ITSM Outcomes & How to measure them

[ServiceNow]

ServiceNow® IT Service Management

Define and measure success by identifying clear business outcomes and key performance indicators.

Introduction

Many organizations want to modernize IT Service Management (ITSM). However, to translate this strategic objective into tangible business value, you need a clear vision that aligns with your organization’s business goals, identifies targeted business outcomes, and establishes how to measure success. Not only does this help you ensure stakeholder alignment, it also focuses your team’s execution on achieving these agreed outcomes.

Every organization is unique, with its own culture, goals, and challenges, so there is no “one size fits all” vision that you can take off the shelf. However, you can learn from other organizations that have already embarked on a similar transformation journey. In this document, we draw on ServiceNow's experience working with thousands of ITSM customers to provide insights into these journeys, including the most widely targeted business outcomes and the specific key performance indicators (KPIs) ITSM customers use to validate success and drive continuous improvement.

Key ITSM business outcomes

The table below summarizes the most frequent ITSM business outcomes along with specific objectives that support these outcomes. Think about how each of these outcomes supports your organization’s business goals and create a ranked list. Choose the top outcomes and share these with your stakeholders to get alignment on priorities. Then, evaluate how many of these agreed outcomes you can reasonably address in your initial ITSM rollout, and which ones need to be delivered in future phases. Use this to create an ITSM roadmap that is aligned with your strategic goals, and, once again, share this with your stakeholders to get their agreement and support. Note that you can achieve all of the business outcomes below over time. However, by prioritizing which ones to target first, you accelerate time to value and avoid casting your net too wide.

ITSM Business Outcomes	ITSM Business Objectives
Increase Change Planning Efficiency	Reduce cycle time for changes Reduction in incidents caused by changes to the environment
Increase Enterprise Productivity	Improve efficiency and rigor of ITIL processes Improve employee and IT productivity and responsiveness while lowering costs (improve employee experience) Access to a knowledge management database that enables agents to handle a wider array of incidents and end users to resolve questions themselves via self service Improve ordering and fulfillment of IT services with a personalized Service Catalog Improved Incident Deflection through Self Service, Chatbots, Automated Assignment and Routing Provide Visibility to Metrics for Executives, Managers, and Staff
Increase IT Service Delivery Efficiency	Modernize and streamline IT Service Management More efficient service request, incident and change processes (speed incident resolution) Increase in velocity of business
Rationalize Systems (Redirect Current Spend)	Reduce technology costs related to Service Management Minimize time, cost and complexity of upgrading from one release of a legacy ITSM solution to the next release
Reduce Impact of Outages	Provide a single source of truth (CMDB) that everyone is confident in

ITSM key performance indicators

Here are examples of the KPIs that ServiceNow ITSM customers use most frequently to measure success. Note that these do not map one-to-one with the business objectives we’ve just discussed — one KPI may be applicable to multiple business outcomes. Select the KPIs that support your chosen business outcomes and identify how you are going to measure these. It’s also important to establish a baseline for your selected KPIs. For instance, if your KPI target is a 10% increase in NPS for support calls, you need to know your current NPS so you can measure your progress. Once again, make sure you share your KPI targets and timelines with your stakeholders and get their buy-in. This will allow you to set clear expectations on what success looks like and to demonstrate that success once you have achieved these targets.

	ITSM Key Performance Indicators
1	20% IT productivity/capacity increase for Service Desk Employees
2	20% fully automated services (Zero-Touch Requests) typically equates to $1M per year in efficiency savings
3	10% faster issue/support resolution
4	10% improvement in service delivery performance
5	10% additional IT productivity and IT service performance with Performance Analytics
6	66% reduction in effort per incident
7	66% reduction in IT work volume
8	50% employee inquiries resolved instantly
9	10-point support call NPS increase
10	6% customer satisfaction increase with the IT organization
11	Reduce license, hardware, technology, upgrade and outsourcing costs typically by greater than $1M per year
12	Minimum of 3 hours per year per employee saved due to productivity gains
13	$300k+ cost avoidance per upgrade

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This page is a good primer for setting up ITSM metrics.