Why and How 2023 Will Be an Interesting Year for ITSM

Global business operations have changed significantly since 2020. Corporate IT organizations helped deliver this change and accordingly amended their IT service management (ITSM) capabilities. However, much of this was done “on the fly” to ensure business survival, perhaps based on meeting the immediate needs rather than reflecting the required evolution of ITSM to match the business changes.

Now that 2023 and a new annual IT budget are here, where and what does your IT organization need to change? It might have spent 2022 making the rapidly-delivered changes more formal and robust. However, further ITSM improvements are likely needed to meet business and employee needs in 2023 and beyond. After all, there’s no doubting the increased importance of technology to business operations and outcomes, with this only increasing going forward.

So what’s likely to impact your organization’s ITSM capabilities in 2023 to make it an interesting year for ITSM?

What’s likely to impact your organization’s #ITSM capabilities in 2023 to make it an interesting year for ITSM? This blog by @SysAid explores. #servicedesk Share on X

Trend #1 – value demonstration

Demonstration isn’t the key word here; value is. An IT organization can’t successfully demonstrate the value it has created or co-created without knowing what business stakeholders deem valuable.

So when (and not if) your organization needs to change the IT performance conversation – from what it has done to what it has achieved (and in business terms) – this understanding of value is paramount. It’s not easy, though. First, IT has probably never connected what it does to business results. Second, various business stakeholders have differing views on what value is (and isn’t).

A lot has already been said and written about the suitability of traditional IT metrics, with them focusing on the mechanics of IT rather than anything resembling business value. The current growth in experience level agreement (XLA) interest, and the use of experience indicators, is one way IT organizations can better align their performance with stakeholder value perceptions of IT’s value.

However, there are also other opportunities available. For example, employee experience improvement data can demonstrate that the IT organization understands “what matters most” to employees and is proactively investing improvement resources in the areas that will make the most significant difference to employee experiences and productivity.

'An IT organization can’t successfully demonstrate the value it has created or co-created without knowing what business stakeholders deem valuable.' – @SysAid #ITSM #ServiceDesk Share on X

Another example is the alignment of IT services to business operations to understand how IT performance affects business performance. This mapping helps with multiple value drivers, such as the prioritization of future investments, the focus of improvement activities, service-level reassessments, and the handling of incidents.

Finally, the power of conversation shouldn’t be overlooked. Whether this is part of regular service level management activities, formal relationship management, or other means, listening to customers is also an opportunity to better understand and demonstrate IT performance in value terms.

In 2023 your organization needs to change the IT performance conversation – from what it has done to what it has achieved (and in business terms) – this understanding of value is paramount, says @SysAid #ITSM #ServiceDesk Share on X

Trend #2 – people focus

ITSM and IT support are about IT, right? Well, they are, but they aren’t really – the technology is the “means to an end” and not the “end.” Both are people-based disciplines, where people help other people to deliver better business operations and outcomes.

This ‘trend’ not only reminds us of this but also allows organizations to focus more on how people are being enabled to deliver better business outcomes. It has two dimensions – the people who work in IT and those who benefit from their work. A simplistic view of this can be taken as employee experience, which applies to both employee groups. However, the employees in IT might also be struggling with their working environment (this might also be true for other business functions but is something IT can only influence through technology service and support provision).

This difference divides the need for people focus into two discrete but interconnected parts:

1. Attitude, behavior, and culture (ABC) aspects and their impact on employee well-being
2. Employee experience and its improvement.

In 2023 IT needs a people focus, that means looking at attitude, behavior, & culture aspects & their impact on employee well-being, PLUS employee experience & its improvement – @SysAid #ITSM #EX Share on X

In terms of the first, how long can corporate IT organizations continue with the growing level of employee well-being issues? If you don’t think it’s relevant, here are some recent well-being stats from ITSM.tools:

• 88% of survey respondents thought working in IT would get harder over the next three years
• 67% of survey respondents stated that working in IT has adversely affected their well-being to some extent.

Even taking survey bias into account, these levels are worrying.

More detail on the second area is embedded within Trend #3. However, the “elevator pitch” for this trend element is that IT organizations need to pivot, if they haven’t already done so, to make employee experience a key driver of IT performance measurement and improvement in 2023 and beyond.

IT organizations need to pivot, if they haven’t already done so, to make employee experience a key driver of IT performance measurement & improvement in 2023 & beyond – @SysAid #ITSM #Servicedesk #EX Share on X

Trend #3 – Advanced ITSM

In some ways, this third trend is a bucket that holds many of the other ITSM trends that have been relevant over the last few years (including trends #1 and #2 above). These trends include employee-centricity, increased use of automation (along with the opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI)), the improvement of existing ITSM capabilities and the addition of new ones (as needed), and the extension of ITSM capabilities to other business functions through enterprise service management strategies.

We’ve already shared various guidance pieces related to these trends on the SysAid and Joe the IT Guy blogs. Rather than calling out this guidance again, it’s important to realize that it’s the aggregation of all these areas and the need to evolve our ITSM capabilities that’s most important, i.e. the whole is more important than the sum of the parts. Plus, that effectively managing the links between the trends is critical. Here’s why.

The connectivity between people, advanced #ITSM, & value demonstration needs to be reflected in your IT organization’s 2023 improvement plans. This article via @SysAid explains more. #ServiceDesk Share on X

While each of the aforementioned ITSM trends will be helpful, the most important takeaway from this blog should be that there are links and dependencies between the trends and their elements. This connectivity needs to be reflected in your IT organization’s 2023 improvement plans. For example, whether adopting new AI capabilities or extending existing ITSM capabilities to other business functions, understanding the current employee experience and “what matters most” is essential to ensuring that any changes deliver the required business benefits. Without this insight, your organization is “flying blind,” steered by what your IT organization thinks is important rather than what is actually most important.

There are many relationships between the trends listed here. Please take the time to map them out from your organization’s perspective – you’ll likely find many connections, and that value and people focus are the key enablers for your organization’s successful evolution of its ITSM capabilities. 2023 will be an interesting and exciting year for ITSM in many organizations.

Value & people focus are the key enablers for your organization’s successful evolution of its #ITSM capabilities in 2023 says @SysAid. This blog explains more. #ServiceDesk Share on X

What do you think about these three ITSM trends for 2023? What would you add, change, or remove from my list? Please let me know in the comments.

Recommended reading:

• 23 ITSM Tips for a Better 2023
• Experience Level Agreements (XLAs) Explained
• How an AI-enabled Service Desk Improves Employee Experience