enterprise service management essentials

Enterprise Service

Management

Essentials

Enterprise Service Management Essentials

About this Document

Enterprise service management (ESM) is an industry hot topic, but its meaning isn’t always

clear. Some definitions describe a software solution:

“Enterprise service management (ESM) is a category of business management software—

typically a suite of integrated applications that a service organization uses to capture,

manage, save and analyze data critical to their service business performance.” (source:

Wikipedia)

Others describe a bigger transformation to how we work:

“Enterprise Service Management is about applying a service-oriented business model to the

way your organization works internally. It is an operational architecture where each

functional area of the business is defined as a service domain that offers services.” (Source:

AxiosSystems.com)

In this briefing paper, 6 industry experts share their insights into ESM, to answer these

questions:

▪ What does ESM mean to you?

▪ Why are we talking about ESM now?

▪ What benefits could ESM deliver?

Their experiences can help you understand the implications of ESM for your own

organization.

About the Authors

Scopism would like to thank the authors who helped to create this document. They are

world-leading experts, and their insights are invaluable. Some of the authors are also

members of the team of eConsultants at Scopism. eConsultants offer advice and support to

organizations around the world – virtually.

eConsultancy engagements can be used to provide support and mentoring to help clients

set and review goals and objectives, to apply skills and knowledge and to give a sounding

board for ideas and projects that are planned or in progress.

Learn more about eConsultancy.

About Scopism

Scopism helps IT management professionals keep on top of new trends and maintain their

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Martijn Adams, General Manager

EMEA, 4me

What does enterprise service management mean to you? ESM to me means that employees have one place to go to, to get help with whatever question or whatever issue they have. It is one big HELP button on their smartphone that gives them direct access, in a consistent way, to all services their organisation provides to them.

Why are we talking about enterprise service management now? I remember tool vendors talking about it back in the year 2000 already but it was never really embraced by organisations until a few years ago. I think it is a combination of employee expectations, new delivery models and the digital agenda of organisations. Today employees, in their private lives, are used to having access to virtually everything in a quick and easy to understand manner by simply clicking an app on their smart phone. They expect the same from all the services provided to them by their company. Waiting on the phone, having to go to multiple different departments, long waiting times due to disconnected processes, etc. is simply unacceptable to them.

The digitalisation of organisations means that all departments are looking at IT solutions to improve their service delivery.

HR, Facilities, Fleet, etc. are no longer just using workstations, a printer and ERP, they are now looking at technology solutions for anything and everything that is going on in their departments. This is, among others, made possible by SaaS solutions that are readily available to them for all kind of services and other technology advancements such as Localisation Services on smart phones (very useful for fleet managers for example). When you offer services, you will have to manage them making Service Management an area of interest to all these departments. And when your employees expect an efficient delivery of all services including the cross functional ones, you automatically end up with Enterprise Service Management.


What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? Happy employees! One place to go for whatever question you have, not having to figure out where to go and whom to ask, quicker responses, no finger pointing between departments. Happy employees are way more productive and less likely to leave the organisation. An additional benefit I have seen at organisations moving towards ESM is that departments open up to each other. There is more discussion, more collaboration, they sit down on the same table for lunch, etc.


Damian Bowen, ITSM consultant,

ITSM Value

View Damian’s eConsultant

What does enterprise service management mean to you? Enterprise service management enables business functions to actually integrate, to be one and to learn from each other for the benefit of the organisation. Integration and sharing is the key to me without question, it is how as a business we can deliver a coherent experience to our organisation. Cross department, us and them can be removed enabling us to deliver huge operational benefits. Sharing budget, tools, processes and management principles is a key driver for business success and if implemented properly and cohesively ESM can add significant value to any and every business.

Why are we talking about enterprise service management now?

The focus on ESM now has come from the efficiencies that are needed to deliver digital transformation.

Vendors are understanding that the ITSM platforms can be used efficiently across organisations not just for IT related issues. To streamline business processes and product sets departmental boundaries absolutely have to be crossed, and working together will always be more fruitful for every organisation.

What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? The ability to share operational expenditure means that more cohesive, fit for purpose solutions can be implemented, enabling the cost efficiencies to be delivered to multiple departments and the costs to be spread across departments not just IT. Reducing the number of tools, the expensive and sometimes unsupportable integrations is critical to deliver digital transformation. Business processes cross boundaries and supporting the whole business with structured, robust and efficient methodologies, will deliver improved service levels. As well as improved service levels, ESM will deliver increased return on investment, a downturn in operational expenditure and more importantly than any of these an increased customer and employee


experience. ESM will give you engaged users and customers, which in turn will help drive efficient revenue growth.

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James Gander, IT Management

Consultant, Gander Service

Management Ltd

What does enterprise service management mean to you? Enterprise Service Management is, to me, what the wider organisation's support services already do. HR provide service management, as does Finance. They may not call it that but it's what they do. In IT, we get fixated on the fact that we believe we invented it, but we didn't. In some organisations ITSM is more mature that other areas, and in other organisations it isn't. ESM is all about having processes of some description, to enable you to provide the services that the organisation needs and wants, end to end. This covers IT, HR, Finance, Payroll and many other services. ESM is "lean services" in one aspect.


ESM is starting to come into people's visibility now because of a take up in Lean working across organisations whether they know it as that or not.

If you can consolidate the end to end view of services, learn from each other, reduce waste and all use the same system to manage the delivery of those services then you save time & money and, again, reduce waste. However, it's been happening for years. Some small organisations have had a single point of contact for IT & Facilities for a while. All logged in the same place. Business Process Outsourcers have been doing this to reduce risk and save money. It's not new, just new to our conversations.

What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? As I mentioned, it makes the delivery of services easier for end users as there is one overall view of the services and everyone understands who does what. For example, if there is a new starter and the hiring manager can initiate one process from one form or system, and know that everything needed will happen, that's going to save that manager time and reduce stress. It will also reduce waste through re-entry and the duplication of information. Each team, HR, Finance, Facilities, IT etc. will have what they need, when they need it and be able to deliver in time. This then delivers cost savings, reduces duplication of effort and


reworking through incorrect information (name spelt differently across 6 forms) and ensures that everyone has what they need when they need it.

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Daniel Breston, Coach and

Consultant, Qriosity Limited

What does enterprise service management mean to you? It is the use of technology based practices and tools to help an organisation perform their work better, achieve a goal or remove an obstacle. ESM is customer focused and strives to ensure that better, faster, safer products and services practices are high in quality internally as they are externally.

Why are we talking about enterprise service management now? DevOps has started the conversation. Agile fast delivery has provided the processes and the realisation that technology in a business is now the business.

What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? Engagement, collaboration, agreed improvement across the value streams of work in an organisation, less expensive costs of technology by integrating tools into the value streams, improved customer satisfaction and retention, higher staff morale.

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Simon Dorst, Manager, Service

Management Services, Kinetic IT

What does enterprise service management mean to you? As it says, it means service management in the enterprise: the application of (IT)SM practices, tools, processes etc. in an end-to-end, business\enterprise environment. For instance: central request fulfilment, or a service desk, integrated change\project management (with Agile practices embedded) …


Mainly because vendors are pushing is as an opportunity to sell ITSM tools to non-ITSM customers. It kind of has been around for years, but I guess with the increasing focus of late on the Business-IT integration, and delivering true, business value, it became relevant to transpose some of IT’s success stories (in managing services) into the enterprise.

What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? As with most things it is not a silver bullet, nor should it be perceived as a point or tool solution (for instance for a central, enterprise service desk; this is ‘part of’ but not all of ESM). First and foremost, ESM needs to be driven by the ‘enterprise’, i.e. the business, and not IT ‘showing off’ their tool (or process, or …). The outcome\benefit and thus the accountability needs to lay with the business. But when done ‘properly’, the benefits are similar to what we want to achieve with ITSM: efficient, effective, end-to-end, repeatable, guaranteed, measured, managed enterprise services, i.e. true business outcomes and value. To me it gets really exciting to think how we can utilise enabling (ITSM) practices like Agile, ITIL, OBASHI and SIAM in an enterprise environment. Currently often the participation (dare I say ‘integration’) of the business can be a challenge or even a blocker, but when embraced ‘from above’ (from the enterprise level) we should be able to create some genuine end-to-end, all-of-business practices. It will also contribute to further ‘integration’ of IT and the business or rather perhaps finally get rid of the concept of ‘integration’ and accept IT as a part of the business.


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Karen Ferris, Director, Macanta

Consulting Pty Ltd

What does enterprise service management mean to you? Unlike what a Google search will tell you, ESM is not about a piece of business management software. Yes, technology will be needed to underpin ESM but it is not the tool that is ESM. ESM is the extension of best practice service management processes across the organisation. It could be, as most people are talking about, the extension of ITSM processes into other business units. Typically, into those business units that have high volumes of similar requests, have to deliver requests within specific timeframes and need to be tracked, have processes that have approval gates etc. However, these other business units may well have good service management practices already in place but are just not calling them that.

ESM is taking the best of breed service management processes and rolling them out across the enterprise bringing consistency and efficiencies.

Certainly, ITSM will have a significant input to this especially if the IT department has adopted and adapted best practice and is delivering value to the rest of the business. ESM has to be driven from the top down. It cannot be IT that tells the rest of the business that it has the best service management and that everyone else should adopt it. IT can certainly inform and contribute to the discussion and it may surface that IT does in fact have the best service management in place! But this has to come from collaboration and co-design to reach that point of recognition. ESM means that IT and the rest of the business need to join forces and adapt organisational wide service management expertise that meets the needs of the entire enterprise. Therein lies the challenge!



Good question. No idea! Many organisations have been using the 'ITSM' tools and similar 'ITSM' processes outside of IT for some time now. Maybe as Gartner suggests, it is vendor hype? Maybe we needed another acronym to fill a void?

What benefits could enterprise service management deliver? A better return on the investment in the ITSM solution if the rest of the business decided to use it. The more people and business departments that use a solution, the better the ROI regardless of whether it is the IT tool one or not. Avoid having multiple solutions in the organisation to deliver the same capabilities. A one-stop shop. IT may have a service catalogue to describe its services and how to procure them. But, why not have one service catalogue for all business services including HR, Facilities, Legal, Finance, Administration, Marketing, Security and so on. No more scrambling around trying to find out how to get advice on pay scales, or how to get repairs done, or how to request training, or how to request office supplies etc. It’s all in one service catalogue and service request catalogue. We are all used to using portals when interacting with our banks, retailers, government agencies etc. So why should the experience within the organisation be any different? Centralisation of the management of all services offered by the organisation. Elimination of waste though adoption of best of breed service management processes and removing non-value adding activities. Let's talk LEAN! Alignment of all business units in delivering value to the rest of the business and supporting organisational objectives. All of the above should result in increased employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Standardisation of processes across not only a centrally located organisation but across a globally distributed organisation where the same service management process may have evolved differently in each location. Breakdown of silos!

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