5 Reasons for SMBs to Invest in ITSM Today
Why should you implement ITSM in your organization?
Traditionally, company’s higher management perceives IT department as a burden that they can’t get rid off their shoulders. Any IT administrator, especially in the middle east, will absolutely agree with this. If an IT administrator tries to sell ITSM to higher management in a medium sized business will most probably face a series of well known arguments such as: ITIL is a huge framework to implement in small organization like ours, ITSM will cost more than it saves, our IT team is too small to implement ITSM? IT cost is already too high, and so on. All those arguments seems valid when you think short term. However, on the long run, particularly when you zoom out and look at the big picture, you will realize that IT operation will actually be providing value to business instead of being considered as load on company’s budget.
In fact, international frameworks such as ITIL or COBIT, as well as ISO (International Organization for Standardization), never relates the standard to organization size. Small and medium sized business can apply the standard or framework and get certified based on their own structure in the same manner as big and multinational enterprises. Organizations may also scope limited number of processes or sections of the standard that most applies to their business.
Are you looking for a good reason to implement ITSM at your small or medium-sized organization? Here are five:
1- With ITSM: Deliver more with Less
Implementing the right ITSM system comes with a guarantee to raise productivity at less cost. Small and medium sized business with limited resources will be able to deliver more while saving on their running cost. Thus, increasing overall revenues.
2- IT is the Heart and Soul of any Modern Company
The vast majority of today’s companies, if not all companies, won’t be able to operate without information technology. It is no secret that any business nowadays relies on IT to survive and compete. A server room, data center or even cloud-based solution are now the heart and soul of business, regardless of its size. Investing in a proper ITSM will insure that IT services are operating in the best possible way, being delivered properly, available when needed, changed smoothly and continuously improving.
3- Changes can be Catastrophic!
Change is an essential part in the service life cycle, and if not well planned, it will cause harm more than good. Statistics show that more than 50% of IT incidents are caused by poorly executed changes. Change management in ITSM will ensure that changes are prioritized, properly scheduled, concerned parties notified and rollback plan is already prepared and ready to be executed in case of failure.
4- IT Support Staff, not Fire Fighters
We have discussed in previous post the importance of service desk to end users. Without applying ITSM best practice, support staff in SMB (already on limited resources) will run all day long in a rat race trying to resolve issues reported through phone calls or email messages in chaos without any prioritization, record, or reporting.
Service desk management tool will organize things for both IT staff and management by balancing urgency and priority, keeping record, reporting time needed to resolve issues and measuring its compliance with the service level agreement. When implemented, it will definitely increase productivity and contribute positively to continuous service improvement.
5- Get Ready to Shine
Building a business on solid foundations will make growth potential easier. Many growth opportunities are lost simply because the organization’s IT structure is not ready to handle big clients. Well implemented ITSM will make things move in the right direction and the organization will be well-structured and ready to handle larger number of clients with minimal adjustments.
Those were five reasons for companies to start investing in ITSM today. If you have more reasons to urge executives to invest in ITSM, please share in the comments below.
