While the IT service management (ITSM) community is laser-focused on the opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI (GenAI) and Agentic AI, we shouldn’t forget about the opportunities of enterprise service management (ESM). While we could argue whether “enterprise service management” is still the right term, the ability to extend the use of the corporate ITSM tool to other business functions to improve business-function workflows, service delivery and support capabilities, and employee experiences is highly beneficial in terms of better consistency, people efficiency, and digital transformation across the business functions. But is your corporate ITSM tool really equipped to support ESM? To help, this article highlights five capability areas an ITSM tool must have to be effective in an ESM context. Let’s call it an “ESM-ready ITSM tool.”
What’s an ESM Tool?
There’s no separate technology category called “ESM tools.” Instead, ESM tools are ITSM tools that have evolved to support broader business use cases across human resources (HR), facilities, legal, finance, security, etc. A quick internet search for “ESM tools” will at best return ITSM platforms that have been extended with and are sold as having ESM-ready features.
It was a natural progression – as ITSM tool capabilities matured, so did their ability to support enterprise-wide service delivery.
5 Key Capability Areas for ESM-Ready ITSM Tools
1. Non-Functional Capabilities That Scale Across Business Functions
Beyond process support, a robust ESM tool must offer non-functional capabilities that allow it to scale securely and effectively across diverse business teams. These capabilities include:
- Ease of use for non-IT staff and end-users
- Role-based access controls for managing sensitive data, especially in areas like HR
- Scalability to support multiple departments without performance issues
- Domain separation so each business function can operate independently with custom workflows, permissions, and data models
- Context-aware knowledge management, ensuring users access relevant articles and solutions based on their department.
2. Tailored Digital Enablement Capabilities
ESM requires more than the repurposing of ITSM workflows. An ESM tool must support business-specific terminology, processes, and user experiences. For example:
- HR teams will likely need case management, not incident tracking
- Facilities will likely require maintenance scheduling, not change management/enablement
- Legal may prioritize document approvals, not service requests.
Core service management functions – like routing, approvals, SLAs, and notifications – must remain, but adaptability is key.
3. Pan-Organizational “Enablers”
Some ITSM tool capabilities transcend individual workflows and enhance ESM delivery across all departments, for example:
- Knowledge management empowers business function teams to operate beyond their domain expertise while enabling self-help options for employees
- Reporting and analytics are crucial to tracking service performance, identifying trends, and driving continual improvement. Still, they are often underappreciated during ITSM tool selection.
These “enablers” are service intelligence layers that enable business functions to evolve from reactive support to proactive service partners.
4. Modern Technologies That Drive Efficiency and Agility
An ESM-ready tool should take advantage of modern technologies to improve speed, quality, and experience:
- AI can streamline operations, from automated ticket triage to predictive analytics, with Agentic AI the latest AI “flavor” captivating the service management world
- Collaboration platform integrations (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Slack) to support service delivery and support capabilities in distributed work environments.
5. Low-Code/No-Code Platform Capabilities
ITSM (ESM) tools increasingly offer platform extensibility that empowers non-technical users to build custom workflows and applications, for example:
- Business-function-specific vendor-provided apps that jumpstart ESM for HR, facilities, finance, etc.
- Partners and third parties can offer industry-specific solutions
- “Citizen developers” in business functions can create apps using drag-and-drop workflow or app builders, reducing the reliance on IT’s bandwidth and increasing service agility.
However, while this article is about ESM tools, an ESM strategy isn’t just an IT project; it’s a business transformation effort. The ITSM tool you choose for ESM must not only serve your IT organization well but also empower other business functions to thrive in a digitally-enabled workplace.
Further Reading
Stephen Mann
Principal Analyst and Content Director at the ITSM-focused industry analyst firm ITSM.tools. Also an independent IT and IT service management marketing content creator, and a frequent blogger, writer, and presenter on the challenges and opportunities for IT service management professionals.
Previously held positions in IT research and analysis (at IT industry analyst firms Ovum and Forrester and the UK Post Office), IT service management consultancy, enterprise IT service desk and IT service management, IT asset management, innovation and creativity facilitation, project management, finance consultancy, internal audit, and product marketing for a SaaS IT service management technology vendor.
