Your 2020 Vision – 11 Tasks to Tackle

If you’ve been on Facebook in the last month, you’ve seen the 10-year challenge photos. Some of the contrasts are quite remarkable. But when it comes to ITSM, every single year brings significant differences.

What does 2020 have in store for your IT service management? Here are 11 ways that you can move your ITSM into 2020 with confidence.

1. Increase Customer and Company Visibility

The volume of data will only continue to multiply in 2020. Businesses continue generating an abundance of data, but they’re not taking advantage of their treasure trove of data. Just 34 percent of executives claim to have achieved a single view of the customer as a result of aggregated data. When a business streams its ITSM data into their data lake or data warehouse, they gain actionable insights for better service management. 

2. Switch to Best-of-breed Tools

As a business grows, it also outgrows its small-business tools. Functionality that seemed at one time to be adequate functionality is now, in fact, limited functionality. An app that at one time served multiple departments becomes increasingly frustrating for personnel in varying departments with their varying needs. If your business has come of age, select the best available tools to continue that growth.

2. Extend Workflow Across Apps

Processes within an organization extend across departments. So they should extend across apps too. When a business implements that connectivity, all relevant personnel get the full picture without the business having to force anyone to work in a tool that’s insufficient for departmental tasks.

3. Improve Service Delivery with Machine Learning

Machine learning is expected to continue growing dramatically (CAGR of 43% for 2019 – 2014). Seeing opportunities in machine learning, enterprises are moving to improve their ITSM. For example, ITSM can use machine learning to create incidents with greater accuracy and to reduce the mean time to resolution.

4. Improve Data Quality

Most companies are sitting on unrealized value. According to Gartner, although data of unacceptable quality informs 97% of business decisions, companies can also eradicate 80% of data errors through appropriate governance. When businesses sync systems of record, they take steps toward improving data quality.

5. Stop Delaying That Upgrade

Upgrading makes IT leaders and their departments nervous. An upgrade can break custom development and the continued functioning of add-ons. But upgrading your ITSM tool means taking advantage of new features that you are paying for. Exercise due diligence to ensure a smooth upgrade. Then take advantage of all that the upgrade ITSM tool offers.

6. Close the Security Gaps

With the ongoing popularity and growth of cloud computing, data security is an ever-present worry. In fact, Gartner featured security within their list of five risk areas to watch for 2019. A list of data breaches reveals at least 15 instances in 2019 in which the security of over 1 million records was compromised. In one case, APIs were left unprotected, and 100 million user details were leaked.

7. Comply with Privacy Regulations

The California Consumer Privacy Act takes effect January 2020, and American businesses that have ignored GDPR are taking privacy more seriously. In fact, about half of US states have passed privacy laws, even if they are not yet in effect. Make no mistake – the privacy movement is getting everyone’s attention, everywhere.

9. Plan to Scale

Most industries still continue to forecast impressive growth. When businesses implement solutions that take scalability seriously, they demonstrate confidence that their teams will rise to the challenge and stay competitive.

10. Maximize the Value of Your Partnerships

Looking forward might mean looking back … to your purchases. Consider your existing partnerships. How can you draw more value from them? A review of your technology stack may reveal features that you could be taking advantage of. Vendors you have already hired may offer events, webinars, use cases, and a customer community – all of which may be untapped value for your company.

11. Outsource to Replace Resource-draining Projects

Many businesses find that DIY projects that seemed so economical years ago have in fact cost more money and required more maintenance than they expected. This is especially the case when that project is not your development team’s area of expertise. Identify areas that drain resources and consider hiring an outside service to replace them.

It’s not your responsibility to bring on the new decade. That’s coming, regardless. But there are steps you can take to ensure that your IT service management is ready for the challenges.

For your ITSM integrations, we can help. Our resources on connecting ITSM systems will help you navigate the service-management landscape in 2020.