The Top ITSM Analysis Complications

Executive Summary

• ITSM software analysis is often a process that just declares the company is ready for ITSM.
• This article explains the top complications when trying to obtain an unbiased outcome.

Introduction

ITSM or IT Service Management software analysis is fraught with complications. In this article, we cover these complications and how we surmount them.

Complication #1: Selecting a Conflicted System Selection Advisor

This is normally not a mentioned item. However, there is a greater probability that the company will select a financially biased system selection advisor for their readiness assessment that has financial relationships that it does not disclose to you. This means that they will most often rig the software analysis to state that the company is ready for an ITSM. And of course, if the software vendor recommends the advisor, then the advisor will simply recommend that specific vendor’s ITSM. It is really just that simple.

Complication #2: Not Evaluating the Claims of Vendors in This Area

ITSM software was developed to allow the tracking and management of IT activities. However, while there are a lot of options in the marketplace, they do lock a company into a specific process flow. In testing creating ticket systems I found that in some cases I found it more advantageous to create a database that allowed for customization I could not obtain from SaaS ticket system software. The help desk vendors often make it appear as if they have determined the best possible support flow, however, the problem with this is that there is no one ticket flow.

Complication #3: Listening to Whom on ITSM Software?

Software Advice and G2Crowd have coverage of ITSM software. These types of companies use reviews from outside and there is little evidence that they know that much about the software on which they write articles. Remember, most of these online advisory websites like G2Crowd serve as marketing front ends for vendors and are compensated by generating leads.

And it’s not just the advisory firms. We reviewed all of the top articles according to Google on ITSM, and they all fit into the pattern of repeating mindless assertions. There were no independent articles in the top results. These are the articles potential buyers are reading to determining if they should buy ITSM for their company?

Complication #4: A New More Sophisticated ITSM Process

Most companies that buy ITSMs tend to accept the idea that each vendor has an optimal ITSM. This means that when looking for ITSM, the options open up to greatly expand the functionality footprint. I would not accept simplifying the requirements to fit within the constraints of the available software without first considering the implications of having things not covered, and what offline systems might spring up to the lack of coverage of important support requirements. 

Conclusion

The software industry is designed to get customers “on the ramp” to implement systems and extract the most out of customers. In nearly all cases, the software analysis provided is just a fake process where the advisor states that the company is ready to move to a system. This is then followed by an exposition of the benefits of that software. This does not have to be the case, and there are many ways of changing this. But the first one is the advice that you obtain.

How We Do Things Differently

Our ITSM analysis focuses on what the company is ready for and is not designed to simply onramp people to this software. And unlike all the software advisors, we are a true research entity, and we have no connection to any software vendor. Being dedicated to research means focusing on what is true and using evidence to draw conclusions.