What is ESM?
What is enterprise service management? Appfire’s Product Marketing Manager (ITSM) Faith Nyamande recently stopped by “Appfire Presents: The BEST ITSM Show by Appfire” to explain the meaning of ESM.
As Faith puts it, “enterprise service management is the application of IT service management to other areas of an enterprise or organization — so not just within an IT team — with the aim of improving performance, efficiency, and service delivery, as well as other things such as mitigating risk.” In Faith’s view, ESM software equips teams to be more strategic players within their own enterprises. To view the video interview with Faith Nyamande, please click here.
ESM also helps organizations to standardize and streamline their service management processes, and provide a better experience for both internal and external customers.
What’s the difference between ITSM and ESM?
ITSM (information technology service management) and ESM (enterprise service management) are both ways to manage services within an organization. But they differ in their scope and focus.
ESM arose from business needs: it did not come out of IT. It takes what works well in ITSM and applies it to the entire business. According to Faith, “ESM is broader in scope than ITSM, because anyone on the team can implement it, unlike ITSM.”
ESM goes beyond IT, allowing other teams to expand how they help employees and customers with their services.
Faith shared this example of ESM: “an HR team having a service desk that employees can use to self-serve, such as booking time off or viewing org charts. Instead of going to someone in human resources to say, ‘who manages this person,’ they can just log on to a service desk and find that information for themselves. They can request a new starter to be set up as well.”
The upshot? Employees no longer need to consult with a human in the HR function to do these things, giving employees the help that they need instantly through self-service and freeing up HR to focus on more strategic work.
Another example of ESM would be a sales team or a customer service department implementing ESM software to help communicate order and tracking status updates to customers automatically. It streamlines these processes, facilitating more effective communication beyond one channel (like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and SMS instead of just email, for instance).
On the other hand, you can think about ITSM as traditional IT processes within an organization. It focuses on the management of IT services like a help desk or system to help with internet connectivity issues, sourcing equipment for new hires, and other support requests. While ITSM focuses on managing IT services, ESM expands to all business-wide services, creating a more integrated approach to service management.
Think of ESM as an extension of ITSM that expands the scope of service management to cover all enterprise services, not just IT.
What are the benefits of enterprise service management?
The benefits of implementing enterprise service management software at your company include better overall integration across your business, cost savings, improved communication, increased visibility, and a better customer experience.
Faith shared that, “some of the benefits of ESM are increasing the visibility of work within an organization. We live in an era that is very knowledge work based, so it can be difficult to tell how long a piece of work is going to take and therefore, it is challenging to effectively plan and budget for it. ESM boosts visibility and control over processes of workflows, which allows teams to spot bottlenecks and issues, and over time continuously improve. And through this, it allows businesses to really manage the supply and demand of their services.”
ESM also increases productivity. Faith observed that, “ticket tracking software such as Jira enables teams to respond to requests quickly and all in one place as well. You can also download other apps within Jira to improve productivity, like Canned Responses Pro Templates. It’s really good for that specifically.”
Faith emphasized that a significant benefit of ESM is that it boosts a company’s end-user satisfaction. We tend to think of the end user as a “customer.” But a customer might be an internal employee within the business, or it might be an external customer.
The cornerstone of ESM is that it establishes expectations for how long a service request will take to fulfill, and empowers teams to continuously meet these expectations through processes and automation.
Some of the top benefits of an ESM system include:
- Improved efficiency: ESM automates processes across business functions, increasing efficiency and productivity, while reducing manual effort.
- Cost savings: ESM can lead to cost savings through improved efficiency, better resource allocation, and reduced downtime or service disruptions.
- Better collaboration: ESM enhances collaboration across business units, as well as with external service providers.
- Enhanced customer experience: ESM improves the customer experience by providing a consistent approach to service delivery across business functions.
- Scalability: ESM delivers a scalable approach to service delivery, enabling organizations to adapt quickly to changing business needs and requirements.
- Improved transparency: ESM provides greater visibility into service delivery and the day-to-day of business processes — giving you the information you need to make better decisions for budgeting and planning purposes.
- Increased ROI: As additional parts of a business use similar ESM solutions, the ROI skyrockets on ITSM solutions such as Jira Service Management.
And then there’s compliance. As regulatory scrutiny increases, many organizations view ESM as a competitive advantage. Properly implemented, ESM gives you a comprehensive overview of your organization’s entire value chain, from end goals to the front of the chain, encompassing every aspect of operations.
This holistic view helps you to spot inefficiencies and implement process improvements that align with strategic objectives, giving you a competitive edge in the market. And, if your company is involved in mergers and acquisitions, ESM can be a game changer, helping you to navigate through these transitions and integrations effectively.
Choosing the right enterprise service management software or system
Digital transformation isn’t just using the latest technology and integrations afforded by ESM software. It’s about how you change your organization so you’re ready to operate, work, create, and deliver products and services within a digital context. It’s up to you to take advantage of new opportunities to improve business processes and experiences.
As you consider your options, one question to ask is “how do we manage an environment that has dynamic demand (and various ways to meet that demand)?”
The key is managing all the interconnected elements: successfully implementing new ways of working that are effective for both internal and external services. It’s about applying structure and guidance to the practices within your organization so that they can create value to the external and internal business services.
How do you evaluate ESM software?
Choosing the right enterprise service management (ESM) software or system is essential for the success of any organization. The right system will improve communication, increase visibility, enhance every customer experience, and enable scalability.
Choosing the right ESM software can help you scale operations as your company grows. Here are some things to consider when selecting ESM software:
- Is the system flexible enough to accommodate new requirements and adapt to changing business needs?
- Does it provide real-time visibility into service delivery, enabling you to identify areas that need improvement and take corrective action?
- What operations can it help automate?
- What kinds of productivity increases can you realize with each system?
- Does the software offer a single platform for collaboration and communication?
- How will it improve the customer/user experience?
- Is it clear how it can help from every context of your business?
- Are there any existing processes that could be improved?
Once you answer these questions and have your eye on one enterprise service management system, make sure you can adapt it to suit your or organization’s unique needs.
And as you begin your journey to ESM, Faith has valuable advice for getting started.
“I would look at traditional ITSM principles. If within your business you have an IT team that is implementing ITSM principles, ask them how they do it for their specific customers, how they implement these processes. Then taking that away and looking at how you can implement that within your specific team.“
In other words, as businesses increasingly adopt digital transformation initiatives, IT can be your guide, providing an example of how to introduce ESM across the entire organization.
ESM can be a real game changer for today’s businesses; bringing much-needed clarity to internal services. With the right solution in place, ESM will improve your company’s performance, efficiency, and service delivery — all while mitigating risk. At the same time, ESM helps organizations standardize and streamline processes, providing a better experience for both internal and external customers.
Consider how to holistically manage your services (internal and external) in order to remain relevant now and into the future.
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