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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

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

In March, New Relic published the State of Observability for Media and Entertainment Report to share insights, data, and analysis into the adoption and business value of observability across the media and entertainment industry. Here are six key takeaways from the report ...

Regardless of their scale, business decisions often take time, effort, and a lot of back-and-forth discussion to reach any sort of actionable conclusion ... Any means of streamlining this process and getting from complex problems to optimal solutions more efficiently and reliably is key. How can organizations optimize their decision-making to save time and reduce excess effort from those involved? ...

As enterprises accelerate their cloud adoption strategies, CIOs are routinely exceeding their cloud budgets — a concern that's about to face additional pressure from an unexpected direction: uncertainty over semiconductor tariffs. The CIO Cloud Trends Survey & Report from Azul reveals the extent continued cloud investment despite cost overruns, and how organizations are attempting to bring spending under control ...

Image
Azul

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 ... 

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

An overwhelming majority of IT leaders (95%) believe the upcoming wave of AI-powered digital transformation is set to be the most impactful and intensive seen thus far, according to The Science of Productivity: AI, Adoption, And Employee Experience, a new report from Nexthink ...

Overall outage frequency and the general level of reported severity continue to decline, according to the Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute. However, cyber security incidents are on the rise and often have severe, lasting impacts ...

In March, New Relic published the State of Observability for Media and Entertainment Report to share insights, data, and analysis into the adoption and business value of observability across the media and entertainment industry. Here are six key takeaways from the report ...

Regardless of their scale, business decisions often take time, effort, and a lot of back-and-forth discussion to reach any sort of actionable conclusion ... Any means of streamlining this process and getting from complex problems to optimal solutions more efficiently and reliably is key. How can organizations optimize their decision-making to save time and reduce excess effort from those involved? ...

As enterprises accelerate their cloud adoption strategies, CIOs are routinely exceeding their cloud budgets — a concern that's about to face additional pressure from an unexpected direction: uncertainty over semiconductor tariffs. The CIO Cloud Trends Survey & Report from Azul reveals the extent continued cloud investment despite cost overruns, and how organizations are attempting to bring spending under control ...

Image
Azul

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 ...