Enterprise Service Management (ESM)
Discover how to leverage ITSM beyond IT teams
Trundl
May 10, 2021
Guide
HR, Finance, Legal, Scheduling, Security or office car pool service-the Midas touch of IT Service Management extends beyond IT teams today. Here’s how Enterprise Service Management or ESM is driving digitalization across teams in modern organizations today.
If ESM had a bio, it would read: “ITSM for the rest of us”. A little elaboration would make it clearer: Enterprise Service Management or ESM is the practice of applying IT Service Management to other areas of an organization with a view to improve efficiency, overall performance and service delivery in the way an enterprise functions internally.
According to Forrester, ESM is “extending IT service management capabilities beyond technology services to address business-centric use cases; managing service demand and supply through a common platform, portal, and service catalog; and speeding up innovation and workflow automation through PaaS/low-code development tooling.”
By extending ITSM principles, ESM facilitates better service delivery for business teams-including but not limited to the likes of Human Resources (HR), Legal, Customer Care, Administration, Facilities, Security, Marketing, Finance teams.
Contents
- What is the difference between ITSM and ESM?
- Stepwise implementation of ESM
- Benefits of ESM
- Which teams can use ESM?
- Quiz: Find out your ESM Requirement Score
- ESM & Digital Transformation: Automated Service Delivery for non‑IT departments
- How different industries are nailing ESM with Atlassian tools
- Features of a good ESM tool
- Get expert help with ESM
What is the difference between ITSM and ESM?
Find out what is ITSM, and why it is the key to modern business success today
An overview
ITSM is the process of managing and delivering IT services to an organization’s clients—which may include both internal and external customers. However, ITSM strategies do not inherently apply to business processes beyond IT. This is a fundamental difference between ITSM and ESM.
ESM, on the other hand, rests on the foundation of IT workflows so that even non-IT teams can better manage service demand and delivery with a service management tool. In ESM, ITSM objectives are adopted to meet the unique business needs of each department, thereby ensuring everyone has access to a single frame of reference, and can seek help in a consistent way.
Stepwise implementation of ESM
1
Absence of internal communication between various departments in an organization
2
Using a common tool for collaboration across the entire company
3
A common service desk for customers
4
Signs of collaboration become evident as different departments align
5
Different teams now use a shared internal process for service delivery
6
Once the services are operational, it is ensured that work/requests are resolved and routine operational tasks are taken care of
7
Assessment is conducted to see if services are being delivered as promised
The entire process helps an organization’s IT team by relieving them of excess workload, and streamlining work via automation. Having an easy to access, user-friendly process in place to explore knowledge means users can solve their own problems almost instantly, in contrast to seeking help from or calling up the service desk.
Benefits of ESM
- Optimized processes, workflow, automation, and alerting eliminates unnecessary manual intervention. Thanks to ESM, self-service and self-help capabilities are easily accessible by employees.
- Conflicts or gaps in inter-departmental communication become significantly less.
- No more worrying about losing requests in a barrage of emails-or worse- putting up with unnecessary delay caused by slackers!
- Service provider gets an edge on better delivery in terms of employee expectations across ease-of-use, self-service, service request catalogs, knowledge resource, collaborative capabilities, etc.
- ESM opens up the scope for anytime-anywhere access to services and information, contributing to a customer- centric experience.
- Expected results are delivered correctly and in the shortest possible time.
- Improved visibility and governance within the company.
- Enhanced process efficiency within service domains to curb operational costs without compromising the quality or deadline.
Did you know?
Improving customer experience is a business driver for expanding Service Management outside of IT, said 77% of the survey respondents in an HDI study.
Which teams can use ESM?
Wondering which teams in your business would benefit from ESM? Here’s what this 2019 EMA report titled “Enterprise Service Management: It’s Closer Than You Think” has to say: When you find situations where end-users, employees, or customers are currently using email or phone to request information or services, they are falling off-the-tree ripe for ESM.
Find out your ESM requirement score with this quiz
Let us find out if your business needs Enterprise Service Management….
- Do you receive a high volume of requests from internal or external sources regarding similar or dependent topics?
- Does your business need a single source of truth for exchanged work?
- Do you want to create a favorable experience for customers so that they don’t have to wonder who to approach with a problem or clarification?
- Does your team deliver time-sensitive requests that need to be tracked?
- Do you think breaking down knowledge silos between departments would produce better outcomes for your organization?
- Do you or your team members approve requests from others or initiate specific actions?
- Do you need to share standard reports from time to time?
If answers to 3 or more of the seven questions above is YES, your business -irrespective of size- could benefit from ESM.
Get in touch with an expert to discover more about how ESM can benefit your business
ESM & Digital Transformation:
Automated Service Delivery for non‑IT departments
Human resources (HR): Handling requests for leave, life updates, orientation and recruitment, improving compliance with employee engagement, queries related to compensation and employee policies, and more.
Customer Service: A no-brainer, as this department is always dealing with a barrage of requests. While some can be resolved without much effort or time, others demand attention to details and advanced expertise.
Accounting and Finance: Be audit-ready, 24×7, and easily approve expenses, sending invoices, tracking payments. Make use of work queues designed for collaboration and prioritization.
Creative & Marketing teams: Requesting new creative assets or approving design templates, applying timely changes to a website, tracking deadlines, etc.
Legal: Existing paper documents are digitized for easier storage, retrieval, and future use. Approve and certify documents, track documents such as contracts, policy drafting, patent application filings, etc.
Purchasing/procurement: Processing purchase orders, generating quotes, authorizing discounts and price adjustments.
Security: Standardized incident response processes to combat risk through quick resolution and streamlined communications. This makes conducting security checks on new joinees easy too.
Administration: Request office supplies, manage car pool and courier services, or track which conference room is occupied for the week.
Facilities/building services: Manage requests for repair and maintenance, office relocations, parking slot booking, or office decor needs.
Trivia corner
A 2018 HDI survey and report, “The State of ESM,” found that:
- 84% of organizations currently have a formal ITSM tool
- 91% of respondents with a formal ITSM tool state that their ITSM tool can be used outside of IT.
- 63.5% of respondents currently use or plan to use, their ITSM tool outside of IT
In 2014, 68% of respondent organizations said they were using a service management solution in place. In the 2018 study, 84% said they have a tool.
In organizations that have expanded service management to non-IT areas, employee satisfaction has increased, and productivity has risen.
How different industries are nailing
the ESM strategy with Atlassian tools
Many trends emerged as key findings of the Forrester study mentioned above. As per the report, “customers are looking to increasingly leverage self-service options, speed up service delivery, and enhance their own ITSM capabilities to meet the challenges of the changing technology landscape.”
Providing a glimpse into teams other than IT and development, the study indicated that Jira Service Management blended seamlessly with teams like HR, Facilities, and Procurement, which were able to spin up new service portals and adopt ESM practices to significantly improve service request management.
Industry: Communications
Nextiva, a leading business communications company, is known for its Cloud phone systems and award-winning service.
Challenge: With their workforce doubling in a span of three years, the team found itself spending more time managing internal systems, and switching back and forth between tools. It became a daunting task to provide the fast, quality service they were credited for.
Solution: By centralizing onto an integrated, Cloud-based system with Jira Service Management Premium as a hub, Nextiva amped up efficiency and system performance significantly. The brand’s reputation for brilliant services was restored.
Industry: Automobile
Lucid Motors is known for the adoption of sustainable energy in manufacture of electric vehicles.
Challenge: Lucid chose Atlassian for ease of use, customization and scalability. Tools like Jira Software, Confluence, and Jira Service Management bolster the brand’s robust growth strategy and enable immaculate collaboration to keep abreast with constant innovation.
Solution: Jira Software helps deliver enhanced in-vehicle experiences, like entertainment and information, to meet the growing demand for swanky, safe, and smart vehicles. Confluence is the source of truth for documentation and information across all employees, contractors, and vendors.
Finally, Jira Service Management serves as the core of ITSM and ESM solution used by 15 departments (including IT, HR, and Legal) and growing. This included HR for onboarding, CRM for permission and data issue reporting, and Facilities for internal event planning and maintenance.
Industry: Education
Yale School of Management (SOM) is a globally acclaimed B-school with a mission to ‘educate leaders for business and society’.
Challenge: The Yale School of Management (SOM) needed a more robust solution for its IT team to better support the school’s goals. This was to meet the high service expectations of students who heavily rely on ‘on-demand’ experiences.
Solution: Before implementing the Atlassian solution, Yale SOM was working with a disjoint sets of tools which offered little transparency into tasks, statuses or metrics, and hardly any knowledge base for internal or external communities. With the introduction of Jira Service Management, service requests could be tracked easily and time to resolution was lower. Confluence served as a knowledge base for the entire IT department as well as a self-service catalog for the external community.
Industry: Finance
Balyasny Asset Management L.P. (BAM) is a global multi-strategy investment firm.
Challenge: They initially opted for a legacy ITSM platform because its extensive functionality seemed effective. However, the platform was too cumbersome to deploy, and unsustainable for the long term. The complex deployment demanded expert consultants, which eventually spiked budgets and deadlines. Moreover, once deployed, the infrastructure team of 30 would need dedicated staff just to maintain and scale their instance.
Solution: By extending their existing Atlassian suite – Jira Software and Confluence – to include Jira Service Desk, developer teams benefitted from their familiarity with the platform. Jira Service Desk was rolled out seamlessly in just a month, as the tool’s intuitiveness eliminated the need for specialized onboarding for users, and new admins can complete a self-serve Atlassian University training in no time.
Did you Know?
In its second Annual Analyst Evaluation of the growing enterprise service management (ESM) landscape, Forrester evaluated 15 vendors across 23 criteria, and results revealed Atlassian as a strong performer with increased market presence and the highest-ranked vendor in ESM strategy.
Features of a good ESM tool
- Transparent
- Cost-effective pricing
- Codeless setup
- Easy-to-configure forms, workflows and reporting
- Allows automated scheduling based on customized business needs
- Customer Support & Contact Center
Conclusion
Enterprise Service Management is a business strategy that can boost revenue, amp up efficiency, reduce costs and improve overall experiences of both users and employees. However, it would be unwise to think of ESM as a wonder-tool. Enterprise Service Management is a strategy, and demands periodic optimization post-implementation. Apart from choosing the right ESM tool, having well-defined goals will make it easier to optimize workflows and get the most out of your ESM investments.
Would you like to read about more ESM use cases in various industries? Interested in finding out how ESM can improve your business operations? Let us know.
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