The ITSM industry is transforming quiet rapidly. From being a mere extension to internal IT staff in its yesteryears, it has transformed into a mammoth industry which runs IT Operations of thriving enterprises who cannot afford a minute of downtime of their IT Systems.
Optimization of your IT Service Management process is a given these days. The industry has moved on from the days, people used to ask for streamlining processes or implementing ITIL best practices. Today customers are demanding more and more from ITSM products as well as service providers.
The ask is to find ways to automate predictable, redundant processes powered by historical data and patterns. What that means is, customers no more want to allocate humans to do redundant jobs that could be easily learnt and automated using bots. They rather have their talented task force to bring innovation to their IT operations.
Based on my discussions with various customers and peers in the industry, I see three common trends which could change the industry as a whole.
Today we will discuss about these trends and what that means to customers and service providers.
#1 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
We are already seeing the benefits of AI and Machine Learning (ML) across several product categories. Leading product vendors like Micro Focus and ServiceNow have already started experimenting with it in their respective product lines.Automated data collection, ticket resolution, configuration management, change management are few of the use cases that could benefit from AI. But the interesting part is on the way you go about it. Chatbots, Voice Assistants, Connected Applications are few of the interfaces which could be extended for instant servicing of requests.
Just think about it, a potential service requester logs on to your website to raise an issue related to one of the business services.He/She is greeted by a chatbot who understands the problem, identifies the issue with the help of ML-based database, provides a resolution based on past history and closes the ticket in real-time right there. It would be an amazing experience for the requester as well as the service provider.
Now think about the scale it can provide to enterprises who receive 100s of such requests, every day and 365 days a year.
#2 INTERNET OF THINGS
We spoke about connected applications, now let us talk about connected devices. The advancement in IOT and device technology has opened up several possibilities in the way we manage and monitor devices. Network Scanning, Configuration Management, Device Status, Network Management are few of the ITSM functions which are highly dependent on agents to take necessary actions.
IOT can enable a true agent-less experience for common maintenance tasks related to monitoring and ensuring device availability. You could go one step further in identifying root cause analysis and reasons for downtime by leveraging patterns in this connected devices world.
#3 PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
Big Data is a prominent contributor in understanding and analyzing IT Systems and Applications. With the amount of data which is recorded across systems and applications, it is high time we start making use of it to our advantage. Several attempts have been made over the years to enable IT teams to optimally size their respective IT systems for maximum uptime. Now we have the data as well as the tools to optimize it even further.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The IT landscape is rapidly changing. It is imperative for businesses and service providers to adopt this change in order to stay relevant in this hyper-competitive world. The end goal should be drive cost optimization, enhance service delivery quality and provide exceptional customer experience. Do you see other trends, that should be part of this list? Let me know in the comments section below.
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