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2020 ITSM Predictions

As part of APMdigest's 2020 predictions, industry experts offer predictions on how ITSM and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2020.

Start with 2020 Application Performance Management Predictions

APM SUPPORTS ITIL 4

APM will play a key role in supporting the new ITIL 4 framework by enhancing its predictive modeling and proactive monitoring capabilities to assist IT Service Management (ITSM). The workflow and reporting will be dynamic enough to present intrinsic datasets to support the very different demands for both Development and Operations.
Larry Dragich
Technology Executive and Founder of the APM Strategies Group on LinkedIn

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC THINKING

In 2020, the accelerated adoption of a combination of advanced automation techniques (i.e., RPA, deep learning, natural language processing) will notably increase the throughput of multiple ITSM processes and functions, increasing the service quality of IT departments while decreasing costs. Value must be a core principle in the provision of service and will require customer-centric thinking.
Olivier Saucin
Global Solution Director, Applications, CTG

ACTIONABILITY

Businesses will make progress moving toward an autonomous digital enterprise through technology innovations in AIOps, edge computing, the convergence of IT service management and IT operations management, SecOps, and DevOps. Rather than focusing on monitoring and observability — which only tell you what failed and why — businesses need to look at "actionability." Actionability takes it an important step further by giving actionable insights to help remediate while also helping to predict what could fail. Implementing technology that gives actionable insights will be critical for businesses looking to move further in their automation journey.
Ram Chakravarti
CTO, BMC Software

AUTOMATED INCIDENT RESOLUTION

When it comes to ITSM, and its manifestation beyond IT of Enterprise Service Management, we're going to see increased adoption of AI-driven automation — moving beyond service request resolution to automated incident resolution. Analytics, in general and predictive analytics to be specific will be used increasingly to drive decision-making proactively.
Dr. Akhil Sahai
CPO, Symphony SummitAI

24-HOUR IT

With the arrival of the new decade, IT organizations will begin a more concerted push to offer all IT services 24x7 to meet the expectations of around-the-clock business operations. New focus will be given to automation that supports this "always open" IT concept, so that IT never stands in the way of business requirements — regardless of the hour.
Kevin J. Smith
SVP, Ivanti

IMPROVED INTEGRATION

Based on reviews of ITSM software and tools on IT Central Station, our community members want better integration capabilities with reduced costs from their ITSM software and tools. In 2020, ITSM vendors who design better integration capabilities into their software and tools, while keeping costs low, will be addressing real user pain points.
Russell Rothstein
Founder and CEO, IT Central Station

DEVOPS MEETS ITSM

As businesses struggle to keep pace with customer expectations, they will see the need to adopt DevOps practices in all parts of their business, including mission-critical applications like the contact center that have thus far remained siloed and out of scope for DevOps initiatives. The implementation of DevOps as a catalyst for CX innovation in the contact center will break down CX system silos and fuel momentum of the drive towards cloud contact centers.
Elizabeth Magill
Senior Director of Product Marketing, Cyara

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT VS ENGINEERING

As is already being observed in smaller organizations, in 2020, the subservience of incident management organizations to engineering organizations will spread to larger enterprises as well. Companies are increasingly automating ITIL and ITSM. Those professionals that are impacted will be redeployed to positions that create even greater business value.
Paul Porter
VP Sales Engineering, xMatters

ITSM ALIGNS WITH THE BUSINESS

By the end of 2020, IT service management (ITSM) teams will decrease their focus on traditional ITSM best practices and instead focus on business alignment strategies. This new alignment will center more on automation and the speed of delivery than typical service management methods to ensure that service management is as dynamic and agile as the business processes it serves.
Kevin J. Smith
SVP, Ivanti

ITOM CONVERGES WITH SECURITY

The convergence of security and ITOM is just beginning to happen, we should continue to see more of this convergence play out, but many companies have struggled to fill the gap between the two groups, while there are only a few companies showing promise here.
Thomas Hatch
CTO and Co-Founder, SaltStack

Go to 2020 Digital Transformation Predictions

Hot Topics

The Latest

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...

Enterprise data sprawl already challenges companies' ability to protect and back up their data. Much of this information is never fully secured, leaving organizations vulnerable. Now, as GenAI platforms emerge as yet another environment where enterprise data is consumed, transformed, and created, this fragmentation is set to intensify ...

Image
Crashplan

OpenTelemetry (OTel) has revolutionized the way we approach observability by standardizing the collection of telemetry data ... Here are five myths — and truths — to help elevate your OTel integration by harnessing the untapped power of logs ...

2020 ITSM Predictions

As part of APMdigest's 2020 predictions, industry experts offer predictions on how ITSM and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2020.

Start with 2020 Application Performance Management Predictions

APM SUPPORTS ITIL 4

APM will play a key role in supporting the new ITIL 4 framework by enhancing its predictive modeling and proactive monitoring capabilities to assist IT Service Management (ITSM). The workflow and reporting will be dynamic enough to present intrinsic datasets to support the very different demands for both Development and Operations.
Larry Dragich
Technology Executive and Founder of the APM Strategies Group on LinkedIn

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC THINKING

In 2020, the accelerated adoption of a combination of advanced automation techniques (i.e., RPA, deep learning, natural language processing) will notably increase the throughput of multiple ITSM processes and functions, increasing the service quality of IT departments while decreasing costs. Value must be a core principle in the provision of service and will require customer-centric thinking.
Olivier Saucin
Global Solution Director, Applications, CTG

ACTIONABILITY

Businesses will make progress moving toward an autonomous digital enterprise through technology innovations in AIOps, edge computing, the convergence of IT service management and IT operations management, SecOps, and DevOps. Rather than focusing on monitoring and observability — which only tell you what failed and why — businesses need to look at "actionability." Actionability takes it an important step further by giving actionable insights to help remediate while also helping to predict what could fail. Implementing technology that gives actionable insights will be critical for businesses looking to move further in their automation journey.
Ram Chakravarti
CTO, BMC Software

AUTOMATED INCIDENT RESOLUTION

When it comes to ITSM, and its manifestation beyond IT of Enterprise Service Management, we're going to see increased adoption of AI-driven automation — moving beyond service request resolution to automated incident resolution. Analytics, in general and predictive analytics to be specific will be used increasingly to drive decision-making proactively.
Dr. Akhil Sahai
CPO, Symphony SummitAI

24-HOUR IT

With the arrival of the new decade, IT organizations will begin a more concerted push to offer all IT services 24x7 to meet the expectations of around-the-clock business operations. New focus will be given to automation that supports this "always open" IT concept, so that IT never stands in the way of business requirements — regardless of the hour.
Kevin J. Smith
SVP, Ivanti

IMPROVED INTEGRATION

Based on reviews of ITSM software and tools on IT Central Station, our community members want better integration capabilities with reduced costs from their ITSM software and tools. In 2020, ITSM vendors who design better integration capabilities into their software and tools, while keeping costs low, will be addressing real user pain points.
Russell Rothstein
Founder and CEO, IT Central Station

DEVOPS MEETS ITSM

As businesses struggle to keep pace with customer expectations, they will see the need to adopt DevOps practices in all parts of their business, including mission-critical applications like the contact center that have thus far remained siloed and out of scope for DevOps initiatives. The implementation of DevOps as a catalyst for CX innovation in the contact center will break down CX system silos and fuel momentum of the drive towards cloud contact centers.
Elizabeth Magill
Senior Director of Product Marketing, Cyara

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT VS ENGINEERING

As is already being observed in smaller organizations, in 2020, the subservience of incident management organizations to engineering organizations will spread to larger enterprises as well. Companies are increasingly automating ITIL and ITSM. Those professionals that are impacted will be redeployed to positions that create even greater business value.
Paul Porter
VP Sales Engineering, xMatters

ITSM ALIGNS WITH THE BUSINESS

By the end of 2020, IT service management (ITSM) teams will decrease their focus on traditional ITSM best practices and instead focus on business alignment strategies. This new alignment will center more on automation and the speed of delivery than typical service management methods to ensure that service management is as dynamic and agile as the business processes it serves.
Kevin J. Smith
SVP, Ivanti

ITOM CONVERGES WITH SECURITY

The convergence of security and ITOM is just beginning to happen, we should continue to see more of this convergence play out, but many companies have struggled to fill the gap between the two groups, while there are only a few companies showing promise here.
Thomas Hatch
CTO and Co-Founder, SaltStack

Go to 2020 Digital Transformation Predictions

Hot Topics

The Latest

E-commerce is set to skyrocket with a 9% rise over the next few years ... To thrive in this competitive environment, retailers must identify digital resilience as their top priority. In a world where savvy shoppers expect 24/7 access to online deals and experiences, any unexpected downtime to digital services can lead to significant financial losses, damage to brand reputation, abandoned carts with designer shoes, and additional issues ...

Efficiency is a highly-desirable objective in business ... We're seeing this scenario play out in enterprises around the world as they continue to struggle with infrastructures and remote work models with an eye toward operational efficiencies. In contrast to that goal, a recent Broadcom survey of global IT and network professionals found widespread adoption of these strategies is making the network more complex and hampering observability, leading to uptime, performance and security issues. Let's look more closely at these challenges ...

Image
Broadcom

The 2025 Catchpoint SRE Report dives into the forces transforming the SRE landscape, exploring both the challenges and opportunities ahead. Let's break down the key findings and what they mean for SRE professionals and the businesses relying on them ...

Image
Catchpoint

The pressure on IT teams has never been greater. As data environments grow increasingly complex, resource shortages are emerging as a major obstacle for IT leaders striving to meet the demands of modern infrastructure management ... According to DataStrike's newly released 2025 Data Infrastructure Survey Report, more than half (54%) of IT leaders cite resource limitations as a top challenge, highlighting a growing trend toward outsourcing as a solution ...

Image
Datastrike

Gartner revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact ...

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating across the telecoms industry, with 88% of fixed broadband service providers now investigating or trialing AI automation to enhance their fixed broadband services, according to new research from Incognito Software Systems and Omdia ...

 

AWS is a cloud-based computing platform known for its reliability, scalability, and flexibility. However, as helpful as its comprehensive infrastructure is, disparate elements and numerous siloed components make it difficult for admins to visualize the cloud performance in detail. It requires meticulous monitoring techniques and deep visibility to understand cloud performance and analyze operational efficiency in detail to ensure seamless cloud operations ...

Imagine a future where software, once a complex obstacle, becomes a natural extension of daily workflow — an intuitive, seamless experience that maximizes productivity and efficiency. This future is no longer a distant vision but a reality being crafted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence ...

Enterprise data sprawl already challenges companies' ability to protect and back up their data. Much of this information is never fully secured, leaving organizations vulnerable. Now, as GenAI platforms emerge as yet another environment where enterprise data is consumed, transformed, and created, this fragmentation is set to intensify ...

Image
Crashplan

OpenTelemetry (OTel) has revolutionized the way we approach observability by standardizing the collection of telemetry data ... Here are five myths — and truths — to help elevate your OTel integration by harnessing the untapped power of logs ...