IT is always in flux. It has to be. Business environments and industry practices are constantly evolving, looking for the cutting edge, and your IT solution needs to keep up.
Much like everything in life, IT service management goes through trends. When it comes to ITSM, these trends aren’t superficial but instead, ebb and flow depending on real-world factors, challenges and the goals businesses want to achieve.
It benefits an ITSM team to have the finger on the pulse. Knowledge of emerging trends empowers them to adapt their service management to meet demands and become a proactive support service.
ITSM trends change dramatically year on year, as low-priority implementation transforms to become a main priority in business. According to an ITSM Tools poll, AI implementation is a trend that 44% of survey respondents are focusing on, up from 28% in 2023. Here’s an overview of the ITSM trends for 2024 that can impact how your IT is managed over the year.
6 Top ITSM Trends for 2024
1. AI Implementation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a trending innovation for years now, and its staying power is a clear indicator that it’s the next step in business and IT evolution. With it now being an established technology, more businesses are turning to it in 2024 to give their production a boost.
For ITSM teams, AI can be adopted to aid with automation and productivity, with its main application being to automate low-level support tickets, freeing up support desk operatives to work on more complex issues.
AI covers a lot. Using this technology, ITSM providers can engage in a multitude of tools that improve data management, increase accuracy when completing tasks, and optimise processes. Focused on boosting production speed and productivity, support desks can leverage AI to auto-fill text in incident cards, and provide automatic support to solve IT problems.
AI may not be as new or flashy as it was a few years ago, but that’s because it’s getting more relevant and useful, and businesses are starting to discover more effective ways to implement it to benefit them.
2. Automation
Automation and AI adoption are closely linked. AI has made automation a lot more reliable and viable for businesses, and it’s a growing ITSM trend for 2024. Like AI, automation has been a buzzword for a few years, but the technology is growing rapidly, and ITSM teams are starting to discover how it can supercharge their output.
Automation can benefit ITSM teams in multiple ways. When implemented well, it has the power to:
- Improve ITSM service quality
- Reduce costs
- Enhance productivity
- Optimise analytics and data tracking
Automation is a white-hot ITSM trend for 2024. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 70% of all organisations will implement structured automation. This is an increase from only 20% in 2021. For ITSM looking to implement automation, the main benefit is its ability to handle low-level support requests, giving staff more scope to work on critical tasks. This improves the customer experience of the end user, helping the IT solution to adhere to ITSM best practices and values.
3. Cloud-Based ITSM
A lot of IT and business operations are now administered remotely on the cloud, and that adoption is only going to increase in 2024. According to Forbes, cloud computing infrastructure is forecast to top $1 trillion for the first time. It’s an aspect of IT that’s growing, and ITSM providers are going to be utilising this technology more in 2024.
Cloud-based ITSM is accelerating thanks to how it can benefit support teams, helping them provide a managed service that’s flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. The remote aspect of cloud ITSM also improves agility, giving them the power to respond to changing business needs.
Another aspect to consider is that many organisations are now adopting multi-cloud environments. This increases the demand for a managed service that can stay organised across multiple platforms, providing a unified view of IT assets, services, and processes. This aids the efficiency of businesses and delivers consistency.
4. Data Driven Insights
Data is vital when it comes to making decisions. The knowledge you can get from data provides context that can help businesses and services improve, using their findings to make changes. Data-driven ITSM is a trend for 2024, as more IT service management teams utilise data to help them analyse performance gaps in their service.
Not only can data driven ITSM improve service, but it can also boost productivity. With data tracking and analytics, support teams can monitor past behaviour to best prepare for the future and provide a more tailored service.
With data, ITSM teams can be more confident in their processes, as it shines a light on performance. It’s becoming more valuable for ITSM teams and is something many providers will adopt this year to increase their value and make their service better.
5. User Experience Focus
IT support partners demand good quality service from their providers. Expectations have risen, and in 2024, ITSM teams are adapting to ensure that they provide a good customer experience. ITSM has always focused on end-user experience, but it’s once again coming to the forefront for this year.
ITSM teams are more likely to provide a seamless service for their end users, to avoid them from looking elsewhere. Teams are likely to start looking at more customer-focused metrics when tracking performance, along with the traditional ITSM KPIs and metrics. By looking at factors like customer satisfaction scores and surveys, ITSM providers will learn more about what matters most to their end-users, powering them to act accordingly.
As workforces also become more diverse, expect ITSM teams to be more proactive at meeting accessibility standards. This ensures that everyone in an organisation can benefit from the provided IT support.
ITSM teams can no longer afford to overlook customer experience. According to SysAid, 73% of employees using a managed service consider it crucial. Focusing on customer experience is a great way for ITSM teams to beat competitors.
6. Value Driven ITSM
A big ITSM trend for 2024 is IT service management which is focused on delivering value. The whole goal of ITSM is to use it to enable businesses to maximise their potential. If it’s not being as effective as it can be, then it’s not fit to purpose, and end-users realise this. The key to ITSM is to validate how effectively it works to help businesses achieve their goals.
Things that ITSM teams may focus on to improve the value of their service include:
- Optimising support desks to not just solve tickets but to prevent them from coming in
- Using the most effective tools and applications
- Reviewing the agility of IT support aid so that it’s productive for the customer
- Ensuring that ITSM is cost-effective for the customer and solves requests at scale.
Providing value has been a popular ITSM principle since the updated ITIL 4 framework that added that focus to its guidelines, but in 2024 more ITSM providers will be trying harder to discover what’s valuable to each business to make it more bespoke.
Always looking to the future
At ROCK, we’re a forward-thinking IT consultancy. We value providing proactive IT support and management that is agile enough to combat business changes. Our innovative mindset helps us stay on the pulse of emerging technology and trends and implement them only to suit your business needs.
Our IT support is world-class and considered. Everything we do is deliberate and data-driven to ensure we achieve the best results for you. We don’t jump on trends for the sake of it. Instead, we evaluate every innovation to ensure that it’s tailored to your specific requirements.
Future technology and innovations excite us. Talk to us to learn more about how we’re utilising the latest trends to improve our IT support.
References
- ITSM Trends for 2024. ITSM Tools 30 Jan 2024 [Accessed 14 Feb 2024]
- 4 Predictions for I&O Leaders on the Path to Digital Infrastructure. Gartner 26 Jan 2022 [Accessed 14 Feb 2024]
- The 10 Biggest Cloud Computing Trends In 2024 Everyone Must Be Ready For Now. Forbes 9 OCT 2023 [Accessed 14 Feb 2024]
- 2023 State of Service Management Report. SysAid October 2023 [Accessed 14 February 2024]
