2021 ITSM Predictions – It’s All About Digital Enablement

The world is now a very different place to when I sat writing my 2020 ITSM predictions blog last year. We have all been through so much in 2020. How we need to work has changed forever and, surprisingly, potentially for the better.

On the one hand, it makes looking into 2021 more difficult, because we simply still don’t know what 2021 will hold. But, on the other, it also makes it easier to isolate (no pun intended!) what’s going to be most important for your business in the year ahead and the role that your IT service management (ITSM) team needs to play.

So, please keep reading to find out where I’m predicting that ITSM is heading in the year ahead. But first a very quick look at how my 2020 predictions fared among the year’s heartaches and heroics.

2020 in the rear-view mirror

I think that many of us are quite looking forward to having 2020 behind us. But there have been spots of sunshine. For example, I’d be remiss if I didn’t call out the heroics of the many IT professionals that kept their businesses and society alive – sometimes literally. With 2021 now hopefully “the sunshine after the rain” that will allow us to finally get back to some semblance of normality both at home and in the workplace (although for some I imagine the dividing line has blurred considerably during 2020).

So, what did I forecast in last year’s 2020 ITSM predictions blog? In it, I called out that:

1. Enterprise service management will be absolutely mainstream – it certainly has been from our perspective and I’d love to see an industry survey validate this too.
2. Artificial intelligence (AI) will be increasingly considered in a pairing of “AI and advanced automation” – which the industry is certainly seeing take shape.
3. Staff wellbeing will finally be seen as a ticking timebomb for ITSM – I still think it is, and this was before the impact of isolation and the stresses of the risks to continued employment came into play.
4. The delayed emergence of ITIL 4’s impact on the ITSM status quo – there’s definitely a lot of great guidance in ITIL 4 but with everything else going on I think its “opportunity” was muted in 2020.
5. Productivity is now the new face of employee experience – in many ways, this is the prediction that unexpectedly summed up what employees felt in 2020, with this and the need for service resilience now carrying into 2021 too.

My 2021 ITSM predictions

Okay, admittedly, the title should’ve been “My ONE 2021 ITSM prediction” because given where the world is right now, there’s only one prediction, or trend, that “rules them all” for 2021 – with everything else I mention aimed at supporting the needs of this primary trend.

And this is it:

ITSM needs to be focusing on enabling business operations
through the delivery of optimized digital workflows.

In support of this, there was a popular and humorous social media meme during the height of the (first wave of the) global pandemic:

Image source: https://www.businessillustrator.com/what-is-digital-transformation-cartoon-infographic/

And when we think of digital transformation across its three elements:

1. New products and services that leverage technology and data
2. Improved customer engagement mechanisms that again leverage technology and data
3. Optimized back-office operations that exploit the benefits available from increased technology and data use.

It’s apparent why and how the global pandemic has caused the acceleration of digital transformation strategy execution across organizations of all sizes.

It’s the 3rd of these digital transformation elements where ITSM has the biggest role to play in the year ahead – that of digitally transforming back-office operations. Think of this as replacing the “band-aid” that was applied to business operations during the pandemic, to allow business processes and the people that employ them to continue to function, with something more suited to their current and future needs.

Of course, ITSM will still be needed across all three elements from an IT service delivery and support perspective as a minimum. But it’s in this third area of back-office digital transformation and IT’s enablement of digital workflows that we’ll see organizations increasingly reliant on their existing and improved ITSM capabilities.

What your business needs from ITSM in 2021

The global pandemic not only showcased the heroics of many IT teams, but it also started to demonstrate the “art of the digital-workflow possible” versus the current process status quo. In particular, how traditional processes and practices are limited by their reliance on manual tasks and interventions – with this something that was likely affecting all three of quality, speed, and cost even before employees were forced to work remotely.

In response to the impact of the crisis, technology-based band-aids were applied to keep businesses, and their employees, working. And now, even as many countries are unfortunately ending 2020 with a second “lockdown,” there’s a need for these new technology-enabled processes and practices to become optimized digital workflows.

Digital workflows are “the order of the day”

Thanks to the pandemic, and all the associated pain it unfortunately brought, your organization has hopefully woken up to the need for optimized digital workflows. Including the knowledge that:

• There are better ways for work to be handled
• Employee productivity is critical to business success
• Improved insight into operational performance, service quality, and outcome delivery is a modern-day business must-have.

Digital workflows help your organization and all its “parts” to be all three of “better, faster, cheaper.” Their adoption will be a critical business strategy going forward, with your IT organization leading the way with its knowledge, skills, and experience of delivering optimized digital workflows using the corporate service management tool.

The enablement of digital workflows across your organization won’t, of course, be the only focus for your ITSM-based improvements in 2021, but it will likely be one of the most important.

This is exactly why we introduced SysAid Workflow Designer – to allow our customers to get better operations and better outcomes.

One of our customers, Teresa Eng, Senior Business Technology Analyst at BBAM (one of the leading aircraft leasing companies in the world) said that: “SysAid made us so much more efficient. It was an absolute gamechanger!” We have a great case study about this that I recomemend you take a look at.

The key to enabling your organization’s digital workflows in 2021

Before continuing, I need to stress that while I’ve called out the above trend specifically for ITSM, in reality it’s a 2021 business trend. Because, while ITSM, and ITSM tools, have a big role to play here, it’s ultimately about providing the capabilities that enable your business to function as it needs to.

The implementation and adoption of digital workflows is ultimately a key 2021 business trend.

Similarly, and importantly, while many will see the introduction of digital workflows as a technology change, the reality is that it’s a people change – because it impacts the traditional ways of working.

This will need organizational change management tools and techniques. The digital enablement of operations should also be viewed as being people-centric IT in terms of its benefits. For example, in ensuring that employees can remain productive (or perhaps perform even more productively) given the new ways of socially-distanced and remote-based working. Or helping to influence the wellbeing of employees – in terms of providing better working practices and outcomes, and less friction and frustration, for both service providers and service receivers during the strange times that we’re living in.

In 2021, your organization’s ability to quickly implement and adopt digital workflows will be a key competitive differentiator. Whether those workflows are in business operations, human resources (HR), legal, facilities, customer services, IT, or any other part of the organization, your optimized digital workflows will help to ensure that operations and delivered outcomes meet what’s needed by your business. Everyone wins.

So, that’s my view of what 2021 will hold for ITSM – that the need for digital workflows will drive so much of the year’s ITSM and business change. What do you think? Please let me know in the comments.