Respondents were asked what the key drivers for their IT departments were over the next year. An overwhelming majority (64 per cent) stated that improving the service they provide to the business was their main focus, followed by reducing the cost of service provision (43 per cent).
In order to meet these challenges, 41 per cent of organizations are looking to upgrade or find a new ITSM solution, with 53 per cent of those surveyed, who do not currently have an ITSM solution, planning on implementing one within the next year.
This trend has been confirmed by Forrester Research. In the recently published Market Overview: IT Service Management Support Tools (March 30, 2010), Evelyn Hubbert stated, “2009 was a difficult year for IT operations professionals, as many organizations struggled in response to the downturn in the economy and many service desk technology projects were deferred or cancelled. Forrester sees this trend being reversed in 2010, with companies freeing up funds to improve facilities for their service desk groups that were either neglected or on hold for the past 12 to 18 months.”
The organizations surveyed have also identified that another way to reduce costs and increase user buy-in is through a self-service portal, which can reduce incident resolution time and free up Service Desk staff to tackle more complex issues. 44 per cent already have a self-service portal facility, with 31 per cent of organizations who do not have one in place, intending to implement one within the next 6 months.
In addition, organizations also see the value in having a Service Catalog in place to offer a central repository for all services, which has been confirmed by the success of the Axios Systems’ Service Catalog webcast series. 44 per cent of respondents have intentions to start a Service Catalog project within the next 12 months. This follows a similar survey carried out by Axios Systems at the end of 2009 where 64 per cent of organizations were planning to implement a Service Catalog in the next 6 months. Both surveys indicate that Service Catalog is high on organizations agendas, although the projects may have been slightly delayed due to external economic factors or that it has taken longer to convince business decision makers to the advantages a Service Catalog can bring.
Ailsa Symeonides, Sales and Marketing Director at Axios Systems says, “We are pleased that organizations can see the true benefit of ITSM software, such as assyst, and the associated features such as self-service and Service Catalog. assyst has helped our existing customers to not only remarkably improved their IT service provision and reduce costs, but also to gain control over their IT estates and streamline services offered by other departments such as Facilities and HR. Our Service Catalog workshops also help organizations to define their services before embarking on such a project.”
*The study was conducted in April and May 2010 and is based on over 500 IT professionals from large organizations.