Building The Future Of ITSM: Putting People At The Heart Of Excellence

Forbes

12 hours ago

Ernest Toh, experienced tech leader with 20+ years, driving operational excellence and enhancing business efficiency across industries.
The concept of information technology service management (ITSM) has been around for many years. ITSM has evolved from a reactive incident management approach to a more proactive end-to-end ecosystem that aligns with the business objectives.
From what I've seen over the course of my career, in the early days, organizations focused on resolving IT incidents and often operated in silos. Today, ITSM has evolved to support IT services and align with other business functions, thereby supporting the organization's overall business goals. Nowadays, multiple frameworks in the market provide best practices for managing IT services throughout their lifecycle, which helps organizations align their IT with business needs, thereby improving the efficiency and predictability of service delivery.
Emerging Technology
With emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins and the internet of things (IoT), organizations can offer more value more efficiently, potentially leading to cost savings.
To achieve cost-effectiveness, many organizations face tremendous pressure to innovate with their services and products using these emerging technologies. It is estimated that overall IT spending will increase by 9.8% between 2024 and 2025. According to Gartner, agentic AI is forecasted to be the top technology trend in 2025.
However, before investing resources in these emerging technologies, organizations should ask themselves how AI can help them achieve their short-term and long-term goals. Leaders should be clear about their objectives and whether they provide value to both their customers and shareholders.
For example, in the context of ITSM, experienced leaders should be able to identify how the services their team provides can be better streamlined to deliver value to the customer and achieve competitive advantages through waste elimination and resource optimization. They must identify where emerging technologies such as agentic AI can be integrated to achieve those goals.
Drawing from my experience, I have observed that when leaders possess a deep understanding of their domain and a clear insight into customer needs, organizations are better positioned to maximize resources and deliver exceptional value. This strong foundation not only enhances operational efficiency but also drives sustainable competitive advantage.
How Can AI Help You?
The question is not so much about whether a company should embark on an AI wave. Instead, the company should ask itself what its current business model is, what its business vision and long-term goals are and how AI can help it achieve those goals.
There are already many use cases that utilize emerging technologies in the ITSM process. This includes AI-powered virtual assistants that help users reset passwords, detect and resolve incidents proactively and automatically and more.
To ensure their AI initiatives are effective, companies should devote a reasonable amount of time and effort to change management. According to McKinsey, for every $1 spent on developing a GenAI model, companies should spend $3 on change management.
Today, there are many open-source large language models (LLMs) available for commercial use (provided companies comply with special licenses for their respective models). Although this might help organizations adopt emerging technology more quickly, there are other pitfalls that organizations should not overlook. This includes integrating AI with existing ITSM tools and workflows. Organizations that fail to integrate AI solutions with their existing ITSM platforms may delay or derail their deployment efforts, ultimately demoralizing their teams.
To have a sound AI system, we know that high-quality, consistent data remains one essential factor. Poor data quality can lead to inaccurate AI output, undermining trust and effectiveness.
Cultural resistance and change management are other critical factors I've seen hinder an effective AI solution. Leaders need to ensure that employees receive explicit messages about what a new AI deployment means for them and how they can be involved in the AI journey.
On top of all of this, the ethical use of AI, security and privacy are other essential factors all businesses consider. Organizations must ensure that their AI solutions comply with local regulations. The impact of a security breach involves both monetary (penalties from local regulators) and non-monetary consequences (brand damage).
The Future Of AI Innovation: Human-Centered Design
Embracing emerging technology is a journey. To achieve a sustainable solution, organizations must ensure that their products and services continue to meet customers' needs. I've seen how ITSM has evolved over the years; it is a progressive digital transformation that significantly reduces human dependency, enabling ITSM systems to operate as autonomous entities that make decisions and manage complex, decentralized and hybrid IT environments.
In light of all of this, organizations still need to recognize that people drive technology. Therefore, human-centered design must be a key part of all technology initiatives. ITSM can only continue to adapt to technological advances by having people at its center—whether in technology or organizational strategy.
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