Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) Tools

What is IT service management software?

Information technology service management (ITSM) software helps manage internal and external IT support. These ITSM tools aid both IT teams within organizations and managed service providers (MSPs), helping them plan, design, develop, monitor, and support continuous delivery of IT services. ITSM software covers almost all aspects of IT management, including software release and deployment management, incident management, bug tracking, ticketing, change management, and knowledge management.

The benefits of ITSM software

• Improved operational efficiency: One of ITSM software's major functions is the standardization of IT practices, allowing users to establish policies that facilitate a regulated and safe IT environment within their organization. This safeguards organization against both internal and external data threats and increases productivity via optimal digital resource utilization.
• Improved customer service: Effective ITSM software utilization reduces customer response time by helping support teams follow best practices while helping clients. Managers can use such ITSM tools to track their customer issues and identify the best available resources to resolve them.
• Reduce downtime through incident prevention: Predictive analytics modules within ITSM software help IT teams identify possible issues before they occur. Real-time monitoring of networks and hardware components, as well as vulnerability analysis, helps organizations take the necessary options to avoid or minimize any damage. Organizations can take help from ITSM solutions to plan out and prepare for major issue prevention efforts, which reduces downtime overall.

Typical features of ITSM tools

• Change management: Track, monitor, and manage all IT service changes/transitions.
• Incident management: Help support teams identify, resolve, and restore unplanned service disruptions.
• Problem management: Identify and solve the underlying cause of incidents, and prevent future incidents from occurring.
• Configuration management: Monitor and maintain configurations of IT components (e.g., servers, routers, switcher configuration information, software) and ensure all devices are running with the same version and configuration settings.
• Self-service portal : A platform through which end users can reach out to IT administrators and submit tickets, track their complaint status, and more.
• Contract/License management: Track and monitor contracts/licenses assigned to product or service offerings to stay compliant.

Considerations when purchasing ITSM tools

• Integration with existing systems: ITSM software has to monitor all software solutions, networks, and equipment within an organization, requiring the software to pull data from all interconnected applications in real time. This is generally achieved via its capability to integrate with other business applications, which allows ITSM software to monitor the health of all systems. Before making a purchase, software buyers should review ITSM systems' ability to integrate with their existing applications and infrastructure to ensure the software can access the required data.
• Total cost of ownership: The market is saturated with hundreds of ITSM tools, and direct comparison is difficult due to both the number of available solutions and the ways in which they differ. After building a shortlist of software that meets their specific needs, software buyers should carefully evaluate pricing models and ensure that there are no hidden costs, and/or that the final price includes any additional deployment, module, capability, data storage, processing, and integration costs.

Relevant ITSM software trends

• Chatbots will transform service management: Chatbots can swiftly respond to customer queries without human intervention. According to our research , small businesses can achieve significant operational and cost advantages by implementing conversational chatbots. Over the next few years, chatbots will begin providing basic support via ITSM solutions to customers and employees while leveraging advanced tools such as smart search, smart emails, and smart ticketing.
• Predictive customer service: Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will offer innovative applications in the service management field in the coming years. Major advancements in virtual personal assistants, recommendation engines, and physical devices such as drones and robots will drive adoption. According to our research , more than half of small businesses will adopt AI technologies within the next one to two years. As adoption expands, expect AI applications to support the traditional workforce and increase productivity.