04 October 2014

ITSM in 2020

When I was asked to participate in a panel discussion at the annual itSMF Finland conference in Helsinki on October 3rd 2014, I did some preparation. Unfortunately, I misread the topic and prepared to share my vision about IT Service Management (ITSM) in 2020, rather than my vision about itSMF and ITIL as requested. The good news was that ITSM is of course closely related to itSMF and ITIL. It added an extra dimension to the discussion in the sense that both itSMF and ITIL exist to serve ITSM. Both itSMF and ITIL should therefore be aligned with how ITSM is changing. We discussed that itSMF and ITIL should have different value propositions for each of the markets that they serve. I distinguish between internal IT departments and external service providers (ESP), and within internal IT departments I make the distinction between centralized IT departments and decentralized I&T departments within the various business divisions. ‘I&T’ refers to information and related technology: two intimately intertwined entities that should be managed in their own right. My vision for ITSM in 2020 is summarized in the following statements:

  • Non-differentiating IT services will be provided by ESP’s; differentiating application of I&T will be performed by decentralized I&T departments in the business; centralized IT will focus on governance and architecture
  • ESP’s will provide more and more of the services that IT departments used to provide - better, quicker, cheaper 
  • Centralized IT departments will transform into brokers – if they can integrate services better than ESP’s
  • Decentralized I&T departments will perform ITSM as part of their activities but the major part will be the application of I&T
  • ITIL will remain the same but will be applied selectively, depending on who uses it:
    • ESP’s need full blown ITSM but will they use ITIL? (does Amazon use ITIL?)
    • Brokers will focus on Service portfolio management, Business relationship management, Supplier management, Information security management
    • Decentralized I&T departments will be innovative but ‘immature’ in ITSM, and will benefit from the basics, e.g. incident / problem / change 


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