Overcoming the Challenges of IT Service Management
Wikipedia defines IT service Management as a ‘discipline for managing information technology systems, philosophically centered on the customer’s perspective of IT’s contribution to the business.’ Going by that definition, IT service management is primarily about probing and determining difficulties that are brought to light by a geologically spread user base. Managing or addressing customer problems generally involve adhering to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and other guidelines. The process becomes complex when there are activities that need to be addressed from different departments. There is an adverse impact on the quality of services in the event of lack of data integrity and cross functional collaboration.
Challenges of IT service Management
Some of the commonly faced challenges in IT Service Management are:
- Defining and implementing complex automated business processes as a tool
- Ensuring data integrity and cross-functional collaboration across geographically distributed departments
- Managing knowledge-base of resolutions for problems
- Creating and maintaining a single data-base for customer information
Solutions to overcome IT service management challenges
Even as the challenges seem daunting, there are definite solutions that can help overcome them. Some of them include:
- Tackling the issue of defining and implementing complex business processes as a tool:
Since most of the IT Service Management issues fall back on SLAs for resolution, it would be prudent to have Escalation alerts sent following a specific time based on the severity of the problem. Automated Business Processes need to be implemented in a transparent manner, so that users can use the same without facing the complexities of its creation. It also needs to ensure that problems are resolved in a timely manner according to the SLA guidelines Complete visibility through the resolution process is given to the user a customer management.
- Ensuring data integrity and cross-functional collaboration across geographically distributed departments
Using a separate tool to manage user problems can lead to extensive data integrity problems. Implementation of a single web based interface, allows users accessibility from anywhere at any time. Advanced technology can also incorporate detailed data authentication thereby ensuring enhanced data integrity and reduced data inconsistency.
- Managing a knowledge- base of resolution of problems for future reference
Resolving convoluted user problems require a lot of effort and at times assistance from various departments. By keeping a track of the errors and lessons learned in a knowledge-base, support personnel can provide speedy resolutions using product support and maintenance to any problems reported. Creating knowledge based entities that has an array of search facilities, will help reduce time taken to resolve a problem thus ensuring zero duplication of efforts in resolving a problem that has already been resolved in the past.
- Maintaining a single database for customer information
Maintaining customer details and application configuration information on different repositories can make cross referencing customer information exceedingly cumbersome. By creating interlinked entities and consolidated and linked repositories, relevant customer information becomes easily accessible.
A single solution that processes all the necessary built in applications for IT Service Management is of great advantage to any organization, big or small. It can provide an effective workflow based global platform to implementing IT service Management processes efficiently.
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