Five Steps To Transform Your IT Service Management Strategy Today

The future of IT service management (ITSM) is customer-obsessed, service-focused, and automated. But the recent additions to the most widely adopted ITSM framework — ITIL 2011 edition — are not enough to get you there. IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders responsible for ITSM must shift their thinking from "How do we improve ourselves to be more efficient and effective?" to "How do we best serve our customers?" ITSM must change from its traditional focus on internal IT efficiencies and delivery of technology components to an obsession with putting the customer first and delivering technology services. To do this, drop the "IT" from ITSM and add automation instead to yield service management and automation (SMA). This report builds on the trends outlined in Forrester's "Become Customer-Centric, Service-Focused, And Automated" report and recommends that I&O leaders apply the five components of service management systems theory to transition from ITSM to SMA.