Understanding Enterprise Service Management

Enterprises are facing new challenges not just in terms of staying relevant in the market and customers but also in controlling internal organizational chaos.

Over the years, there have been a number of frameworks and models that were consistently being rolled out to assist enterprises to declutter operational and organizational challenges, streamline enterprise services and service delivery, and identify loopholes and fix them.

The recent buzzword that seems to be garnering attention in the circle is Enterprise Service Management (ESM). For a lot of us, the term is new and quite bewildering.

Thus, we are clearing all the misconceptions and assumptions around the term to give you comprehensive insights into what enterprise service management is all about.

Understanding Enterprise Service Management

Though there is no clear definition or set standards for enterprise service management, every company or business has its interpretation of the term. It refers to the adoption of service management practices prevalent in the core Information Technology sector.

This means the application of service-specific business models that have been designed and built to deliver value and efficiency for IT in the non-IT sectors of the company.

Still, confused?

To sum ESM up in simple words, this is the use of one single platform to monitor, track and handle processes and workflows across different departments in a company. This not just covers the IT niche but lets a company manage non-IT departments like HR, finance, facilities, legal and more.

Tailored enterprise software applications are usually deployed to manage services across departments, where processes are streamlined to be more efficient and cost-effective.

If you’re an IT professional or have exposure in this sector, you would have already understood that ESM is an extension of the core philosophies and principles of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) and its application on a much larger scale with the incorporation of workflow automation and other critical modules.

ITSM to ESM

Like we mentioned, ESM has its foundation in ITSM. That’s why ESM has close similarities even when deployed at an enterprise level. You could see that ESM incorporates practices where users are enabled to make requests that can be seamlessly prioritized, tracked and fulfilled.

IT is still at the fulcrum of all processes, where they are the basis on which larger service models for enterprises are built. In fact,  If you notice, companies that are moving towards ESM are building on their pre-existing ITSM solutions, features, and principles.

In fact, Gartner has reported that out of over 1600 client inquiries on the topic on ITSM tools, 18% have included discussion of using ITSM tools beyond IT.

For example, users have the ability to get swift assistance, whenever needed, with incident management. Not only quick response, but some common trackable requests can also be fulfilled and processes can be automated to boost productivity across departments.

Users can also enable self-service by quickly finding solutions to common questions and concerns with universal search and a comprehensive knowledge-base.

While enterprise service management and ITSM are completely different in terms of their intended scope, they share their roots in ITIL (Information Technology Information Library) and are generally incorporated into an organization with common sets of tools, processes, and concepts.

A lot of companies leverage the potential of ITIL processes and domains to be their basis for the development of ESM operations and build ITSM platforms to provide IT support to their ESM processes.

Why Businesses Shouldn’t Overlook Enterprise Service Management

Though ESM can be quite daunting at first, the advantages it offers when you understand are phenomenal. If you’re still unsure of the benefits of ESM, here are some crucial ones.

Improved Efficiency 

Staff members across departments perform tons of redundant tasks on a daily basis. This limits the time they could be spending on other crucial work that potentially carries more weightage and has more impact.

ESM paves the way by making it possible to automate key operations with multi-level workflow automation. This delivers added efficiency and lets users sort their organizational priorities.

Better ROI

If an existing ITSM tool is used for implementing an ESM solution, the organization will yield a higher return on investment on the ITSM solution as there will be more people and business functions using the platform.

ESM helps optimize business functions across multiple departments in a single platform, this further helps organizations save costs.

Airtight Governance and Transparency

Every organization has a collective goal that all the departments contribute to. When you implement ESM’s service analytics capabilities, you can have insights on the performance of each department.

It allows stakeholders to gauge the value each department brings to the company and identify loopholes that are preventing businesses from delivering 100% service to its customers.

Enhanced Service and Customer Experience

The implementation of ESM enables support departments to provide exceptional services to improve customer satisfaction through an enterprise self-service portal. Departments can maintain autonomy with individual request templates and service catalogs which are powered by automation.

Systemized Operations

One of the most plaguing concerns in growing businesses, especially those that are consistently scaling, is the randomness in operations and workflows.

If you notice, every department has a unique way of working and delivering enterprise services. When the organization grows, inefficiencies in processes become hard to handle.

ESM provides a way to standardize these processes across the organization. This means a uniform and unanimous approach to working, regardless of the department or team.

Increased Inter-departmental Collaboration

Oftentimes, staff members from one department have to communicate and work with members from other departments. The HR might need the support of the IT team, the legal team might have to work with the finance team and more.

ESM simplifies collaboration with a multi-level approval workflow and helps members assign responsibilities to work efficiently. ESM also makes it simpler to track the accountability of personnel across diverse teams and departments.

Use Cases

For those wondering who can benefit from ESM, understand that enterprise service management has been successfully deployed across various departments in organizations.

From customer service and HR to purchasing, ESM has allowed stakeholders to optimize efficiencies and deliver better services. For a better understanding, here are some real-world use cases.

Customer Service

This is probably where ESM offers the best value. On a daily basis, customer service representatives get tons of tickets and requests. ESM can help automate redundant requests and dedicate more time to requests that involve significant research and resolution.

Human Resources

The role of Human Resources is very critical in an organization. The more we can enable the HR personnel to be productive with everyday tasks, the better it is for the organization.

ESM helps HR handle leave requests better and juggle multiple tasks like recruitment and training, onboarding, salary inquiries, health plans, and questions on benefits, perks, and more.

Finance

The finance department is the backbone of any organization. ESM allows the department to quickly and easily approve payments, send out invoices to respective teams and stakeholders, track payments, manage compliances, and do more.

Facilities

From handling requests such as requests for maintenance and repairs, workspace management and furniture requirements from different teams to following up on them and closing them, ESM allows a streamlined method of operation and minimizes delivery time.

Administration

Enterprise service management can help the administration department to manage travel requests, printing and courier services, and tracking meeting rooms, etc.

Purchasing

Enterprise service management can enable the purchasing department to process purchase orders, price adjustments, building quotes, authorizing discounts, promo codes and more.