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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

Organizations that perform regular audits and assessments of AI system performance and compliance are over three times more likely to achieve high GenAI value than organizations that do not, according to a survey by Gartner ...

Kubernetes has become the backbone of cloud infrastructure, but it's also one of its biggest cost drivers. Recent research shows that 98% of senior IT leaders say Kubernetes now drives cloud spend, yet 91% still can't optimize it effectively. After years of adoption, most organizations have moved past discovery. They know container sprawl, idle resources and reactive scaling inflate costs. What they don't know is how to fix it ...

Artificial intelligence is no longer a future investment. It's already embedded in how we work — whether through copilots in productivity apps, real-time transcription tools in meetings, or machine learning models fueling analytics and personalization. But while enterprise adoption accelerates, there's one critical area many leaders have yet to examine: Can your network actually support AI at the speed your users expect? ...

The more technology businesses invest in, the more potential attack surfaces they have that can be exploited. Without the right continuity plans in place, the disruptions caused by these attacks can bring operations to a standstill and cause irreparable damage to an organization. It's essential to take the time now to ensure your business has the right tools, processes, and recovery initiatives in place to weather any type of IT disaster that comes up. Here are some effective strategies you can follow to achieve this ...

In today's fast-paced AI landscape, CIOs, IT leaders, and engineers are constantly challenged to manage increasingly complex and interconnected systems. The sheer scale and velocity of data generated by modern infrastructure can be overwhelming, making it difficult to maintain uptime, prevent outages, and create a seamless customer experience. This complexity is magnified by the industry's shift towards agentic AI ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 19, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA explains the cause of the AWS outage in October ... 

The explosion of generative AI and machine learning capabilities has fundamentally changed the conversation around cloud migration. It's no longer just about modernization or cost savings — it's about being able to compete in a market where AI is rapidly becoming table stakes. Companies that can't quickly spin up AI workloads, feed models with data at scale, or experiment with new capabilities are falling behind faster than ever before. But here's what I'm seeing: many organizations want to capitalize on AI, but they're stuck ...

On September 16, the world celebrated the 10th annual IT Pro Day, giving companies a chance to laud the professionals who serve as the backbone to almost every successful business across the globe. Despite the growing importance of their roles, many IT pros still work in the background and often go underappreciated ...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping observability, and observability is becoming essential for AI. This is a two-way relationship that is increasingly relevant as enterprises scale generative AI ... This dual role makes AI and observability inseparable. In this blog, I cover more details of each side ...

Poor DEX directly costs global businesses an average of 470,000 hours per year, equivalent to around 226 full-time employees, according to a new report from Nexthink, Cracking the DEX Equation: The Annual Workplace Productivity Report. This indicates that digital friction is a vital and underreported element of the global productivity crisis ...