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ServiceOps: ITSM and ITOps Move from Cooperation to Collaboration

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

Nothing drives IT change like … change. There has been plenty of that to go around in the past few years. Planned digital transformation initiatives turbocharged into accelerated implementation as employees working from anywhere raised the stakes of day-to-day IT operations to business-critical levels.

Complexity, criticality, and the velocity/volume of change transformed AI/ML and automation from pilots into survival essentials. In response, enterprises increasingly turned to platforms for AI-enabled end-end visibility, workflows, and action.

It stands to reason that all of these changes would drive advances in how the core functions of IT service and IT operations work together. EMA undertook a deep dive research project with 400+ global IT leaders to understand the practical realities of IT ServiceOps today and in the near future.

Spoiler alert: Part technology and organizational approach, ServiceOps by any name will become the prevailing IT operational model because it is practical and makes good business sense.

Staffed by very different talent profiles aimed at distinct spheres of responsibility, the two groups traditionally interacted only when absolutely required by circumstances such as outages and changes required by DevOps. Today, the notion of ServiceOps represents the growing fact that in a healthy enterprise, it is increasingly difficult to say where one function ends and another begins. It's all about IT service to the business, and there is no service without effective IT operations.

Execution and service are inextricable.

It turns out that organizational siloes can be just as deadening as siloed toolsets and systems. The combination of AI and automation can mitigate both. Automation, AI/ML/analytics, and platforms that welcome cross-functional workflows make cooperation a practical reality. The research panel covered a lot of ground when asked.

How Do IT Operations and ITSM Collaborate Using AI/ML and Automation?

In this converged reality, both ITOps and ITSM take advantage of mutually beneficial solutions that are aimed at and measured by business goals. The long-heralded IT/business alignment is a natural byproduct of cross-functional capabilities, as well as a prerequisite to effective IT automation.

ITSM and ITOps remain distinct functions with specific charters. However, shared technology softens the boundaries and moves them closer organizationally. The research showed very strong correlation between the degree to which IT service and operations collaborate using AI-enabled automation and self-reported quality of IT service, end-user experience, business innovation, and increased IT budget.

ServiceOps, by whatever name, will soon be the prevailing IT operational model. It is the logical product of common sense and technology combined for practical purposes. Both IT service and IT operations have to be at the top of their respective games. Hitting that mark calls for platform-enabled, AI-assisted automation that flexibly connects people and machines across the enterprise.

Digital transformation, business innovation, and a world filled with surprises guarantee a constant state of change in IT. With a heavy assist from technology, the ServiceOps model positions IT to be organizationally as responsive and agile as the business demands.

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

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ServiceOps: ITSM and ITOps Move from Cooperation to Collaboration

Valerie O'Connell
EMA

Nothing drives IT change like … change. There has been plenty of that to go around in the past few years. Planned digital transformation initiatives turbocharged into accelerated implementation as employees working from anywhere raised the stakes of day-to-day IT operations to business-critical levels.

Complexity, criticality, and the velocity/volume of change transformed AI/ML and automation from pilots into survival essentials. In response, enterprises increasingly turned to platforms for AI-enabled end-end visibility, workflows, and action.

It stands to reason that all of these changes would drive advances in how the core functions of IT service and IT operations work together. EMA undertook a deep dive research project with 400+ global IT leaders to understand the practical realities of IT ServiceOps today and in the near future.

Spoiler alert: Part technology and organizational approach, ServiceOps by any name will become the prevailing IT operational model because it is practical and makes good business sense.

Staffed by very different talent profiles aimed at distinct spheres of responsibility, the two groups traditionally interacted only when absolutely required by circumstances such as outages and changes required by DevOps. Today, the notion of ServiceOps represents the growing fact that in a healthy enterprise, it is increasingly difficult to say where one function ends and another begins. It's all about IT service to the business, and there is no service without effective IT operations.

Execution and service are inextricable.

It turns out that organizational siloes can be just as deadening as siloed toolsets and systems. The combination of AI and automation can mitigate both. Automation, AI/ML/analytics, and platforms that welcome cross-functional workflows make cooperation a practical reality. The research panel covered a lot of ground when asked.

How Do IT Operations and ITSM Collaborate Using AI/ML and Automation?

In this converged reality, both ITOps and ITSM take advantage of mutually beneficial solutions that are aimed at and measured by business goals. The long-heralded IT/business alignment is a natural byproduct of cross-functional capabilities, as well as a prerequisite to effective IT automation.

ITSM and ITOps remain distinct functions with specific charters. However, shared technology softens the boundaries and moves them closer organizationally. The research showed very strong correlation between the degree to which IT service and operations collaborate using AI-enabled automation and self-reported quality of IT service, end-user experience, business innovation, and increased IT budget.

ServiceOps, by whatever name, will soon be the prevailing IT operational model. It is the logical product of common sense and technology combined for practical purposes. Both IT service and IT operations have to be at the top of their respective games. Hitting that mark calls for platform-enabled, AI-assisted automation that flexibly connects people and machines across the enterprise.

Digital transformation, business innovation, and a world filled with surprises guarantee a constant state of change in IT. With a heavy assist from technology, the ServiceOps model positions IT to be organizationally as responsive and agile as the business demands.

Valerie O'Connell is EMA Research Director of Digital Service Execution

Hot Topics

The Latest

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

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 ...