With IT functions becoming the core of most daily business operations, organizations are recognizing the importance of adopting best practices of IT Service Management (ITSM). Originally, ITSM was only about IT improvement but today, enterprise IT service management drives the entire business and is a must-have critical practice for any organization. ITSM transforms how the IT department and its tasks are viewed in an organization. The core objective of enterprise IT service management is to structure the design, implementation, and delivery of organizational services to enhance operational efficiency, reduce risk and support strategic planning that supports business needs. Unlike a few years ago when enterprise service management was adapted only for better ROI, businesses today implement the technique in HR, finance, and legal functions for better business efficiency, control, and insight.  

What is Enterprise IT Service Management?

ITSM can shape the digital transformation path of an organization by ensuring that the IT functions and the rest of the enterprise stay aligned with business goals. ITSM system streamlines communication between the IT department and the rest of the enterprise by adopting best practices. Enterprise IT service management is an extension of ITSM and works to aid different departments across the enterprise to operate and communicate within the standard set of procedures and common goals. The primary objective of enterprise service management is to provide an enterprise with the capability to deliver and support optimal services for the employees.By using IT service management software, businesses can ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards. IT service management tools support the implementation of proactive monitoring and alerting systems for early incident detection.

But there are certain differences between ITSM and enterprise service management (ESM). ITSM is specific to the IT department and manages only procedures related to IT processes while enterprise service management can be applied across several departments. For instance, ESM can be applied for employee onboarding, managing Human Resource requests, and building Facilities requests. By focusing on ITSM process best practices, organizations elevate the customer experience, consistently delivering value and satisfaction.

Both ITSM and ESM leverage knowledge sharing and implement certain ITIL processes to add value to the organization. Both ITSM and ESM can be used to streamline all processes and they can be managed by the same software to maximize ROI.

Main Benefits of Enterprise IT Service Management

Other than seamless communication between employees of a company and the service desk of the IT department, ESM solutions have several other benefits as well.‍

    1.  Low Operational Costs and Improved Efficiency‍

Post COVID-19, enterprises are looking at a different financial landscape and according to Gartner reports, IT spending is expected to drop by 8%. This has led to a greater shift by organizations towards reducing costs with lesser employees taking up more workload.

Enterprise service management offers uniform procedures for organizations that can bring about a decrease in cost by up to 50% and increase productivity by up to 40%. With streamlined operations, efficiency can be achieved that can lower operational costs and resolution of problems with minimum downtime. ESM also reduces costs by tracking company equipment and assets which is vital in an evolving work environment. The asset management software associated with the ESM makes it easy to track assets that may not be present on the actual job site. ‍

‍    2. Self-service Efficiency‍

When implemented with self-service technology, ESM has the potential to maximize self-service efficiency. It offers many self-service capabilities such as the ability to submit HR requests, marketing requests, and other needs that make the ESM tool very useful and boost organizational productivity. The self-service feature boosts the ROI of an ESM tool. ‍

    3. Enhanced Collaboration and Communication across the enterprise‍

Enterprise IT service management facilitates a uniform method of creating and completing onboarding requests leading to enhanced collaboration and communication. Apart from providing uniform procedures, ESM makes it easy to collaborate even while working remotely. You can track the progress of an issue or a ticket from a remote location and take steps to quickly resolve the issue. Remote collaboration empowers employees to manage their tasks better through easy knowledge sharing.‍

    4. Better Governance and Visibility‍

Through an ESM solution, employees can view each other’s progress and managers can also track ticket and project status. This enhances visibility and gives managers useful insights needed for proper governance by delegating tasks on time. These insights address areas that some employees may need assistance in. 
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Moreover, ESM software needs only fewer resources to manage and fewer efforts to coordinate with a remote team. This frees up the time of employees at leadership levels to focus on more strategic issues. Every time there is a change in procedure, the managers can simply update the self-service portal and knowledge database to relay the information.

Executive-level teams can leverage the ESM software due to its ability to create reports that indicate where resources are used, team capabilities, and productivity levels. The visibility offered by the ESM processes will also benefit those employees who need to track internal processes and monitor them to ensure adherence to international standards.  ‍

    5. Standardization of Procedures‍

Standard rules and consistent procedures across the organization can be maintained by implementing ESM software. Standardization of processes leads to an overall enhanced experience for both employees and teams as a whole. A self-service portal integrated with a knowledge management database will make employees spend less time searching for crucial information and gain access to only the updated data. 

For instance, new employees can quickly find answers during the onboarding process due to the standardization feature of ESM systems. A new hire can find information from the portal, browse through options, communicate with various departments, and uniformly communicate with team members. These features can save a significant amount of time for employees in the onboarding experience or resolution of issues.‍

    6. Better Customer Experience‍

Since employees will spend only less time looking for answers and problem solutions within the organization, the customers outside of it can enjoy better service and experience. 

For instance, if there is a repair issue with a particular fixture or a product, ESM allows the store employees to quickly submit repair requests and pass them on to the appropriate vendor while tracking the whole process. Through ESM, employees can pass on internal requests between teams more quickly, enabling a better experience for the customers. 

Conclusion

ESM benefits are being realized by organizations each day and more enterprises are looking to increase their ROI and attain their goals by adopting enterprise IT service management solutions. With the integration of knowledge management, AI, chatbots, and self-service, the future of enterprise IT service management looks promising.