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24 March, 2021 Uncategorised

Enterprise Service Management (ESM) – whatever we call it, its big…

I’m delighted to be part of a new weekly podcast project, the Enterprise Digital podcast, with my friend and industry colleague Ian Aitchison.  We’ve launched with 3 episodes published, more recorded and a great line up of industry guests already being scheduled over the coming months. The show notes are also published on our landing page and we are seeking feedback, comments and questions on all aspects of ESM from across the industry – if you’d like to join as a guest please let us know too. You can also access the content via Anchor.

So, why are we talking about ESM and what is the big deal with it? Well, quite simply it’s a huge opportunity for our industry to do 2 things –

  • Be the innovator and problem-solver to get whole organisations working together effectively and successfully
  • Use and expand our skills, expertise and knowledge of (IT) service management into a much wider corporate/organisational environment

The world is looking for help to develop a joined-up approach to corporate governance – to support our efforts in digitally transforming. The DT agenda is driving the need for back office working to be more efficient, integrated and accountable and in our ITSM world we have huge experience in developing how to do this with tools, processes, people, etc. There is also a growing demand for the development and creation of these internal ways of working to be built and maintained by administrators, not just technical people – the citizen admins and developers. New and expanding toolsets are now able to support this with greater ease – again we’ve been doing this in IT Service management for some time – with self service portals and ‘codeless’ workflows.

As the demand grows for more use of self service, automation, bots, AI etc, the penny is dropping that doing this requires all parts of an organisation to be working together , with more synergy and actual integration.

ESM is a positive initiative that gets the whole organisation working to the same goals and on the same terms and metrics. It can also deliver cost savings, particularly in terms of reducing the number of systems and levels of risk.  Governance is needed  to ensure that an organisation works in its own and its stakeholders’ best interests. This may mean according to a business strategy, legal compliance, some stated fiscal requirements, social responsibilities etc.

ESM governance is about ensuring that the co-creation of value happens – that the right things are done – by also ensuring that the organisation maintains the right structure, processes, tools and people in place to make this happen. This is an ongoing process that cannot be ‘finished’ – so the use of ‘maintains’ is key here.

We in the (IT) service management world know a lot about how this stuff works, and also how to do it. We don’t have all the answers, but in many cases we are well ahead of the game in terms of experience, battle scars and good learning points. We have a great opportunity to turn our world over and help to deliver (co-create) value for our businesses and organisations. We just need to shake off some of our It-centric and silo ways of thinking and rise to the challenge.

Let’s do this…

I look forward to discussing many different aspects of this on the podcast in the coming weeks, months and beyond – hopefully with a lot of contribution from across the industry.

Click here to listen to our podcast via Anchor. Other podcast platforms are available via the Anchor link.