The Future of ITSM: How Are Roles (and Rules) Changing? Part 2

Dennis Drogseth

Both the “rules” and the “roles” governing IT Service Management (ITSM) are evolving to support a far-broader need for inclusiveness across IT, and between IT and its service consumers. Recent EMA research, What Is the Future of IT Service Management? (March 2015), exposed a number of shifting trends that might surprise many in the industry.

Start with Part 1 of this blog

Research highlights show the following trends in rules and roles:

■ Cloud continues to be a game changer. ITSM teams are playing a more dynamic and service-aware role in managing cloud investments through a growing focus on such things as higher levels of automation and more attention to DevOps. ITSM teams are also integrating cloud services into their service catalogs — with SaaS (internal cloud) services, IaaS (internal cloud) services, and SaaS and IaaS services in public cloud tied for third.

■ The move to support enterprise services is also changing ITSM rules and roles. Only 89% of respondents had plans to consolidate IT and non-IT customer service — up from just two years ago when only 75% had plans to consolidate.

■ Mobility is seriously changing the ITSM game — in terms of both improved IT efficiencies and end-user outreach. 85% of our respondents had mobile support for end users, often across heterogeneous environments (tablets, iPhones, and Android phones, as examples). And 50% allowed end users to make ITSM-related service requests via these devices, making ITSM teams, and IT as a whole, considerably more consumer-friendly.

■ In parallel, the demand for more unified and effective endpoint management is expanding the requirements for role-based expertise. The leading requirements/skills here include capturing software usage, software license management, software distribution, operating system deployment, and patch management — across a fully heterogeneous set of endpoint options.

We also looked at success rates in an attempt to understand the chemistry of the most successful ITSM teams. To do this, we contrasted the 18% of respondents who viewed their ITSM initiative as “extremely successful” with the 12% who felt they were only “somewhat successful” or were “largely unsuccessful”. Those who were “extremely successful” were also:

■ Four times more likely to have integrated their IT and non-IT service desks

■ Twice as likely to have a CMDB/CMS-related technology deployed

■ Dramatically more likely to support cloud in service catalogs

■ Twice as likely to be leveraging mobile for ITSM professionals

■ Nearly four times more likely to offer service consumers mobile support for ITSM-related actions

■ Twice as likely to offer users access to corporate applications through mobile

■ More than twice as likely to be slated for growth

Overall, the news seems encouraging for ITSM teams willing to reach out and embrace a growing set of technologies and responsibilities. This means being ready to support new roles and expertise, while promoting more informed dialog, both between enterprise end-users and the service desk and between ITSM teams and the rest of IT — including operations and development. The news is probably not so good for the fainthearted seeking to cling to traditional ways of working in an “ITSM silo.” In other words, both the need and the opportunity for ITSM leadership awaits you — and our data suggests that the time to engage is now.

Image removed.

Related Links

Hot Topics

The Latest

Manufacturing Organizations Doubled AI Investment Yet Only 37% Fully Prepared to Operationalize AI

While 87% of manufacturing leaders and technical specialists report that ROI from their AIOps initiatives has met or exceeded expectations, only 37% say they are fully prepared to operationalize AI at scale, according to The Future of IT Operations in the AI Era, a report from Riverbed ...

Optimizing Decisions with Edge-First Cognitive Intelligence

Many organizations rely on cloud-first architectures to aggregate, analyze, and act on their operational data ... However, not all environments are conducive to cloud-first architectures ... There are limitations to cloud-first architectures that render them ineffective in mission-critical situations where responsiveness, cost control, and data sovereignty are non-negotiable; these limitations include ...

The New Perimeter Is the User: Why Identity Is the Real Network Edge

For years, cybersecurity was built around a simple assumption: protect the physical network and trust everything inside it. That model made sense when employees worked in offices, applications lived in data centers, and devices rarely left the building. Today's reality is fluid: people work from everywhere, applications run across multiple clouds, and AI-driven agents are beginning to act on behalf of users. But while the old perimeter dissolved, a new one quietly emerged ...

When AI Infrastructure Stops Behaving Like Infrastructure

For years, infrastructure teams have treated compute as a relatively stable input. Capacity was provisioned, costs were forecasted, and performance expectations were set based on the assumption that identical resources behaved identically. That mental model is starting to break down. AI infrastructure is no longer behaving like static cloud capacity. It is increasingly behaving like a market ...

Enterprise Resilience: Understanding the Shift from Static to Dynamic

Resilience can no longer be defined by how quickly an organization recovers from an incident or disruption. The effectiveness of any resilience strategy is dependent on its ability to anticipate change, operate under continuous stress, and adapt confidently amid uncertainty ...

Mobile Users Expect Perfection in 2026

Mobile users are less tolerant of app instability than ever before. According to a new report from Luciq, No Margin for Error: What Mobile Users Expect and What Mobile Leaders Must Deliver in 2026, even minor performance issues now result in immediate abandonment, lost purchases, and long-term brand impact ...

AI Confidence Is High. Readiness Is Not. What the Data Tells Us - and Why It Matters

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the dominant force shaping enterprise data strategies. Boards expect progress. Executives expect returns. And data leaders are under pressure to prove that their organizations are "AI-ready" ...

Agentic AI, Realistic Expectations and the Future of IT Operations in 2026

Agentic AI is a major buzzword for 2026. Many tech companies are making bold promises about this technology, but many aren't grounded in reality, at least not yet. This coming year will likely be shaped by reality checks for IT teams, and progress will only come from a focus on strong foundations and disciplined execution ...

Trust, But Verify: Building Confidence in AI Through Human Oversight

AI systems are still prone to hallucinations and misjudgments ... To build the trust needed for adoption, AI must be paired with human-in-the-loop (HITL) oversight, or checkpoints where humans verify, guide, and decide what actions are taken. The balance between autonomy and accountability is what will allow AI to deliver on its promise without sacrificing human trust ...

Data Centers Plan to Reduce Reliance on Grid

More data center leaders are reducing their reliance on utility grids by investing in onsite power for rapidly scaling data centers, according to the Data Center Power Report from Bloom Energy ...

The Future of ITSM: How Are Roles (and Rules) Changing? Part 2

Dennis Drogseth

Both the “rules” and the “roles” governing IT Service Management (ITSM) are evolving to support a far-broader need for inclusiveness across IT, and between IT and its service consumers. Recent EMA research, What Is the Future of IT Service Management? (March 2015), exposed a number of shifting trends that might surprise many in the industry.

Start with Part 1 of this blog

Research highlights show the following trends in rules and roles:

■ Cloud continues to be a game changer. ITSM teams are playing a more dynamic and service-aware role in managing cloud investments through a growing focus on such things as higher levels of automation and more attention to DevOps. ITSM teams are also integrating cloud services into their service catalogs — with SaaS (internal cloud) services, IaaS (internal cloud) services, and SaaS and IaaS services in public cloud tied for third.

■ The move to support enterprise services is also changing ITSM rules and roles. Only 89% of respondents had plans to consolidate IT and non-IT customer service — up from just two years ago when only 75% had plans to consolidate.

■ Mobility is seriously changing the ITSM game — in terms of both improved IT efficiencies and end-user outreach. 85% of our respondents had mobile support for end users, often across heterogeneous environments (tablets, iPhones, and Android phones, as examples). And 50% allowed end users to make ITSM-related service requests via these devices, making ITSM teams, and IT as a whole, considerably more consumer-friendly.

■ In parallel, the demand for more unified and effective endpoint management is expanding the requirements for role-based expertise. The leading requirements/skills here include capturing software usage, software license management, software distribution, operating system deployment, and patch management — across a fully heterogeneous set of endpoint options.

We also looked at success rates in an attempt to understand the chemistry of the most successful ITSM teams. To do this, we contrasted the 18% of respondents who viewed their ITSM initiative as “extremely successful” with the 12% who felt they were only “somewhat successful” or were “largely unsuccessful”. Those who were “extremely successful” were also:

■ Four times more likely to have integrated their IT and non-IT service desks

■ Twice as likely to have a CMDB/CMS-related technology deployed

■ Dramatically more likely to support cloud in service catalogs

■ Twice as likely to be leveraging mobile for ITSM professionals

■ Nearly four times more likely to offer service consumers mobile support for ITSM-related actions

■ Twice as likely to offer users access to corporate applications through mobile

■ More than twice as likely to be slated for growth

Overall, the news seems encouraging for ITSM teams willing to reach out and embrace a growing set of technologies and responsibilities. This means being ready to support new roles and expertise, while promoting more informed dialog, both between enterprise end-users and the service desk and between ITSM teams and the rest of IT — including operations and development. The news is probably not so good for the fainthearted seeking to cling to traditional ways of working in an “ITSM silo.” In other words, both the need and the opportunity for ITSM leadership awaits you — and our data suggests that the time to engage is now.

Image removed.

Related Links

Hot Topics

The Latest

Manufacturing Organizations Doubled AI Investment Yet Only 37% Fully Prepared to Operationalize AI

While 87% of manufacturing leaders and technical specialists report that ROI from their AIOps initiatives has met or exceeded expectations, only 37% say they are fully prepared to operationalize AI at scale, according to The Future of IT Operations in the AI Era, a report from Riverbed ...

Optimizing Decisions with Edge-First Cognitive Intelligence

Many organizations rely on cloud-first architectures to aggregate, analyze, and act on their operational data ... However, not all environments are conducive to cloud-first architectures ... There are limitations to cloud-first architectures that render them ineffective in mission-critical situations where responsiveness, cost control, and data sovereignty are non-negotiable; these limitations include ...

The New Perimeter Is the User: Why Identity Is the Real Network Edge

For years, cybersecurity was built around a simple assumption: protect the physical network and trust everything inside it. That model made sense when employees worked in offices, applications lived in data centers, and devices rarely left the building. Today's reality is fluid: people work from everywhere, applications run across multiple clouds, and AI-driven agents are beginning to act on behalf of users. But while the old perimeter dissolved, a new one quietly emerged ...

When AI Infrastructure Stops Behaving Like Infrastructure

For years, infrastructure teams have treated compute as a relatively stable input. Capacity was provisioned, costs were forecasted, and performance expectations were set based on the assumption that identical resources behaved identically. That mental model is starting to break down. AI infrastructure is no longer behaving like static cloud capacity. It is increasingly behaving like a market ...

Enterprise Resilience: Understanding the Shift from Static to Dynamic

Resilience can no longer be defined by how quickly an organization recovers from an incident or disruption. The effectiveness of any resilience strategy is dependent on its ability to anticipate change, operate under continuous stress, and adapt confidently amid uncertainty ...

Mobile Users Expect Perfection in 2026

Mobile users are less tolerant of app instability than ever before. According to a new report from Luciq, No Margin for Error: What Mobile Users Expect and What Mobile Leaders Must Deliver in 2026, even minor performance issues now result in immediate abandonment, lost purchases, and long-term brand impact ...

AI Confidence Is High. Readiness Is Not. What the Data Tells Us - and Why It Matters

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the dominant force shaping enterprise data strategies. Boards expect progress. Executives expect returns. And data leaders are under pressure to prove that their organizations are "AI-ready" ...

Agentic AI, Realistic Expectations and the Future of IT Operations in 2026

Agentic AI is a major buzzword for 2026. Many tech companies are making bold promises about this technology, but many aren't grounded in reality, at least not yet. This coming year will likely be shaped by reality checks for IT teams, and progress will only come from a focus on strong foundations and disciplined execution ...

Trust, But Verify: Building Confidence in AI Through Human Oversight

AI systems are still prone to hallucinations and misjudgments ... To build the trust needed for adoption, AI must be paired with human-in-the-loop (HITL) oversight, or checkpoints where humans verify, guide, and decide what actions are taken. The balance between autonomy and accountability is what will allow AI to deliver on its promise without sacrificing human trust ...

Data Centers Plan to Reduce Reliance on Grid

More data center leaders are reducing their reliance on utility grids by investing in onsite power for rapidly scaling data centers, according to the Data Center Power Report from Bloom Energy ...