Investing for the enterprise service management future

What should individuals and organizations be doing to prepare for the next phase of improvements and growth – and what is the role for best practice training and development?

◉ Focus on Enterprise Service Management (ESM) excellence

This means excellence in maturity for the short and long-term betterment of the organization. This is larger than IT these days. It includes all stakeholders and the interactions across the organization, including customers. It also assumes the presence of value-based ITIL® 4 best practice in the enterprise.

The goal of this is not to force a framework on any organization, nor is it to eliminate controls for the sake of speed/customer satisfaction. In my opinion this begins with what customers expect, then find ways to make that expectation a "wow" versus a "meh".

◉ Relationship Management

Organizations must evaluate their current operation, processes and activities to try to become more agile by reducing organizational silos, focusing on outcomes and perceived value (as seen by their customers).

◉ Elevate experiences

This is not just about an isolated focus on either Customer Experience (CX), User Experience (UX) or Employee Experience (EX) anymore. Focusing on one without the others is an oversight that will negatively impact many organizations. Yes, customers pay the bills of any organization but the employees are the ones who drive that experience. So, you must take care of employees who will, in turn, take care of the customer and everyone wins. The goal, therefore, is so-called Total Experience.

If there’s too much focus on the money, technology or process then employees may not see (or care about) the organizational success. This increases the employee's risk of not being satisfied in their job, so putting the customer's experience at risk.

To achieve Total Experience, ITIL 4 knowledge helps make it repeatable, engaging and increases the speed at which you can do it.

◉ Employees are people too! 

This is probably one of the biggest challenges that organizations face today. After Covid-19, work habits have changed and people realized a couple of things: first, life is fragile and taking care of yourself and family is paramount. Second, company loyalties are now more fiction than reality: people are beginning to redefine their own lives and companies need to do the same or lose the workforce they need to meet their organizational goals.

Companies will need to be more than just a money-making system for the shareholders and must find meaningful and inspirational goals to motivate, hire, and keep their staff. The focus must be better balanced between the “why?” and the cash.

◉ Individual advancement

Individual motivations are not holistically being addressed in the mainstream yet. That said, I believe that we’re starting to see the pendulum swing back a bit too. That means individuals who take the initiative ahead of their counterparts to get the relevant training, certifications and experience will find themselves in a more lucrative spot than those who wait.

It’s about being in the right place at the right time and taking action. We have seen this play out time and again through history and it will occur again. My advice is to find a role and organization that excites you; then, find and take the training to get up to speed faster than your competition. That way, it will be others following your success rather than you following theirs.

Source: axelos.com