It is due to these unmatched capabilities that the adoption rate of ITSM is growing manifold.

Analysts expect the cloud ITSM market to be worth $12.2 billion by 2025.

In a nutshell, ITSM tools allow service organizations to:

• Enable automation of time-consuming, error-prone manual processes

• Improve delivery of IT services while ensuring alignment with business objectives

• Get end-to-end visibility into operations and challenges and improve employee satisfaction

• Better respond to changing customer needs and boost customer satisfaction

• Standardize processes and workflows and reduce IT costs and risks

ITSM Best Practices to Embrace

Implementing a modern ITSM tool can lead to several benefits. However, successful implementation entails a lot more than a simple deployment. Organizations need to be aware of key components that contribute to the success of ITSM tool implementation.

Here are eight tips that will take you on the road to success:

• Deep-dive into the existing IT landscape: Before you implement any ITSM tool, it is critical that you deep dive into your existing IT landscape and understand how the solution will fit in. Such an assessment will help identify the goals of your organization. It will also help identify areas where the tool will deliver maximum benefits. You can then use this information to involve the right people, deploy the right technology, choose the right workflows, and have full knowledge of the potential risks involved.

• Understand where you want to be: ITSM tool implementation is not just about understanding where you currently are, but also where you want to be. Before embarking on the implementation journey, make sure to have clarity on your business goals and objectives and see how the tool will help you reach those objectives. Such analysis will also help paint a picture of the changes you might need to make to your existing processes and systems for widespread and successful adoption.

• Communication is key: Since ITSM tool implementation will bring in several changes in the way IT services are delivered, ensuring users are well aware of these changes is critical to implementation success. Communicating the need for implementation can go a long way in helping employees embrace and cope up with change. Make sure all stakeholders are convinced about the benefits of implementing robust ITSM processes to get their support and enable constant communication, so everyone involved is on the same page.

• Rope in experts: Given how precise and accurate ITSM tool implement should be, roping in experts is a great way to improve the likelihood of implementation success. Experts bring with them years of ITSM leadership and experience. They can also help in building an enterprise-class solution that is tailored to your unique business. Through detailed one-on-one discussions, they can better understand your existing processes, identify key success factors (and risks), and advise on industry best practices.

• Opt for a service desk: If you want to keep your ITSM operations running smoothly, make sure to opt for a service desk. A service desk can handle everything: from individual service issues to far-reaching system outages, providing IT users with a single point of contact for quick resolution of issues. A service desk can also provide access to knowledge base articles that can allow users to get answers to common queries and resolve minor issues on their own – without depending on experts.

• Metrics matter: No matter how inefficient your existing solution has been, the amount of data that it has can help in improving your service efficiency by a large margin. When implementing the new ITSM tool, make sure to use this data as a baseline to get critical insight into popular KPIs metrics that can help you in your improvement efforts. This data,  presented via intuitive dashboards and reports, can help you in enterprise-wide process improvements and allow you to focus on overcoming roadblocks and bottlenecks.

• Embrace automation: Since one of the key reasons for poor customer satisfaction is the presence of time-consuming manual processes, embracing automation is a great way to simplify key processes and workflows. Apart from enabling better efficiency and productivity, automated processes can help in accelerating time-to-resolution – improving RPO and RTO as well as customer satisfaction.

• Keep it simple: Since most out-of-the-box ITSM tools offer industry-standard processes and workflows, including automation, real-time analytics, and so much more, it makes sense to keep it simple. Instead of overcomplicating the solution through several customizations, make sure to evaluate key features of different tools and choose one that fits your organization’s IT needs while allowing you to proactively meet strategic business objectives and growth.

Implementing a modern ITSM tool is no longer a question of if, but when! Given the various ways in which an ITSM tool can benefit service organizations, keeping these best practices in mind can boost the likelihood of implementation success. It can also allow you to optimally meet the evolving needs of your business and your customers.