By Abhijit Banerjee, Managing Director, India and SAARC, SolarWinds
In the evolving business landscape, IT Service Management (ITSM) plays a pivotal role, encompassing everything from service request management and lifecycle management to incident and problem resolution. IT Service Management (ITSM) is vital for smooth IT operations and business success but struggles with complexity and scalability. To address these challenges, 63% of Indian enterprises plan to invest in AI and machine learning for automation within the next year, marking an 85% increase from last year. Of these, 33% aim to adopt Generative AI to boost ITSM efficiency and adaptability.
By incorporating advanced data processing, intelligent automation, and predictive analytics, Gen AI ITSM significantly improves efficiency and flexibility. It allows IT support to proactively identify and address potential issues before they impact business continuity. Hence, innovative enterprises are finding ways to put AI to work in the places where it can provide the highest lift and have the strongest impact on customers. For instance, by incorporating AI into ITSM functions—to simplify help desk ticketing, IT asset management, and end-user support—companies are better able to eliminate barriers to employee support services, and conserve time, money, and resources while improving customer satisfaction.
AIOps are providing ways to streamline workloads and processes; machine learning tools are removing bottlenecks and compatibility issues from migrations to the cloud. All these efforts are aimed at freeing up human IT capital to further service management and agile development efforts across organisations. Customer and internal employee service powered by artificial intelligence is quickly becoming the standard for many organisations. When incorporating AI into your services and strategies, here are some ways you can leverage the power of automation and smart technologies to drive your operations into high gear:
Shift into automatic
With automated improvements to service delivery, consider how automation and AI can further your visions of enterprise service management to support beyond IT initiatives and unify departments across the organisation. (For instance, by eliminating silos with streamlined processes and routing rules, connecting cross-functional internal service providers, and building the case for enterprise service management.)
You can also consider optimising service management operations to automate data collection or suggest knowledge content to drive efficiencies and self-service. This can lead to, shorter response times with AI-recommendations linked to potential workarounds or resolutions, based on historical trends and insights. Finally, you can even experiment with combinations of tools that work best for your organisation’s needs—for instance, bringing ITSM together in a unified way with Observability is a perfect recipe for companies undergoing rapid growth, digital transformation, or difficulties preventing system failure.
Yield to the human element
AI-powered automation isn’t here to steal jobs, it’s here to free up workers by eliminating human intervention, enabling them to focus on tasks that require human interaction. Beyond streamlining operations, this degree of automation impacts the user experience, fueling more positive service engagements. We already see it today, enhancing our overall user experience: on our personal computers and mobile devices with automated backups; on search engines providing recommendations; as well as automatic app and operating system updates.
Set a speed limit
When implementing any new technology or process, ensure these changes will work for your business and your people, but won’t become a disruption. It’s important to first “look under the hood” of your organisation and take frank stock of what you’re doing well, what you could be doing better, and where your teams truly need the most support. Some areas of consideration should include the most frequent pain points customers experience, upcoming business growth priorities, and even potential cultural pushback from within the organisation.
Once you recognise the inherent benefits of these smart technologies, the next step is precisely planning how you want them to work for your business goals. Review where you are and ultimately where you want automation to take your service delivery by enhancing what works and improving what doesn’t. Remember, AI + automation should drive positive and impactful results—not create more work.