EMA/CXP Research Report: The Changing Role of the Service Desk in the Age of Cloud and Agile By Dennis Drogseth, Dominique Dupuis, Pascal Paysant An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES (EMA ) and CXP Research Report April 2013 This research has been sponsored by: IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Table of Contents ExecutIve Introduction... 1 Methodology... 2 Demographics... 2 Geographical Differences: North America/Europe... 3 Adoption Trends and Overall Priorities for Service Desk and ITSM... 4 Multiple Service Desks, Multiple Roles... 5 Packaging and Licensing... 6 Organization, Metrics and Performance... 6 Some CIO Perspectives... 7 Some Key Technology Insights... 7 CMDB/CMS Adoption... 7 Other Technology Adoptions... 8 Success Factors... 10 Conclusion... 11
ExecutIve Introduction IT Service Management (ITSM) is in a clear state of transition, just as IT is itself undergoing a significant transformation in role and requirements. Many of these pressures for change center in the consumerization of IT as IT services increasingly need to support a more technology savvy, demanding, and diverse set of service consumers. Associated with these pressures is the growing role of mobile technology and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), in empowering users to own and solicit more IT functionality on both a personal and professional basis. Cloud computing is another catalyst in this consumerization, as it offers a virtual shopping mall of services, so that both lines of business, and individual service consumers, can and often do look outside of IT for application and other business services. Another factor transforming IT and ITSM is the growth of service ecosystems including partners, suppliers, and service providers sometimes on a global basis. Cloud also plays a factor here, as it is accelerating IT options and demands for a more versatile, broker-like role in creating, provisioning, and delivering services to its multiple constituencies. But managing and optimizing an ecosystem requires processes, owners, and best practices that have not yet been well defined within ITSM, as they involve separate and sometimes competing business entities. In the midst of all this, the role of the service desk as a center of governance, facilitation, communication and active interactions is, needless to say, also changing. An effective service desk can no longer be a separate kingdom devoted to reigning in operations and providing a primarily reactive foundation for dealing with customer complaints. As this research shows, service desks are undergoing pressures to become more diverse and better integrated across a wide range of technologies in which automation, mobility and enhanced visibility and analytic insights can more proactively complement and inform on traditional ITSM processes. Some of the highlights from this research include: One of the most significant data points from the research was the strong focus on better integrations with operations (29%), as well as internal and external user experience (27%), as top priorities for service desk management. When asked about the impact of cloud, many respondents saw it as a resource for expanding our service desk capabilities. But 21% insisted that they saw no impact from cloud. Service desk support for both IT and non-it customer service is widespread, with 52% already in operation. Only 25% have no plans to consolidate these functions. Traditional or on-premise licensing is still dominant, as it is expressly preferred by 45% of the respondents. However, a significant number (30%) prefer a choice or balance between on-premise and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and 25% expressly prefer Software-as-a-Service. The average service desk team in our survey comprised about 20 people, with an average outreach for employee support at about 2,000, or a 100 to 1 ratio. Slightly more than half of the respondents (52%) owned or were about to purchase a CMDB. Of those, 31% have completed at least Phase 1 Deployment as a part of an integrated service desk offering and 17% have completed Phase 1 as a separate solution not integrated with the service desk. Page 1
When it came to providing support for mobility among service desk customers, 64% view mobility as significantly or critically impacting service desk operations. Best practices continue to be important for service desk operations, as 47% believed that the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL ) was very important or critical, and only 14% thought that ITIL was slightly important or unimportant. And 40% see ITIL as becoming more important versus only 6% who view it as becoming less important in the future. Moreover, those 17% who are completely satisfied with their service desk deployment are more than six times more likely to view ITIL as critical than those who are less satisfied. Methodology This research includes a total of 326 respondents, 154 of whom were from North America and 172 of whom were from Europe primarily France and Germany. Collection began in late Q4 2012 and was complete by early February 2013. The questionnaire required respondents to have an active role in the purchasing, day-to-day operations, and/or deployment of service desk or help desk products. Demographics EMA and CXP did not set quotas on company size. The result was a healthy mix of smaller, mid-tier and larger companies, skewed towards larger enterprises, as can be seen in Figure 1. How many employees are in your company worldwide? Less than 250 7% 250-499 5% 500-999 16% 1,000-2,499 17% 2,500-4,999 11% 5,000-9,999 10% 10,000-19,999 9% 20,000 or more 24% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Figure 1: Company size showed solid variation, but favored larger enterprises, with 12% at fewer than 500 employees and 24% with more than 10,000 employees. Page 2
Analysis by size revealed a number of interesting highlights including larger companies placing greater emphasis on the move to cloud (internal and external), as well as greater likelihood features such as an integrated self-service portal, service catalog, integrated application lifecycle support, and integration with a data warehouse for IT business intelligence. Conversely, smaller companies appear to be more actively providing mobile interfaces in support of service desk professionals, prioritize more automated service provisioning, and show higher satisfaction levels with their service desk deployments. Finance, Manufacturing, Retail, Government and Healthcare were the lead verticals, making up 47% of the more than twenty industries represented. There was a similar breadth of roles both across IT, while executive presence within IT was substantial, with 30% IT Director or Above and 35% CIOs. 12% were non-it stakeholders, including CEOs, COOs, and Line of Business managers and professionals. 41% of those responding were members of the itsmf. The average IT budget was somewhat over $10 million annually. IT budgets were generally either stable or on the rise, with 48% showing year-to-year increases and only 13% showing a clear decrease. Geographical Differences: North America/Europe Demographically, more of the larger company respondents (10,000 or more employees) were in North America than Western Europe, 53% to 45%. Other geographical variations were also significant. For instance, operational and capex costs were more salient priorities in the move to SaaS in North America than in Europe where fast deployment and minimal administrative overhead were targeted. In addressing functional priorities, North America prioritized process automation and enhanced analytics for project and financial planning, whereas Europe singled out service catalogs for both internal and external service support. When it came to IT/business management related capabilities, Europe strongly favored customer satisfaction surveys, whereas North America led in financial performance analytics and using social media for customer satisfaction. European respondents prioritized faster resolution in response to problems and incidents, whereas North American respondents placed more emphasis on proactive problem resolution prior to userperceived incidents occurring. Finally, North American respondents were more likely to demonstrate mobile support for service desk professionals than those in Europe. This may have been due, in part, to a higher percentage of IT-IS network respondents in North America compared to non-it or those affiliated with lines of business in Europe. Page 3
Adoption Trends and Overall Priorities for Service Desk and ITSM One of the most significant data points from the research was the strong focus on better integrations with operations, as well as user experience. Figure 2 shows that if you combine integrated operations for incident and problem management with integrated operations for change and configuration management, you arrive at a dominant 29% as a top priority for service desk management. Similarly, if you combine user experience for internal and external constituencies, you get a similarly dominant 27%. The combination well exceeds 50% of priorities for service desk management going forward. Not surprisingly, enhanced asset management, enhanced mobile support, and improved cost effectiveness come in next, but still in the single digits. Which of the following describes your organization s current management priorities with respect to help/service desk operation? Improve operations-to-service desk integrations/ processes for incident/problem management Improve end-user experience (internal to business) 17% 17% Improve operations-to-service desk integrations/ processes for configuration/change management 12% Improve customer/ partner/ supply chain experience 10% Enhance asset management strengths across IT 8% Trim or cut back on resource requirements Enhance mobile support for service desk agents 6% 6% Support for change management 5% Support the move to internal/external cloud Implement service catalog Support for Dev/Ops and accelerated agile application deployments Enhance support for mobile end users 4% 4% 4% 4% Support enterprise asset requirements 2% Other (Please specify) 1% 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% Figure 2: Integrated Operations and Improved User Experience across internal and external constituencies clearly lead in priorities for service desk management. For self-service capabilities, respondents prioritized knowledge management, web-based ticket generation and service catalog as their top three priorities. Whereas for IT/business management, top priorities were service catalogs, executive dashboards, and customer satisfaction surveys. Page 4
When asked about the impact of cloud, many respondents saw it as a resource for expanding our service desk capabilities (Figure 3). But 21% insisted that they saw no impact from cloud. Automation, cost justification, new challenges to asset management and shortened review cycles were also key. In a separate question, cloud was also viewed as driving improved self-service capabilities, improved integrations with operations for monitoring and service assurance, enhanced service catalog capabilities, and improved integrations with provisioning and configuration automation, as lead priorities. What is the MOST IMPORTANT impact of cloud on the role of the service desk in your organization? We see cloud as a resource for expanding our service desk capabilities 25% We see no impact from cloud 21% Cloud is requiring higher levels of automation in provisioning services 12% Cloud is putting pressures on us to justify costs 10% Cloud and virtualization have made asset management challenging 10% Cloud is shortening review cycles for managing change 9% Cloud is pushing us to pay more attention to DevOps 8% Cloud is pushing us to represent third-party SaaS services in our catalog 5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Figure 3: While many saw cloud as providing value in expanding their service desk capabilities, more than one fifth claimed no impact from cloud. Multiple Service Desks, Multiple Roles Given merger and acquisitions, line of business differences, and other factors, 52% of the respondents indicated that they have multiple service desks today and 13% plan to in the future. However, plans to consolidate are pervasive, with only 16% committed to multiple service desks longer term. At the same time, service desk support for both IT and non-it customer service is widespread, with 52% already in operation (See Figure 4). Only 25% have no plans to consolidate these functions. Page 5
In your company, are the IT help-service desk environments and non-it customer service or customer relationship management being managed as a single group? Yes, operational for more than 3 years 28% Yes, operational for 1 to 3 years 24% Yes, implementation is in process or completed past 12 months 10% No, but planning is underway 12% No plans to consolidate these functions 25% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Figure 4: A consolidated approach to customer service for IT and non-it services is surprisingly widespread, indicating that businesses are seeking to optimize their investments in service desk technology for multiple use cases and more diverse service groups. Packaging and Licensing Traditional or on-premise licensing is still dominant, as it is expressly preferred by 45% of the respondents. However, a significant number, 30%, prefer a choice or balance between on-premise and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and 25% expressly prefer Software-as-a-Service. Minimal administration, extensibility/scalability to expand resources as needed, and operational expense savings lead the reasons for looking at SaaS options. Organization, Metrics and Performance Perhaps not surprisingly, most service desks report into IT Operations (61%), with Customer Service Organization and Call Center coming in next at 10% and 9% respectively. The average service desk team in our survey comprised about 20 people, with an average outreach for employee support at about 2,000, or a 100 to 1 ratio. The average request or incident rate was about 500 per month. Respondents reported that on average more than 40% of calls were closed after the first call with no escalation and more than 75% of calls for to Level 2 or 3 professionals were assigned correctly the first time. These numbers may be optimistic as respondents in most research tend to overestimate their success rates. Another interesting point is that, on average, less than one-third of trouble tickets are generated proactively from alerts. Needless to say this average will have to improve as service desks seek to become more proactive and responsive to dynamic consumer needs. Page 6
Some CIO Perspectives An analysis of CIO perspectives yielded some interesting highlights when it came to service desk priorities. CIOs are nearly twice as likely as IT professionals to see cloud as an opportunity for expanding service desk capabilities. CIOs are also more than three times as likely to prioritize support for the move to external/internal cloud as IT professionals. CIOs are 1.5 times more likely to view ITIL as important or critical. CIOs are twice as more likely to see service desk deployments as completely successful. Some Key Technology Insights EMA and CXP targeted four areas for more in-depth assessments of ITSM-related technology adoption. These were: CMDB, service catalog, integrated application/release management, and mobile. Of these, the most in-depth analysis focused on CMDB/CMS adoption. CMDB/CMS Adoption Slightly more than half of the respondents (52%) owned or were about to purchase a CMDB. Of those, 31% have completed at least Phase 1 Deployment as a part of an integrated service desk offering (Figure 5). Another 29% owned a CMDB integrated with their service desk but hadn t yet deployed it, or were still in the process of deployment. More than a third (37%) had a CMDB that was not integrated with their service desk. Which option has your organization followed? We (will) own CMDB software as a part of our service desk investment, but haven t deployed it yet 14% We own CMDB software as a part of our service desk investment, and are in the process of deployment 18% We own CMDB software as a part of our service desk investment, and have completed at least a Phase One deployment 31% We (will) own CMDB software separate from our service desk investment, but haven t deployed it yet 15% We own CMDB software separate from our service desk investment, and are in the process of deployment 5% We own CMDB software separate from our service desk investment, and have completed at least a phase one deployment 17% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% Figure 5: Nearly two-thirds of those with CMDB investments have integrated CMDBs with their service desk solution. In addition, about half (48%) have already completed Phase 1 deployments. Significantly, CMDB deployments were spread relatively evenly across small, medium and larger enterprises versus centered primarily in large enterprises as has been true in the past. Asset management, change impact management, and change management were the three most dominant use cases. And a Page 7
substantial number, 65%, have some type of application dependency mapping technology associated with their CMDB. Federated data access is also on the rise, with only 25% showing no plans to federate. Moreover, 65% claim that their CMDB deployments are either successful or very successful with only 4% claiming that they re unsuccessful. Also, CMDB deployments were generally indications of more progressed levels of service desk and ITSM maturity including significantly higher levels of investments in other related technologies. Most dramatically, those respondents with committed CMDB directions were more than twice as likely to also have: Integration with operations for SLM and performance management Integrated change management Integrated service catalog Integrated IT portfolio management Integrated application lifecycle management Integrated customer relationship management An integrated IT business intelligence warehouse Other Technology Adoptions Service Catalogs: 51% of respondents had service catalogs deployed and integrated with their service desks. These deployments reflect a broad array of services that span both external services and those internal to IT consumers as is apparent in Figure 6. A separate question exposed the fact that similar diversity of services from non-it organizations are published in either an integrated or separate service catalog, led by Operations, Human Resources, Sales, Purchasing and Facilities Management. This argues for a more modular, more eclectic catalog system to support a broader range of consumers and services than has been traditionally supported via service catalogs within IT. What services are published in your organization's service catalog? End user support (help & incident) 66% Internal IT to IT provisioning (e.g. new servers, deployment requests) 55% End user device/network provisioning 51% IT professional services (project management, architecture) 47% End user access to production services (e.g. transactional applications) 47% Appstore type access for end-user self-service provisioning 28% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Figure 6: Service catalogs reflect a broad array of services both internal to IT and external in support of internal and external consumers, led by end user support and internal IT provisioning. Page 8
Integrated Application Release Management: Slightly less than half, or 47%, of respondents claimed that their service desk was used as a front-end to request the development of entirely new applications, or new application functionality. In other words, that the service desk became a kind of communications center for strategic service requests directed at application functionality. However, only 39% had integrated release management support integrated with their service desks. Among these, the vast majority (90%) shared information between service desk agents and application development when it came to defects or planned resolutions to ongoing issues. Moreover, Figure 7 reveals that among those with integrated support for release management, slightly more than half (52%) deliver added value in automation for review, provisioning or SLA assessments. Trouble ticketing is also supported by 81% of those with integrated release management. How? Service desk operators are notified of releases 60% The service desk helps in supporting automation requirements for release review, provisioning and/or SLA assessments (is the new service meeting SLA expectation?) 52% Releases are scheduled via the service desk platform 46% Other (Please specify) 1% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Figure 7: Those respondents (39% of total) with integrated support for release management exhibit a range of capabilities from basic notification to scheduling and automation. Mobility: 45% of respondents indicated that mobile access was already available for service desk professionals and stakeholders. Figure 8 presents a clear indication of why this is valuable, led by improved response rates and increased productivity. How does mobility improve your organization's service desk effectiveness? Improved response rates Increased productivity by enabling technicians to stay connected via mobile devices 56% 59% More effective outreach to end user self-service Easier access to reporting facilities for service desk managers 45% 48% Decreased number of tickets thanks to a better access to knowledge base 29% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% Figure 8: Those respondents (45% of total) supporting mobile access for service desk professionals, managers and stakeholders indicate clear gains in responsiveness and productivity. When it comes to providing support for mobility among service desk customers, 64% view mobility as significantly or critically impacting service desk operations. Page 9
Success Factors As you can see in Figure 9, 67% are satisfied with their service desk deployment. The question then remains, what factors tend to govern satisfaction and success. One place to look is among those who were not satisfied (those 33%) and these prioritized issues with their organization and its inability to implement the solution. Dissatisfaction with product came in second, and dissatisfaction with the vendor/provider was a distant third. How satisfied are you with your organization's current service desk implementation? Completely satisfied 17% Somewhat satisfied 50% Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied 23% Somewhat dissatisfied 8% Completely dissatisfied 1% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Figure 9: The majority of respondents were satisfied at some level with their service desk deployment. Given these organizational challenges, best practices continue to be a factor governing success. Best practices continue to be important for service desk operations, as 47% believed that the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) was very important or critical, and only 14% thought that ITIL was slightly important or unimportant. And 40% see ITIL as becoming more important versus only 6% who view it as becoming less important in the future. When EMA and CXP examined the qualities of the 17% who were completely satisfied, they had the following characteristics: They were more likely to reside in the U.S. compared to Europe by a 63% to 37% ratio. They were more than twice as likely to show an increase in IT budget than those who are only somewhat satisfied or less. They were twice as likely to show support non-it services as those who are only somewhat satisfied or less. They were twice as likely to view cloud as a resource for expanding service desk functionality. They were more than six times more likely to view ITIL as critical. Page 10
They were significantly more likely to have more service desk functionality deployed but more than 2 to 1 more likely to have: Integrated workflow/process automation Integrated with Operations for SLM and performance Financial planning CMDB/CMS IT portfolio management Project management Application lifecycle management Customer relationship management Service catalog Integrated release management Mobile interfaces for service desk professionals Conclusion This research underscores the fact that the service desk is evolving to support a broader set of functions, roles, and dynamics in support of a more demanding and diverse consumer base. Among the most salient trends is the growing importance of integrated support for operations, enhanced user experience management, and with that enhanced levels of automation, visibility, and participation in critical processes not necessarily associated with the service desk, such as application release management and support for mobile service consumers. The move to cloud is also impacting service desk priorities, with pressures to deliver more value and resources faster. And while social networking is not yet scoring very strongly among respondents, it would appear to be a natural area for growth as service desk functionality extends to require more facile support and better dialog across a more eclectic set of users. At the same time, the importance of the IT Infrastructure Library, attention to best practices and organizational considerations, and core ITIL-related building blocks such as the CMDB are also actually gaining in value and priority. This reinforces what other research has all along indicated cloud, agile, mobile and other trends are not replacing the need for strong core ITSM disciplines and technologies, they are in fact placing pressures for these to advance in support of a more dynamic, more consumer-aware IT universe. Going forward, it would seem that the ideal future for the service desk would be to evolve as a center of governance, communication and automation in which visibility and insights into everything from application latencies, to user struggle, to the impacts of change, asset inventories, application lifecycles, problem owners and critical consumer commitments are all dynamic and self-reinforcing. But for this to happen, yet more of the walls separating IT silos will have to crumble, and the willingness to work differently and more collectively will have to be reinforced by strong IT leadership. This is a lot to ask for of course. But the pressures are there to incent these trends, just as the enabling technologies are finally emerging to help make them succeed. Page 11
About CXP CXP is a leading independent software industry firm specialized in market analysis and software selection (ERP, BI, ECM, CRM, HRIS...). With 40 years of experience, CXP provides end-users and purchasers with a comprehensive range of services covering the critical aspects of the software and service solutions selection cycle. CXP owns a unique database of over 6000 software applications and offers extensive and proven consulting capabilities supported by a robust proprietary methodology. Today, more than 1500 large and mid-size end-user companies use CXP group services. CXP has expanded its European presence (UK, Germany, Austria...) after merging with BARC (Business Application Research Center), the German leading independent software industry analyst specialized in Data Management, Business Intelligence and Enterprise Content Management. www.cxp.fr About Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services for enterprise IT professionals, lines of business users, and IT vendors at www.enterprisemanagement.com or follow EMA on Twitter. This report in whole or in part may not be duplicated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or retransmitted without prior written permission of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgement as of this date and are subject to change without notice. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. EMA and Enterprise Management Associates are trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. in the United States and other countries. 2011 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. EMA, ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES, and the mobius symbol are registered trademarks or common-law trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. Corporate Headquarters: 1995 North 57th Court, Suite 120 Boulder, CO 80301 Phone: +1 303.543.9500 Fax: +1 303.543.7687 www.enterprisemanagement.com 2654.060613