eBOOK

From Home Baker to Top Chef:

Expanding Your ITSM Footprint
Across the Enterprise
by Liz Beavers
FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Table of Contents
Setting Your Sights on Expansion 3

Getting to Know Who You’re Serving 3

Cultivating Your Service’s Value 4

Making Your Kitchen a Well-Oiled Machine 5

Multiple Cooks in One Kitchen Can Be a Good Thing 6

Enterprise Service Management — The Key Ingredient to 7

Your Culinary Empire

Focusing on Culture and the User Experience to Become 8

a Michelin Star Restuarant

Becoming a Pillar in the Community 10

FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Setting Your Sights on

Expansion
If I’ve learned anything from Top Chef, great dining isn’t simply about what’s on
the plate—it’s about the full experience. The experience is shaped by several key
inputs: the chef, the ingredients behind the menu, and the service. While restaurants’
cuisine and atmospheres may differ, this basic formula is critical in shaping the
establishment’s culture and driving repeat diners.

The service desk may not specialize in fine dining, but curating a service catalog
and knowledge content while supporting day-to-day IT operations requires a similar
approach. IT is often at the helm, administering the IT Service Management (ITSM)
platform while building a repository of solutions and services to effectively support
employees.

In addition to the menu of available services and support, IT must consider what
impression they wish to impart on their users. By fostering an open dialogue
with employees, it mitigates designing services based on assumptions. Further
it offers an outlet for IT to understand how the service desk is perceived by the
larger organization, where there are opportunities for improvement, and how other
internal service providers might get involved.

Looking to transform the user experience and expand your ITSM offerings? Sharpen
your knives and grab your chef’s coat as we tap into employee service management
considerations, how to approach value co-creation, and the benefits of embracing
enterprise service motions among departments outside of IT.

GETTING TO KNOW WHO YOU’RE SERVING

When you think about today’s employee, what comes to mind?

• Has the flexibility to work from anywhere

• Keeps non-traditional hours

• Communicates through multiple channels

• Relies on digital resources

The pandemic altered our work environments, accelerated organizations’ goals of

digital transformation, and evolved the modern-day employee. It also dramatically
changed where and how users work, what they require to be productive, and their
expectations around services and service delivery. Understanding the altered

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

perspective of employees also calls into question the role of the service provider
and their relationship to those they serve.

The goal of a service provider is to deliver services of value through the most
effective means possible. How do you know the resources and services you provide
are beneficial or seen as valuable to employees? Solicit feedback to co-create
value and facilitate meaningful engagements with your employees through your
ITSM platform. The insight garnered from your users helps amplify the employee
experience and fuel continual improvement.

Amid all these changes, there’s also been a departure from the traditional IT help
desk. We’ve witnessed the help desk, that only services break-fix tickets, mature
into a service desk encompassing the enterprise, connecting IT operations and
employees. The service desk has become a central lifeline to the business,
maintaining employee productivity and the hyper availability of digital resources
and support when it’s needed the most

CULTIVATING YOUR SERVICE’S VALUE

What brings you back to a restaurant? Delicious food and drinks help, but I’m most
likely to become a repeat customer based on the quality of service I receive. If I
have an overwhelmingly positive engagement with a server who took the time to
personalize my experience and ensured the delivery of my meal was efficient (not
rushed!), the chances I’ll return or even refer friends to the establishment are high.

This may be a standard interaction, but it takes delegation, cross-functional

collaboration, and standardized processes to seamlessly execute and deliver a
memorable experience. A similar scenario plays out in the service desk. To provide
harmonious resources and services to your employees, reflect on your organization’s
culture and the value your services will bring users prior to determining the mechanics
of the process itself.

ITIL 4 Foundations has poised value and culture as core service management pillars.
Each initiative and service engagement the business participates in should inherently
focus on value. Value itself is co-created between users and stakeholders, molded
from their experiences and perceptions in alignment with the organization’s culture.

Reflecting on what you know about your employees paired with what they require
to be productive and successful helps tailor your services, knowledge content,
and communications. Adopting this approach, where value is created and shared
between the service provider and employee, doesn’t simply benefit IT—it also creates
an avenue to automate services for non-IT providers.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Making Your Kitchen a Well-

Oiled Machine
Historically, ITSM platforms are evaluated and configured by IT. Following the initial
implementation of the platform, IT can pair their understanding of the employees with
historical data around adoption to elevate the service desk. But with rapidly evolving
environments and employee expectations, how can the service desk assert their
position as an integral resource to the enterprise?

With the pivot to remote and hybrid workspaces, employees no longer have the luxury
of walking across the office to speak to a technician. Now when someone encounters
an issue, be it with their hardware or requiring permissions to a file, they need an
easily accessed, digital channel to receive assistance. Due to our growing digital
reliance, the correspondence with a technician and ideally obtaining a resolution to
the problem needs to be handled quickly to not impede users’ productivity.

This insight enables IT to find avenues to simplify service delivery and the service
experience for the entire organization. Consider meeting employees where they
work—online, in the service portal. As you find ways to regularly engage with users,
tapping into a single resource with omni-channel support can supply numerous
benefits.

As a service provider, IT has several outlets to streamline internal processes and

brand the user’s experience. Before the service portal comes together, review your
knowledge articles and service catalog. How can you retool your existing assets to
make documentation easy for employees to consume or reference in the future?
Review the tone and content of those articles to ensure the information is viable and
to see if the guidance meshes with your company’s culture.

When designing the service portal, think of ways to optimize request intake for
employees and service fulfillment for technicians. Establish standards around data
collection and service levels for delivery. Defined data intake helps technicians obtain
all the information required to efficiently execute the request and minimizes confusion
for employees. Beyond data collection, establish clear expectations around delivery
times and the best channel to communicate questions or share status updates.

Intertwining these considerations into your service design and delivery can help
reduce complexity, creating an outlet for advanced automation and a more optimal
employee experience. But often, this is only seen through the lens of IT. This begs
the question: how can all service providers be united in the same ITSM platform?

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Multiple Cooks in One Kitchen

Can Be a Good Thing
Each department of the business provides services to its employees in some way.
While IT is generally the gatekeeper of the ITSM solution and the first to adopt the
technology, all internal service providers have the potential to leverage one platform.

Separate departments often have established documentation for the services

they provide and a method to track incoming or fulfilled service requests. While
using separate solutions allows each department to fully customize the language
and processes to their unique offerings, it can pose greater challenges to the
business. Supporting disparate solutions requires higher overhead maintenance
and additional expenses, impedes visibility with operational silos, and creates a
disjointed user experience.

Going against the typical recommendation of avoiding too many cooks in the
kitchen, the business and employees stand to benefit from bringing multiple service
providers into one ITSM solution. Uniting service offerings in the same service
desk can eliminate redundant solutions, helping cut costs or reallocate spending.
Reducing the number of applications streamlines administration and maintenance
and strengthens digital initiatives by consolidating resources in one space.

Expanding the organization’s use of the same ITSM solution requires department
stakeholders to understand how the technology will allow them to map their service
catalog or workflows. A single service desk can empower teams to explore and
refine how they manage department-specific and cross-functional processes. This
is beneficial for both service providers and employees, creating a more cohesive
experience with defined expectations around intake and service delivery.

Embracing a shared solution pushes non-IT departments to review their existing

customization and how it can be executed in parity. Taking stock of existing
services, content, and workflows can highlight opportunities for process automation
and heightened cross-departmental collaboration.

In the 150 Ways to Automate Service Management eBook, there are tangible
examples of how internal service providers, ranging from Legal to Finance, even
Facilities, can implement streamlined processes to generate a robust service
catalog. Seamlessly integrating multiple departments into a single ITSM platform
takes time, but reducing service silos can enhance visibility and communication
across teams, helping strengthen the value of the service desk to the broader
organization.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

ENTERPRISE SERVICE MANAGEMENT – THE KEY

INGREDIENT TO YOUR CULINARY EMPIRE
Successful service in the front of the house is incumbent on the dynamic of the
kitchen behind the scenes. To drive operational efficiencies and a meaningful
experience to employees in the service desk, a similar partnership needs to be
established between internal service providers.

While each department has their individualized roles and business processes,
they also need to work together to design and deliver valuable services to the
larger organization. To grow automation efforts and strengthen enterprise service
management (ESM) initiatives, stakeholders can reference the ITIL 4 framework.

ITIL 4 introduced recommendations to streamline service management strategies,

with a focus on value co-creation. As you expand your ITSM footprint within the
organization, consider weaving ITIL Guiding Principles into your service design and
strategy.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Focusing on Culture and the User

Experience to Become a Michelin
Star Restaurant
ITSM has helped pave the way for visions of ESM, as there has been a pivot to
focus on service over systems. With increased adoption of a single service desk,
it’s critical for non-IT service providers to retain their branding when building
and automating their individual services—ensuring they can still meet employee
expectations. Earlier, we reviewed some of the tactical considerations and methods
to automate services across the enterprise. Let’s now explore how some of ITIL
4’s Guiding Principles can help further these internal conversations and initiatives.

Collaborate and Promote Visibility

From ITIL 4 Foundations: “Working together across boundaries produces results

that have greater buy-in, more relevance to objectives, and increased likelihood of
long-term success.”

When advocating for a unified service management platform or refining internal

processes, it’s beneficial to build a transparent partnership between stakeholders.
This can help trim operational waste and reduce bottlenecks, amplifying value
across the business. To fuel a shared understanding of the business’ culture and
goals within the service desk, integrating multiple departments will foster strong
communication, eliminating silos or potential obstructions to successful service
delivery.

Think and Work Holistically

From ITIL 4 Foundations: “No service, or element used to provide a service, stands
alone. The outcomes achieved by the service provider and consumer will suffer
unless the organization works on the service as a whole, rather than as separate
parts.”

Understanding the broader initiatives of the enterprise can unite service providers,
helping them more successfully deliver and meet organizational objectives.
Embracing this guiding principle supports strong cross-functional collaboration
executed in alignment with the culture and values of the business. Identifying outlets
to automate processes can further holistic efforts, helping maximize the output,
perception of services, and the delivery of value.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Focus on Value

From ITIL 4 Foundations: “Everything the organization does, should link back, directly
or indirectly, to value for itself, its customers, and other stakeholders.”

Applying this to your service management strategy links back to understanding

your users, their perceptions of value, expectations around available services, and
their experiences with the service desk. Value is co-created through ongoing service
engagements and feedback loops between both users and service providers. As
you seek to streamline your offerings through automations or optimize resources
through a centralized ITSM platform, there should always be a focus on value.

ITIL 4’s recommendations can empower teams to explore ESM and avenues for
heightened integration while encouraging continual improvement. When designing,
automating, and centralizing services, there is a unified goal: creating value based
on your organization’s culture through a user-focused experience.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

Becoming a Pillar in the

Community
Chefs and their restaurants don’t achieve fame or cult-like followings overnight.
They strike a balance through trial and error, feedback, hard work, and continual
refinement. To progress, they must engage with their diners to hone their services
and demonstrate their value within the community. Through this continual evolution,
these establishments and chefs become household names.

How can you elevate your ITSM platform as a central resource to the business? Take
your existing investment and knowledge of the organization’s culture and goals to
establish a dialogue between internal service providers and employees. This will
foster transparent communications to incite value co-creation while molding how
departments design and deliver services.

To scale your service desk to accommodate the enterprise, expand your ITSM
footprint beyond IT. Meshing automations and ITIL 4 guidance, seek opportunities
to innovate existing processes and successfully integrate the business’ internal
service providers to improve collaboration and ultimately the employee experience.

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FROM HOME BAKER TO TOP CHEF: EXPANDING YOUR ITSM FOOTPRINT ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

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