A study has found that leveraging ITSM well during the pandemic came with having strong business-continuity plan and self-service flexibilities.

IT Service Management (ITSM) has been a major business tool in the past months of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns all over the world.

The five facets of ITSM in recent WFH times: impact of employees working remotely; financial and asset management implications; security and governance issues; third-party services and technology assistance; and business continuity success levels, were recently put under the microscope in a global survey conducted among more than 500 IT professionals.

Commissioned by ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation, the survey yielded several findings that organizations and teams may need to be aware of when adapting to remote-work environments.

Three factors for better WFH

As employees began working beyond corporate perimeters, the data and tools local to their network went out of reach. Therefore, a majority (78%) of IT professionals overcame this hurdle by transitioning to cloud services.

Further, global IT teams have adopted new tools and applications to accommodate a dispersed workforce. This has led to an increased requirement to update knowledgebase articles and user documentation to address the new technologies.

Of particular concern in these times with unprecedented service desk pressure, a considerable minority of organizations do not have self-service (28%) and virtual agent (24%) technologies to offset the workload. The survey points to evidence that remote ITSM helps organizations to handle remote-work environments well.

Further data shows:

  • 72% of IT professionals affirmed ITSM’s continued effectiveness even in remote-work scenarios. However, only one in two organizations had a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy to support continued productivity in new remote work environments.
  • 4 out of 5 respondents believed IT will have greater appreciation in terms of budgets, salaries and recognition of efforts, post crisis. Only 15% of organizations were under-equipped with the necessary applications and tools to enable remote working well into the crisis.
  • Only 40% of organizations confidently agreed that they were equipped to tackle the increase in security and privacy concerns related to employees working outside the office.
  • Over 70% of organizations that outsourced ITSM were satisfied with their managed-services provider’s performance. IT self-service was non-existent in 28% of the respondents’ organizations.
  • Most organizations had a business continuity plan (BCP), leaving only 20% without one. A reliable BCP was an important factor for successful remote IT support.

Said Rajesh Ganesan, Vice President, ManageEngine: “The pandemic has brought IT organizations to the front line from the back office overnight. How well a business has performed in the last few months has had a lot to do with how well its IT (team) has been able to enable remote work, and this trend will only intensify. As businesses strive to survive, compete and eventually lead in these tough times, closing the technology gaps highlighted in the survey will be a priority. We understand this shift and are adding capabilities to our product line to help empower our customers.”