How does business and IT alignment work with ITSM?

People often consider business and IT alignment in their company as insufficient. However, these two domains should cooperate for the sake of achieving higher efficiency, lowering risks, and fulfilling a common goal. ITSM seems to be the missing block between these two. It provides the right processes, technology, and metrics to successfully establish common ground. The results that you might enjoy include excellent management capabilities, quality assurance, and increased security.

Business and IT don’t always see eye to eye. Business Project Managers, Development Managers, and Operation analysts often can’t fully comprehend the complexity of IT processes. Whereas, IT Managers Software Developers or IT Helpdesk Staff find their targets slightly (or even moderately) mismatched with the company’s business objectives. The rising level of discrepancy may lead to severe workflow disruptions, even in terms of the entire company.

Luckily, there is an approach encompassing a set of tools, good practices, and techniques meant to align IT and business. This approach is called IT Service Management (ITSM) and it is becoming essential to the operation of every business. Why is that the case? To answer this question, we need to tackle another question: Why is establishing business and IT alignment important? And this will be the starting point of our cosmic journey around ITSM.

The question above might feel strange as one might answer: “Well, all departments should meet at some point.” However, it’s hard to think of feasible solutions without working on the case in detail, so we are going to investigate that. Let’s consider several good reasons for establishing common ground between these two.

The crucial aspect here is that both parties must understand why they are doing certain things. They need to grasp the concept of the company’s business objectives and consider how their technological drives can support them. Elimination of redundant activities and focusing on beneficial ones is the key to business efficiency and company survival as well as the ground from which other reasons stem.

Successful cooperation between business and IT ensures that the latter can swiftly modify the technological background in response to changing market conditions and customer demands. The IT department can also deliver more innovative solutions and a fast-paced strategy that can give your company a competitive advantage.

Speaking of competition, if you manage to outrun them by far, IT can help you design flexible technological systems that will positively impact your business’ scalability. And this will let you comfortably slide into stable company growth.

History knows many cybersecurity violations that lead to companies incurring heavy losses. Fortunately, efficient cooperation between IT and business can help eliminate cybersecurity and data privacy risks and save the company from potential threats. A well-informed IT department can also provide technology solutions that comply with industry regulations and standards.

And even if business operation disruptions do occur, IT will effectively perform disaster recovery and business continuity planning. They will make sure the company keeps working despite any complications.

There is a stereotype that IT staff often don’t understand the concept of making actual money for their company as they are concentrated on the technological aspects. However, their input related to cash management is invaluable. Firstly, they can deliver data analytics and business intelligence tools. This will allow the business units to make information-based decisions.

Secondly, the IT department can stand its ground. As a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit suggests, 66% of respondents don’t include IT when making technology-based decisions. Nevertheless, the IT department will bring a lot to the table by presenting its findings in terms of evaluating technology investments and determining their ROI. What’s more, the department can also advise on IT-related expenses, licensing optimization, and avoiding unnecessary spending.

The list of reasons provided above is not complete, otherwise, it could fill several encyclopedia volumes. Nevertheless, they are sufficient to seriously consider strengthening business and IT alignment. This brings us back to Managed IT Services. We already know what it is, so now it’s time to explain what role ITSM plays and why is it critical for every modern business.

Most people would agree that IT is vital for the operation of any company. That should give you a good idea concerning the criticality of Managed IT Services. Nevertheless, let’s look at the data. An extensive EMA report points out that the development of ITSM is mostly visible through budgetary investments, growing team sizes, and a shift in people’s perspectives. This leads us to the conclusion that the approach has not only settled down in companies but also keeps growing. Since that’s the case, we can now proceed to answer this question: What can ITSM do for your company?

Managed IT Services leave nothing to chance. It offers a set of rules to govern all possible aspects of project execution. As a result, every task is smooth, traceable, and explainable. The appropriate level of control guarantees eliminating any efficiency. The list of ITSM’s management capacity goes on for quite a bit, but it includes the following:

Since IT Service Management has “Management” in its name, it’s no surprise it would cover handling so many areas. Nevertheless, applying ITSM guarantees that you won’t miss any aspect of dealing with your IT operations that require your attention.

ITSM is not carried out just for efficiency purposes. The approach is based on international standards such as ISO/IEC 20000 and employs generally accepted best practices like the ITIL framework. Consequently, you can be sure that activities carried out as part of Managed IT Services will represent top quality. Thanks to such a set of mutually supporting concepts, you can expect results of the highest value for your company as well as your clients.

ITSM places a strong emphasis on the customer experience. By adopting a customer-centric approach, IT and business units can work together to improve services, and meet customer needs more effectively to increase the ultimate value for customers. Moreover, since Managed IT Services are about establishing business and IT alignment, the approach can help generate results of higher business value.

ITSM introduces specific workflows and processes into the work of an IT department. This nearly automatically means that all communication becomes clearer. Since the steps of each activity are already defined, referring to them requires little to no explanation. What’s more, the chances of a misunderstanding are limited. This, in turn, leads to fewer mistakes and saves more time.

As we mentioned above, ITSM provides specific workflows. Since you already know the activities within a particular task, it is easier to plan the necessary resources. Moreover, the approach itself features best practices that are a great help with composing quick checklists. These materials include requirements regarding projects of various sizes, including special ones such as incidents or breaches (although these are highly unlikely when Managed IT Services are applied).

As we said above, the incorporation of ITSM into your company management strategy decreases the chances of incidents, let alone security breaches. This is particularly important when we consider the dire consequences of the latter. An IBM Security report delivers surprising data that having an incident response team and a verified incident response plan can save on average 2.66 million USD. Such an amount can be put to much better use when planning innovation or increasing the customer portfolio.

You can get so much more from ITSM once you decide to implement it into your company. The number of enhancements can be overwhelming at first, but we are pretty sure your IT department can handle it well. And since you already understand the importance of creating business and IT alignment, it’s time to move a step ahead. Let’s discover how these Managed IT Services operate in a business environment.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is a set of practices, processes, and tools that organizations use to design, deliver, manage, and improve the IT services they provide to their customers and end-users. Moreover, ITSM is essential for ensuring that IT services align with the needs of business units and meet agreed-upon service levels and quality standards. Here’s an overview of what are Managed IT Services composed of and how they work.

There exists a set of processes that govern how IT services should be managed. Each process has its own set of activities and workflows. They have evolved from various sources, industry best practices, and frameworks. However, we can attribute many of them to the following sources.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is one of the most widely adopted frameworks for ITSM. It provides a comprehensive set of best practices and guidelines. They include incident management, change management, service level management, and more. Over time, we have seen multiple versions and updates of the ITIL standards. So far, the prevailing one is ITIL 4 created in 2021. Thought Rock gives several ideas about how ITIL helps business: mitigate risk, manage service disruption, maximize reward, improve customer satisfaction with efficient service delivery as well and reduce and control costs.

ISO/IEC 20000 is an international standard for IT service management. It incorporates elements from the ITIL framework and other industry standards to define requirements for IT service providers. The standard was developed and is maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It is structured to ensure alignment between IT services and the strategic objectives of a company. Compliancehelp Consulting provides the following advantages of adherence to this standard: customer satisfaction, full compliance with international standards, a competitive edge, increased business productivity, and improvements.

COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) is a framework developed by ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) and the IT Governance Institute. While it initially focused on IT governance and control objectives, COBIT also includes ITSM processes as an integral part of making IT meet with business. According to Indeed Career Guide, COBIT offers the following benefits: compliance with regulations, increased efficiency and productivity, protection of information systems, alignment of IT and company goals, development of insights, and managing risks.

Some industries have their standards and regulations that influence ITSM processes. For example, in healthcare, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and in finance, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) provide guidelines for ITSM practices in these sectors.

Many organizations have developed their own ITSM processes based on their unique needs and circumstances. These customized processes are often influenced by a combination of industry best practices and internal requirements. Some ITSM processes have also been shaped by the practical experiences over the years. Lessons learned from real-world situations were the main factor contributing to their evolution.

Many IT professionals are directly responsible for executing and managing the defined processes. This may include IT service desk staff, service managers, IT architects, and other roles involved in service delivery and support. And since we are discussing merging IT with business, the IT staff should possess specific skills that will allow them to thrive in the modern approach to running company operations. These include:

As you can see, the need to develop new skills didn’t omit even as up-to-date and technologically advanced people as IT employees. So, if you ever cooperate with people possessing all or most of these skills, make sure they stay by your side!

The right ITSM solutions are the core of the entire approach. Efficient software alone can greatly increase work performance. Not to mention that implementing such ITSM tools can become a starting point for adopting the entire approach. Here are a few features that are essential for any company willing to establish Managed IT Services.

This ITSM tool allows you to log, track, and manage incidents, service requests, and user inquiries. It helps IT teams prioritize and resolve issues with ease. A service desk is usually the main contact point between IT and business staff. Additionally, The complete guide to Atlassian for ITSM points out that modern service desks offer self-service and multichannel support while their new role is providing support for people and businesses.

These components allow for handling all the essential aspects of Managed IT Services. Thanks to them, you can increase productivity while combating any obstacles. These include:

Service catalogs provide users with a self-service portal where they can request IT services, view available ones, and check their status. Self-service portals contribute to improved user satisfaction, reduced service desk workloads, and faster service delivery. In one of Atlassian’s resources, we can even read that “[t]he traditional IT service catalog has evolved to focus not just on handling IT tickets, but on providing a holistic, user-centric platform for services such as resource tracking, repair handling and more.

Automation capabilities are used for routine tasks, such as ITSM software provisioning, password resets, and notifications, reducing manual workload. What is more, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide instant responses to common user queries and automate routine tasks. This technology improves efficiency and delivers 24/7 support. The EMA report adds that “when AI is successfully coupled with automation for autonomous actions, service levels can skyrocket at the same time that costs are greatly reduced.”

Atlassian’s guide describes a this ITSM solution as “a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic, including FAQs and troubleshooting guides.” Knowledge management tools store and organize IT-related data and documentation. Such a base helps support staff and end-users find solutions to common issues.

These features help organizations monitor KPIs, assess IT service performance, and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement. When you integrate ITSM software with monitoring tools, you can gain automatic incident creation when system alerts are triggered, improving incident response times.

As you can see, digital solutions have a lot to offer in terms of creating business and IT alignment and meeting the needs of both units. They greatly enhance support, cooperation, and communication between both parties and contribute to building a stable digital transformation/acceleration strategy. If you want to try out the top ITSM tools, just follow this path.

Relevant paperwork is crucial for establishing workflows that are helpful to both IT and business. Documents can greatly aid in speeding up work and applying proper organization of activities if they are kept in order. Apart from the aforesaid ones, the following documents play a vital role in ITSM:

When such documents are accompanied by instructions and templates, keeping ITSM processes under control becomes easy. What is more, when IT and business staff have established some ground rules regarding documentation such as SLAs, their cooperation becomes smooth and efficient.

Such data is the only way to measure your success rate in terms of IT and business alignment and applying Managed IT Services to foster that. To facilitate your efforts, ITSM offers a ready-to-use set of metrics and KPIs. Let’s have a look at some examples.

Preparing the right metrics and KPIs is a guarantee of success in any area of your business. Following those stated above as well as other ITSM-related ones can ensure only strong IT and business alignment. When that happens, increased performance and innovation will surely follow.

As you can see, IT Service Management is the perfect candidate for bridging the gap between IT and business within a company. There are many reasons to form business and IT alignment: improving efficiency, adaptability, risk management, and financial management.

By fostering IT and business alignment and clear communication, ITSM not only enhances performance but also drives innovation and ultimately leads to improved business outcomes. It serves as a critical framework for companies looking to align IT services with broader business objectives and achieve sustained success in the modern digital landscape.