The Future of ITSM –

Survey Results 2019

Here’s what’s important for you
and your ITSM team to know

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 Table of Contents

Page

3 Overview

6 Working in IT

8 Recruitment and Retention

11 New Technology

13 ITSM Best Practice

16 Meeting Service Expectations

20 Enterprise Service Management

23 Conclusion

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Overview
As we progress through 2019, the future of IT service management
(ITSM) and IT support seems to be approaching at an increasing
rate of knots. In particular, thanks to the respective rates of change
relative to business operations, technology, and consumer-world
services and support.

As to what our ITSM future will hold, it’s in many ways an unknown.
However, in the words of “the founder of modern management”
Peter Drucker: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Hence, in Q4 2018, SysAid and ITSM.tools ran a global ITSM future-
readiness survey to better understand what ITSM professionals are
thinking and doing to “survive and thrive” in this rapidly changing
IT service delivery and support world. We asked 13 questions related
to the potential future challenges and opportunities that the
survey-respondents and their organizations face. These questions
were wide-ranging and deliberately spread across six distinct areas:

1. Working in IT

2. Recruitment and retention

3. New technology

4. Best practice

5. Meeting service expectations

6. Enterprise service management

Some of the 13 questions replicated those used in the mid-

2017 version of the survey1 – from which the 2017 responses are
referenced within this report – while others are new additions. With
the former providing insight into how respective situations and
opinions have changed over the last two years.

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The key 2019 survey findings, from a sample of 339 responses,
include that:

l 84% of respondents think that working in IT will get harder

over the next three years.

l Only one-quarter of respondents feel that their efforts and

value are sufficiently recognized by management versus 72%
respondents who feel “undervalued” to some extent.

l Just over half of respondents feel that working in IT is adversely

affecting their personal wellbeing – with 75% of these
reporting that their efforts are not being recognized.

l Three-quarters of respondents state that it’s currently difficult

to recruit for key IT roles versus the 12% that don’t see an issue.

l 9% of respondents are already using chatbots and other bots

in IT management use cases, plus another 29% are already
experimenting with them. But 45% currently have no plans to
use bots in the next 12 months.

l Only 9% of respondents view artificial intelligence (AI) as a

serious job killer in ITSM, this level is down from 16% in 2017.

l In terms of new and updated ITSM best practice sources, 27%

of respondents will still use what they’ve always used and
another 23% think the variety of possible best-practice sources
is becoming confusing.

l Only 6% of respondents state that ITSM personnel have

been fully involved in their company’s DevOps activities and
ambitions, down from 13% in 2017. Partial involvement has also
dropped to 27% (from 40%) between surveys.

l 25% of respondents think that their IT organization meets

employee expectations better than consumer-world
companies, 28% think they’re at a similar level, and 40% think
that they lag behind. There’s a strong correlation between IT
staff receiving recognition and meeting employees’ service
expectations.

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 l Surprisingly, 75% of the non-best-practice-adopters think
that they’re the same or better than general consumer-world
companies in meeting service expectations – significantly
exceeding the position of those who’ve adopted ITSM best
practice.

l Half of respondents already think that employee experience

is important to their IT organization and another quarter will
do so by 2021. Just 18% think that employee experience will
never be important.

l Two-thirds of respondents state that their organization

either has, or is planning to develop, an enterprise service
management strategy.

l Having an enterprise service management strategy and the

extended use of ITSM tools are strongly correlated – meaning,
a strategy clearly increases the use of ITSM tools in multiple
business functions, whereas the single-use (of a tool) is more
common where there’s no strategy.

Greater detail on each of these findings can be found in the main

body of this report.

Details on the survey’s promotion methods and respondents are

included in the endnotes.2

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1. Working in IT
Modern-day work life can be a challenge no matter your
department and role. The days of 9-5 working are long gone,
especially in management roles, and the mandate for IT
departments to “do more with less” has been prevalent for at least
a decade.

Add to this:

l The increasing technology and business complexity and rate

of change

l The potential need to reskill (because of this change)

l IT skills shortages (please see a later related question)

l Higher customer expectations

l Information security issues

And the challenge of working in IT becomes apparent.

So, is working in IT getting harder? And, if so, how is this affecting

those who work in IT?

To get answers to these questions, the first survey question asked:

“Do you think working in corporate IT will get harder over

the next three years?”

This garnered the following responses:

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 A total of 84% of respondents believe that working in IT will
get harder over the next three years. It’s up only 2% on the 2017
results but there has been a larger movement between “all IT
roles” and “some IT roles,” in favor of the latter. Only 13% of survey
respondents don’t think that their lives (and, one assumes, the
lives of their colleagues) will get harder – a 2% drop from the
previous survey.

As to why there’s an increased response for “Yes, for some

IT roles” (at 53%) over “Yes, for all IT roles” (at 31%) – this likely
reflects that some IT roles are getting harder, while others could
even be getting easier, due to the level of impact from the
aforementioned changes. For example, service desk agents – who
are usually under far greater scrutiny than most other, if not all,
IT roles – are facing the triple pressures of increased technology
usage, a wider spectrum of technology products and services,
plus increased employee expectations of services and support.
Whereas roles related to the management of legacy IT systems,
say, might be viewed as being less likely to be impacted.

Additionally, let’s not forget that there might also be the very-
human assumption that “the grass is always greener” – with
respondents assuming, especially since they have very little
insight beyond their own remit, that their peers in other teams
aren’t affected as much as themselves.

The second question then asked:

“Do you feel that working in IT is adversely affecting your

personal wellbeing?”

This garnered the following responses:

The survey responses show that a worrying 55% of people think

that working in IT is adversely affecting their personal wellbeing
– so that’s every other person in IT. Even more worrying is the one
in ten people who think that the situation is significant by their
selection of the “Yes, considerably” option.

The topic of wellbeing is also discussed in the next section when

the value (and recognition) of individuals is considered.
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2. Recruitment and Retention
So, the survey respondents believe that working in IT can be
difficult, with it likely to become even more so (and for half
of the workforce it’s adversely affecting their wellbeing). The
obvious question this brings up relates to the ability to retain staff
(because unhappy staff might leave). However, this is only one
side of the coin, and we shouldn’t overlook the potential impact
it might have on recruiting new staff to either replace those who
leave or to fill additional – or changed – roles that require different
knowledge, skillsets, and experiences.

To better understand the future ability of IT organizations to

recruit and retain staff, the survey asked:

“Is it difficult to recruit for key IT roles right now?”

This garnered the following responses:

Three-quarters of survey respondents state that it’s currently

difficult to recruit for key IT roles, versus the 12% that don’t see
an issue. However, it’s open to interpretation as to which IT roles
these are – for instance, we could assume that these are related to
artificial intelligence, data science, and cloud exploitation where
skill-scarcity is an issue. But given that the survey is aimed at
ITSM professionals, we shouldn’t assume that this has no relation
to ITSM roles – from service desk agents to business relationship
managers.

In light of the responses to the “Working in IT” questions, it would

definitely be foolish not to factor in the growing difficulty of
working in IT into the equation. For example, while some might
consider IT service desk agents to be key IT roles, there’s no doubt
that the combination of added pressures, of IT-support work and
the changing personal capability/skill requirements, will make it
harder to recruit suitably skilled service desk staff.

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The next recruitment and retention question then asked:

“Do you feel your personal efforts, and your value to the
business, are sufficiently recognized by management?”

This garnered the following responses:

* The 2017 survey only offered a single “No” option

Only one-quarter of respondents feel that their efforts and value are
sufficiently recognized by management. Leaving 41% of people thinking
that while they do get recognized it’s not enough, and 31% thinking
that they don’t get recognized for their work – giving a total of 72%
respondents who feel undervalued.

When the 2019 figures are compared with the 2017 results, it again
shows key people-related aspects of ITSM taking a turn for the worse –
with the “no” response level up 8% from the last survey.

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It’s also worth noting that there’s a strong correlation between
recognition and wellbeing – this is shown in the following chart,
which references the responses to the recognition and wellbeing
questions.

A large proportion of those who answered “no” to the wellbeing

question state that management at least sometimes recognizes
their efforts – such that recognition is linked to better wellbeing
(please see the purple highlighted rectangle). However, and most
worryingly, nearly 75% of those who feel that their work adversely
affects their wellbeing report that their efforts are not being
recognized (please see the black highlighted rectangle).

The correlation between recognition and wellbeing

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3. New Technology
Corporate IT is experiencing a turbulent – but exciting – period of
technology change, coupled with changing business expectations
of IT services, service delivery, and support. All of this change
is definitely for the better, but it does mean that there’s an
associated impact across aspects of people and process, as well
as the new technologies employed in the management and
support of other new technologies. With the use of AI of particular
importance and interest.

To better understand the impact of AI, the survey asked:

“What’s your IT organization’s current position

on chatbot and other bot adoption?”

This garnered the following responses:

The above results might cause surprise in two respects. Firstly,

that 9% of respondents are already using chatbots and other
bots in IT management use cases. And secondly, that 45% of
respondents have no plans to use bots in the next 12 months.

When the 29% of respondents that are already experimenting

with bots, or planning to start with bots in the next 12 months, are
added to the 9%, it still gives more organizations not dipping their
toes into the bot waters in 2019 than those that are.

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The survey also asked:

“Do you believe the use of artificial intelligence will

reduce IT staff numbers between now and 2021?”

This garnered the following responses:

Between 2019-2021, survey respondents don’t see AI

as a major threat to IT jobs – with only 9% of them
viewing the adoption of AI capabilities as a serious
job killer. This is down from 16% in 2017. The flipside
of this is that both “Yes, but not dramatically” and
“No” responses have risen by a collective 11%. The
ITSM world therefore continues to look positively on
AI from a job security perspective.

It’s also interesting to note that none of the survey

takers didn’t know what AI is, unlike the 3% in 2017.

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 4. ITSM Best Practice
The last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of
2019 was filled with a raft of new/updated ITSM
best-practice source launches – ITIL 4, VeriSM,
ISO/IEC 20000, and COBIT 2019.

This is unsurprising given the pressures of both

the changing IT and business landscapes, plus
the increasingly popular IT approaches such
as DevOps (including Lean and Agile), service
integration and management (SIAM), business
relationship management (BRM), and enterprise
service management, among others.

The survey asked:

“How has the recent influx of new versions of ITSM best

practice sources – such as VeriSM, ITIL 4, the revised ISO
20000, and COBIT 2019 – affected you?”

This garnered the following responses:

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 The question opened up a wide spectrum of opinions/
positions related to this influx of new/updated ITSM best
practice, where the positive option of “It’s great to have
more options” was definitely outweighed by other more-
negative responses. Sadly, some of these are unsurprising.
For instance, the 18% of respondents who don’t use any of
the listed best practices (well, not knowingly) and the 7%
who haven’t heard of most of them.

The two highest scoring responses are probably the most

interesting – the 27% of respondents who will still use
what they’ve always used (which, of course, could still
mean proactively adopting the changes in the updated
versions of approaches) and the 23% who think the variety
of possible best practice sources is becoming confusing.
There’s definitely a battle ahead for the providers of such
best practice sources – not only as they fight for their
place in the market but also in ensuring that the market
stays buoyant.

A correlation between this question’s responses and those

for a question related to meeting service expectations
brings up an interesting and worrying viewpoint, which is
shared in the “Meeting Service Expectations” section of this
report.

The survey then asked:

“To date, how involved have ITSM personnel been in your

company’s DevOps activities and ambitions?”

This garnered the following responses:

* The 2017 survey didn’t include a “What’s DevOps?” option

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The 2019 results are probably best reviewed in the
context of the 2017 responses where the relative
percentages were worrying yet not unsurprising –
especially given the view that the “mainstreaming” of
DevOps adoption would necessitate, or at least entice,
an improved level of ITSM personnel involvement.

However, as we start 2019, it’s disappointing to

see that only 6% of respondents state that ITSM personnel
have been fully involved in their company’s DevOps activities
and ambitions – with this actually down from 13% in 2017. The
“partially involved, but it’s insufficient” option has also dropped to
27% from 40% between surveys.

Some of this adverse change can be explained by a sizable

increase in the “don’t knows,” which is most likely caused by a
different survey-sample makeup (in terms of roles). But there’s still
more people stating that there’s little/no involvement (38%) than
those involved (33%) despite the passing of nearly two years since
the 2017 survey.

If these results weren’t scary in 2017, then they are now. ITSM
professionals can’t afford to continue to operate in isolation
from corporate DevOps activities (when happening) from both
a business-success and personal-preservation perspective.
Something definitely has to give here.

The above responses weren’t expected but an additional best-

practice question thankfully still asked:

“What level of ITSM personnel involvement in DevOps

activities do you foresee for 2021?”

This garnered the following responses:

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The responses to this question definitely show hope, especially
when compared to the results of the previous question – with
both of the first two options garnering a much higher proportion
of the vote. The “no, or close to no, involvement” option has
also dropped dramatically from 38% to 18%, and only 1% of
respondents see DevOps killing ITSM. But this, of course, could be
the ITSM equivalent of “turkeys not voting for Thanksgiving.”

5. Meeting Service Expectations

There’s no doubt that IT organizations are becoming far more
cognizant of the concept of customer experience (CX) in the
context of employee experience and the need to provide better –
maybe more consumer-like – services, support, and
customer service.

It makes sense because while employees continue to receive

even better services and support in their personal lives, they’ll also
expect more from corporate service providers such as IT, human
resources (HR), and facilities.

So how far have IT support organizations come since the 2017

survey in better meeting employee expectations?

To better understand the answer to this, the survey asked:

“How do you think your IT department is meeting

employee expectations – across services, support, and
customer service – versus consumer-world companies?”

This garnered the following responses:

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The 2019 survey results are very similar to those of 2017. One-
quarter of respondents think that their IT department offers
a similar level of services, support, and customer service to
consumer-world companies, with the highest score (40%)
attributed to IT departments being behind the consumer world.

With the two main changes being:

1 A drop in the respondents who think that their IT

department is performing better than consumer-world
companies – dropping from 29% to 25%.
2 A 5% increase in the number of “don’t knows.”

It should also be appreciated that this is the IT-view of the

status quo, and the same question asked to end users/
customers might highlight a perception gap between
how well the supplier and the consumers of service differ
in opinion. The service supplier, while perhaps berating its
performance, is still rating itself higher than its customers
would.

This is definitely a surprising result given the growing interest

in employee experience, with a possible explanation being
the rate of consumer-world advancement constantly moving
the goalposts for IT departments.

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An interesting correlation to note here is that those (respondents)
who don’t use any of the aforementioned ITSM best practices
think that their IT organizations are better at meeting employee
service expectations than all the other respondents (including
those who think that it’s great to have more best-practice
options). The following chart surprisingly shows that circa 75%
of the non-best-practice-adopters think that they’re the same
or better than general consumer-world companies in meeting
service expectations (please see the black highlighted rectangle).

The correlation between meeting employee expectations and best practice adoption

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There’s also a strong correlation between IT staff receiving
recognition and meeting employees’ service expectations, which
is probably to be expected based on the modern management
philosophy that happy employees make happy customers (even
when those customers are colleagues). This is shown in the
following chart (please see the purple highlighted rectangle).

The correlation between recognition and meeting employee expectations

The survey then questioned the increased focus on employee expectations and experience, asking:

“Has your IT organization bought into the need for

delivering a better customer experience for employees
(the employee experience)?”

This garnered the following responses:

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This is a valuable insight into how IT organizations, and IT support
teams in particular, have been evolving in the last few years – with
the power and importance of employees growing. It also has to
affect the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are currently
used to determine ITSM and IT service desk performance – with
customer satisfaction alone insufficient to determine whether
employee expectations are truly being met.

6. Enterprise Service Management

This is a new topic for the 2019 survey, even though enterprise
service management has been around for well over a decade –
initially in the form of ITSM tools being used to support the needs
of other business functions such as HR and facilities.

There’s no doubt that enterprise service management is now a

mainstream IT, and potentially business, initiative but what isn’t so
clear is how strategic it is. For example, the term enterprise service
management can cover both a:

l Tactical approach – the use of the ITSM tool by other

business functions, for instance, “Let’s use the ITSM tool to
help HR (or to save money).”

l Strategic approach – a more proactive approach to

systematically share ITSM best practice and technology
across the organization. This might also be branded as back-
office transformation under the “digital transformation”
banner.

Plus, there’s another dimension to consider with enterprise

service management – the level of “scope” from a capabilities
perspective, with enterprise service management often just
sharing IT service desk best practice and technology rather than
more “advanced” ITSM capabilities.

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Therefore, to get better insight into the current state of enterprise service
management, we asked:

“Does your organization have an enterprise service

management strategy or approach?”

This garnered the following responses:

The responses to this question show that enterprise service management

has definitely become more of a strategic pursuit – with two-thirds of
respondents stating that their organization either has, or is planning to
develop, an enterprise service management strategy.

The survey then asked:

“Is your ITSM tool used outside of IT, e.g. by HR, facilities,
or customer service teams?”

This garnered the following responses:

Surprisingly, this showed a lower level of tool exploitation than was

expected, given that it’s likely easier to implement a single other-
business-function tool use case, rather than to create and deliver against
a multi-departmental enterprise service management strategy.

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When the responses to these two enterprise service management
questions are combined, we can see that having a strategy and the
extended use of ITSM tools are strongly correlated – where having
an enterprise service management strategy clearly increases the
use of ITSM tools in multiple business functions (please see the
purple highlighted box in the chart below). On the other hand,
single-use (of the tool), e.g. only in HR, is more common where
there’s no strategy (please see the black highlighted box).

The correlation between ITSM tool use outside IT and enterprise service management strategy

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 ! Conclusion
Hopefully this report, and the survey it’s built on, now have you thinking
about many of the key challenges – plus, of course, the opportunities – that
ITSM professionals, and the IT organizations they work for, are currently
facing and will continue to face over the next three years.

Whether these challenges relate to the difficulties of working in IT,

recruitment, the impact of new technologies, using best practices (and
other tools) to better meet growing service expectations, the opportunities
of enterprise service management, or something else – we achieve more as
an “ITSM community” when our concerns, issues, and solutions are shared.

So, please use the helpful information provided by ITSM and IT support
membership organizations, ITSM services and tool providers, or ITSM
content distributors to not only stay informed but to also receive advice on
how best to be ready for the future needs of ITSM and the wider service
management opportunities. Change is hard but please don’t make it even
harder by failing to tap into publicly available help and advice.

1. https://itsm.tools/2017/08/22/future-of-itsm-statistics/

2. The 2019 ITSM Future Readiness Survey was shared

via social media (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn),
the monthly ITSM.tools newsletter, and the survey
sponsors – SysAid – emailed it to a selection of its
customers. While the survey was anonymous, it’s
assumed that most of the 339 respondents are ITSM
professionals given the way in which it was promoted.

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About the author,
Stephen Mann
Stephen Mann is the principal analyst and content director
at ITSM.tools, an ITSM-focused website and service, offering
independent industry analysis, advisory, content, and consultancy.
Content ranges from ITSM tool reviews, blogs, and industry news,
to ITSM tips and best practices. Stephen previously held positions
in IT research and analysis—at IT industry analyst firms Ovum and
Forrester and the UK Post Office.

For more information, visit itsm.tools.

About SysAid
SysAid is a leading provider of IT service management (ITSM)
solutions that enable IT, professionals, to manage their IT
infrastructures and IT services with greater ease and efficiency.
Our aim is to simplify the daily challenges that IT professionals
face with intuitive, innovative, and cost-effective solutions that
combine uncompromising performance with ease-of-use.
Available in 42 languages, our solutions are used by organizations
spanning all industries and sizes—from SMBs to Fortune 500
corporations, and serve a constantly growing customer base of
over 10,000 companies in more than 140 countries worldwide.

Toll Free US: 1-800-686-7047

US: (617) 231-0124
info@sysaid.com

www.sysaid.com