From ITSM to ESM: Unlock the full potential of service management

Have you ever considered how many questions or requests your HR or facilities teams handle each day? From onboarding new employees and processing leave requests to fixing a broken printer or replacing a lightbulb—these departments are continuously providing support and resolving issues. In other words: they deliver services, just like IT.  

Yet in many organisations, service management is still seen as “just an IT thing.” The tools and systems in place are often limited to the IT department. But the same structured approach that works so well for IT can also be applied to other service-oriented teams.

Service management: not just for IT 

When an organisation starts using a service management tool, the IT department is often the starting point. This is not surprising, as much of your service management often goes through your IT-team. Your IT-team uses these tools for incident management, change management and asset management. Everything is streamlined and clear. Reports get to the right person and are dealt with quickly and in a structured way. The added value of good ITSM is beyond doubt for many organisations.

Once ITSM is properly set up and working smoothly, interesting things often happen within organisations. Other departments, such as HR or facilities, quickly see the benefits of ITSM and make the parallel with their own department. They ask themselves: can we use this too?

The answer is: yes, you can. But for that, you need a solution that looks beyond IT. Instead of an IT-centric portal, set up a service management platform based on all the services within your organisation.

The three key benefits of expanding from ITSM to ESM

• Increased efficiency – Say goodbye to delays caused by incorrectly submitted requests.  
  
  
• Faster resolution – Requests are automatically routed to the right department, right away.  
  
  
• Improved user experience – Employees no longer have to guess where or how to submit their questions.   

From silos to a unified service experience 

To unlock these benefits, organisations need to move beyond departmental silos and start thinking in terms of a connected service ecosystem. Right now, many employees are still navigating a fragmented landscape:

Need a new laptop? Go to IT. Have a salary question? Contact HR. Want to reserve a parking space? That’s yet another system—or an email address you have to track down.

With Enterprise Service Management (ESM), all these services come together in one central portal. Employees simply submit their request in one place, and the system automatically routes it to the appropriate team. It’s streamlined, smart, and built around the employee—not the org chart. 

Less frustration, more efficiency 

Enterprise Service Management (ESM) helps eliminate common frustrations in day-to-day operations. Take this scenario: an employee reports a printer issue to IT—but the problem is actually a simple toner replacement, which falls under Facilities. Now IT has to manually forward the request or return it to the sender. If they forget, the issue may go unresolved.

A central ESM-platform avoids these inefficiencies by streamlining service processes across departments. It’s not just more user-friendly—it’s smarter.

Take onboarding as an example: new hires need a workspace, a laptop, login credentials, and an access pass. That touches HR, IT, and Facilities. With ESM, there's no need to submit three separate requests. Everything is handled in one unified workflow. As soon as one task is completed, the system routes the next step to the right person—automatically. 

Invest in the right setup

An ESM makes your organisation work more efficiently. But: a successful implementation of ESM stands or falls with proper set-up. Without the right set-up, it remains an empty shell.

This is the biggest stumbling block for many organisations: they purchase an ESM-platform, but do not invest enough in its set-up and management. Organisations that do invest in this, with their own IT-team or by outsourcing, get a lot of value out of ESM. With an ESM-platform that breaks down barriers in your organisation and connects your silos, you lay a solid foundation for further automation.

Are you curious about the possibilities of ESM for your organisation? We would be happy to help you on your way. Contact us for a no-obligation consultation. Or first download our whitepaper on the role of AI in ITSM.