Is your Tool delivering?
ITSM Tools are plentiful these days, there is an abundance of choice but it is worth from time to time asking: “what do I expect from my tools?” & “is it really delivering?”
I would urge anyone looking at a new tool solution to challenge the vendor and ask a simply question: “Is your solution cloud first?”
Why is it important? In a bygone age, you would purchase a tool, install it on your infrastructure and then have a client application on each workstation, the typical client-server architecture. You would be surprised at how many of today’s ITSM Tool Vendors have butchered their software to work in a cloud environment. Thus, inheriting legacy that typically does not lend itself to the modern day cloud era. Performance is often the victim of such a platform together with a whole range of other issues.
Considering the question, “Is your Tool delivering?” prompts us to think about what good looks like:
- Is it down to response times
- Flexibility to orchestrate workflow
- Solid functional rich Self Service Portal
- Security considerations
- Support for CMDB
- Knowledge Base.
The list goes on and certainly will be shaped by your business needs. Equally, the bottom line is all about improving customer service and the client experience together with driving down costs.
I have used many tools over the years and whilst having a functional rich solution that is highly customisable has been desirable, I am now questioning whether this is the best direction of travel.
There are certainly some core processes and controls that we should not tinker with too much. Generally, these are the core ITIL processes. Much research and time has been invested in perfecting processes such as Incident, Change, Problem and Request Fulfillment. My recommendation is accepting these processes out of the box. If your tool requires you to spend time setting up and configuring, then look at another tool.
Similarly, we have tools that make the configuration of SLA’s and Services optional. In my view, this is where the true value of tooling comes into play particularly where the tool forces a degree of configuation of SLA’s and Services as part of setup. Being able to measure your SLA’s across Services quickly identifies where focused and high value improvements can be realised.
Furthermore, imagine how this would work if you could measure across multiple vendors and have a true end to end helicopter view of the performance of all your services in a real-time environment.
There are lots of tools, but I would strongly recommend you take a good look at what you need in today’s cloud centric environment and challenge.
Is it time to review if your tool is delivering?
There are some great new offerings on the table and there is no time like the present to sense check.
Please Contact us for a non-obligatory chat of the best solutions for your Organisation.
