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Most ITSM Teams Are Slated for Growth

new research reveals that ITSM is becoming a hub of innovation
Dennis Drogseth

While IT service management (ITSM) has too often been viewed by the industry as an area of reactive management with fading process efficiencies and legacy concerns, a new study by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) reveals that, in many organizations, ITSM is becoming a hub of innovation. ITSM is shown to unify IT across its many silos, promote and measure IT operational efficiencies, and consolidate insights critical for IT-to-business planning. This evolution, however, is not without its obstacles and challenges, nor is it taking place in all IT organizations.

In this report titled Next-Generation IT Service Management: Changing the Future of IT, ITSM is examined from various perspectives, including organizational role of respondents, company size and vertical, geographical differences, and success-related patterns of behavior.

The catalytic role of ITSM teams both across IT, and in support of enterprise efficiencies, is still largely misunderstood by many in the industry. This research spotlights ITSM team centricity in everything from IT asset management and enterprise process automation, to increasing support for agile and DevOps initiatives, integrated IT operations, and being a center for IT governance overall — just to name a few examples. This extended outreach means reassessing ITSM in terms of relevant stakeholders, processes, best practices and needed technologies, all of which is examined in our report.

A few of the key data points from the survey are:

■ Most respondents (89 percent) came from central IT ITSM versus line of business (LOB)–centric ITSM. ITSM teams were evenly divided between those with a single service desk and those with multiple service desks.

■ 83 percent of organizations were managing ITSM and customer service desks as a single group.

■ Only 31 percent of respondents indicated using ITIL, but of those, the majority saw it as growing in importance.

■ The two leading strategic priorities were

- Improving end-user experience (internal to the business)

- Integrated support for security/fraud

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Most ITSM Teams Are Slated for Growth

new research reveals that ITSM is becoming a hub of innovation
Dennis Drogseth

While IT service management (ITSM) has too often been viewed by the industry as an area of reactive management with fading process efficiencies and legacy concerns, a new study by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) reveals that, in many organizations, ITSM is becoming a hub of innovation. ITSM is shown to unify IT across its many silos, promote and measure IT operational efficiencies, and consolidate insights critical for IT-to-business planning. This evolution, however, is not without its obstacles and challenges, nor is it taking place in all IT organizations.

In this report titled Next-Generation IT Service Management: Changing the Future of IT, ITSM is examined from various perspectives, including organizational role of respondents, company size and vertical, geographical differences, and success-related patterns of behavior.

The catalytic role of ITSM teams both across IT, and in support of enterprise efficiencies, is still largely misunderstood by many in the industry. This research spotlights ITSM team centricity in everything from IT asset management and enterprise process automation, to increasing support for agile and DevOps initiatives, integrated IT operations, and being a center for IT governance overall — just to name a few examples. This extended outreach means reassessing ITSM in terms of relevant stakeholders, processes, best practices and needed technologies, all of which is examined in our report.

A few of the key data points from the survey are:

■ Most respondents (89 percent) came from central IT ITSM versus line of business (LOB)–centric ITSM. ITSM teams were evenly divided between those with a single service desk and those with multiple service desks.

■ 83 percent of organizations were managing ITSM and customer service desks as a single group.

■ Only 31 percent of respondents indicated using ITIL, but of those, the majority saw it as growing in importance.

■ The two leading strategic priorities were

- Improving end-user experience (internal to the business)

- Integrated support for security/fraud

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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