What Is an ITSM Tool?

IT service management (ITSM) tools empower organizations with the insights and functionality they need to effectively manage their software, hardware, and related services. For many companies, the right ITSM products can provide a game-changing difference in terms of efficiency, security, cost savings, and more. Keep reading for a quick overview of ITSM’s main objectives, the most compelling use cases for ITSM tools, and the main ways these products could benefit your organization. 

What Is the Main Objective of ITSM?

ITSM’s main objective is to ensure that IT resources are effectively deployed and managed, including both software and hardware. Since no organization has infinite resources, the idea of consolidating services and vendors holds plenty of appeal. Adopting and implementing the right ITSM tool or tools empowers companies to streamline and automate certain operations, increasing efficiency and security while reducing costs.

What Is an ITSM Tool?

To put it simply, an ITSM tool is a robust software platform that enables organizations to better track and manage their IT assets and services. ITSM tools, Gartner notes, offer “workflow management that enables organizations to design, automate, plan, manage, report on and deliver integrated IT services and related digital experiences.”

What Is an ITSM Product Used For?

Over the recent years, modern ITSM products have evolved to become versatile and powerful platforms, capable of helping organizations solve their biggest IT challenges. With the right ITSM tools and approach, companies can set themselves up for short- and long-term success—especially with a platform like Lumos, designed to grow and evolve alongside your business. 

When trying to determine the best ITSM tools for your business, it’s important to set clear objectives. Then, you can evaluate different ITSM platforms and providers to find the one(s) that best align with the organization’s top priorities. 

Some of the most common use cases for ITSM tools include…

• Automating time-consuming, routine IT tasks (like provisioning and deprovisioning user accounts and efficiently handling access requests).

• Integrating powerful ITSM tools with other business technologies, providing an all-important single source of truth for those tasked with IT management.

• Enhancing security- and compliance-related efforts through the management of user access rights, detailed audit trails, and compliance automation.

• Improving an organization’s ability to handle unexpected issues both efficiently and effectively through logging and categorizing incidents, prioritizing and assigning incidents to the right personnel, and tracking the end-to-end incident resolution process.

• Simplifying the management of user requests by providing self-service portals, as well as automating approval workflows and how requests are fulfilled.

• Minimizing risk associated with changes made to the IT environment through effective change management processes, including change planning and documentation.

• Identifying, analyzing, and addressing the root cause(s) of recurring incidents in order to prevent them from happening again—and documenting problems and solutions effectively (within an internal repository or knowledge base, for example).

• Tracking how IT assets are configured and managed, including through detailed documentation, change tracking, and impact analysis.

• Developing a better understanding of IT service performance by tracking key metrics (incident resolution time is one popular example), identifying and analyzing trends, and generating customized reports.

What Are the Benefits of ITSM Ticketing Tools?

With an ITSM ticketing tool—like Lumos—your organization can automate up to 50% of IT support tickets, leading to a wide range of positive outcomes. These include increased capacities to…

• Unify and automate access requests and approvals, effectively reducing how long users have to potentially wait for their access requests to be received and processed.

• Cut down on time to resolution (TTR) through an omni-channel experience that seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack.

• Leverage AI-driven insights through robust, highly-configurable ITSM integrations.

• Set the right controls to enforce least privilege by default—including the ability to create pre-approval rules for sensitive access, and to grant limited access protocols that can be automatically removed when access is no longer needed.

• Enhance your configuration management database CMDB) with more complete data, including timely and actionable insights into various aspects of vendors, apps, and access management.

Why Do I Need an ITSM Tool?

There might be a number of ways in which the right ITSM tool can provide immense value to your organization, especially if it could benefit from things like…

• Improved alignment between the organization’s IT team and the rest of the organization.

• An increased ability for teams to effectively collaborate, including cross-team collaboration.

• The ability to consolidate and streamline the organization’s approach to project management, boosting efficiency and productivity.

• The creation of a reliable knowledge base or similar repository for collecting and sharing knowledge, leading to a “single source of truth” for the organization.

• The implementation of more efficient and coordinated workflows for all things access management.

• A more proactive ability to detect and respond to unusual activity (as well as major incidents), and to prevent similar issues in the future.

Discover Lumos, a Comprehensive ITSM Solution

The Lumos platform includes everything you need to optimize ITSM for your organization. If you’re looking for a better way to manage access requests and IT support tickets, Lumos—and automation—could be the perfect solution. Ready to learn more, or see the platform in action? Consider booking your own free, live demo today!