Gartner Publishes New Report: Six Smart Steps to ITSM Tools

Information technology service management (ITSM) tools streamline and regulate how IT services are delivered. ITSM tools include help-desk (e.g., ConnectWise Manage and ServiceNow) and monitoring software, providing smart ticketing capabilities and live system statuses, respectively. 

Unfortunately, Gartner Research reports that organizations tend to overbuy ITSM tools beyond their needs. For instance, organizations purchase unnecessary capabilities and features when adopting new ITSM technology. 

Businesses need to alter the way they purchase tools from vendors, ensuring that they only adopt powerful software, equipped with the appropriate attributes and competencies. 

Gartner’s Take on ITSM Tools: Six Key Steps to Follow

Selecting the right ITSM tool tends to be a hassle for most organizations. However, Gartner’s recent report provides six steps, offering a detailed procedure to avoid this common and frustrating challenge. 

According to Gartner, organizations need to:

1. Determine target intake and output (I&O) maturity levels
2. Decide on the extent of licensing and hosting
3. Evaluate the right pool of ITSM tools
4. Determine the vendors that have a robust market strategy
5. Form an appropriate request for proposal (RFP)
6. Leverage customer references when adopting new technology

In step one, organizations need to determine “maturity over size and revenue,” indicating the features that the business would actually need or use. This way, organizations prevent themselves from over-investing in an ITSM tool with unnecessary functionalities. 

Step two forces organizations to select the right tool based on costs and license distribution among users. This means that organizations need to gain insight into a vendor’s pricing model, while understanding how many users can take advantage of the new technology’s capabilities. 

Following this step, organizations are required to conduct research, understanding the ITSM tools that best suit their respective needs. This includes comparing small and large vendors and their capabilities. Essentially, businesses are creating a list or pool of vendors that are worth investigating. 

Next, businesses need to evaluate a vendor’s market position and their ability to provide a competitive, long-lasting ITSM tool. Vendor stability equates to beneficial technology adoption. Following this measure, an organization submits an RFP to viable vendors, differentiating between offerings and selecting the most qualified vendor.  

Last, organizations need to communicate with a vendor’s existing customers, learning how the vendor conducts business and how its ITSM offering performs. Customer recommendations or word-of-mouth references are essential when making a difficult purchase decision. 

Enhancing ITSM Tool Selection With OnPage

OnPage’s incident alert management solution integrates with popular ITSM tools, converting IT tickets into intelligent, distinguishable alerts. After selecting the right ITSM tool, organizations can complete their new help-desk solutions with OnPage, providing persistent eight-hour mobile notifications, alert escalations and configurable on-call schedules. 

By adopting OnPage to complete their ITSM tools, organizations invest in a solution that only offers the appropriate features and capabilities. OnPage doesn’t offer unnecessary functionalities, allowing businesses to effectively complement their ITSM tools with critical alerting. 

Selecting the appropriate ITSM tool is made easy with Gartner’s proposed six steps to new technology adoption. These steps ensure that businesses always purchase tools that enhance their IT services. 

Contact us for more information about OnPage’s incident alert management solution.