I first came across ManageEngine and its IT service management (ITSM) capabilities – ServiceDesk Plus – almost 20 years ago. At the time, the company and its products were not widely known in Iran. Even IT management itself was still a relatively new subject for many organizations. Most companies handled infrastructure and support issues with separate tools, manual processes, spreadsheets, phone calls, and a great deal of improvisation.
What Drew Me to ManageEngine’s Products
When I explored ManageEngine’s IT management software portfolio, I immediately saw something different. The products were practical. They addressed real operational issues and were designed for IT teams that needed results – not just attractive presentations, fashionable terminology, or complicated theories.
ServiceDesk Plus, in particular, stood out to me. Long before I discovered ServiceDesk Plus, I had already tried to solve IT support management in my own way. During my time at Hyundai, I developed a small internal application to register and follow up on technical requests. At the time, I was quite proud of it. Looking back now and comparing it with what ManageEngine had built, it was, of course, extremely basic and limited. Still, it helped me immediately understand the issues ServiceDesk Plus was trying to solve. I had already experienced the operational pain behind the product, even if my homemade solution was nowhere near as capable.
Improving ITSM in Iran
We also carried much of the early burden of making the ManageEngine name familiar in Iran. We spent years explaining the products, educating the market, producing Persian content, answering technical questions, and building trust around a brand that many organizations had never heard of.
Ironically, after much of that difficult groundwork had been done, some opportunistic players began benefiting from the awareness we’d created around the brand. Some presented themselves as official ManageEngine partners without providing clear, publicly verifiable evidence of that status.
We do not believe such claims should be accepted merely because they appear on a website, brochure, or social media page. Any claim of official partnership or representation should be verified directly through ManageEngine’s official channels.
We do not claim ownership of the Iranian market. Nor do we deny the contributions of other professionals and companies. But there is an important difference between entering an already familiar market and spending years helping that market understand, trust, and adopt a previously unfamiliar brand. We experienced the difficult part, the:
- Education
- Skepticism
- Technical explanations
- Early demonstrations
- Long process of establishing credibility.
ServiceDesk Plus – More Than a Ticketing System
ServiceDesk Plus was and still is more than a ticketing system. It brought together requests, incidents, technicians, assets, approvals, service levels, reports, and operational knowledge into a single environment. I believed it could genuinely improve the way Iranian IT departments worked. I also believed there was a serious opportunity to introduce ManageEngine solutions to the Iranian market.
Over the years, we made several attempts to establish an official relationship with ManageEngine. We exchanged many emails and explored different possibilities, including becoming an authorized reseller, a sales partner, or perhaps even an exclusive representative in Iran.
None of these plans became a reality.
Sanctions and the Barriers to an Official Partnership
The main obstacle to this was not a lack of interest, knowledge, market potential, or commitment. It was due to the political and commercial restrictions on Iran. International sanctions made even ordinary business relationships extremely difficult. Contracts, payments, licensing, banking, support arrangements, and official representation all became complicated or, in some cases, simply impossible.
We could have stopped there.
From a purely commercial point of view, this might have been the logical decision. Why invest years of effort in building awareness around a brand when there was no formal agreement, no protected territory, and no official partnership behind us?
But we did not stop.
For nearly 15 years, we have continued to introduce ManageEngine products to Iranian organizations independently. We translated technical concepts, organized presentations, trained IT teams, answered questions, prepared demonstrations, documented product capabilities, and helped organizations understand how these tools could address their everyday operational challenges.
A significant part of that work focused on ServiceDesk Plus.
Where ServiceDesk Plus Works, and Where It Doesn’t
Do I think ServiceDesk Plus is perfect? Certainly not.
But after years of working with it in real-world environments, I still consider it one of the most practical ITSM platforms available, provided that organizations do not expect the software to think, decide, manage people, or change organizational behavior on their behalf.
In many meetings, we had to explain the issues before presenting the product. We spoke about service management when many organizations still considered the IT help desk nothing more than a telephone number or a group of technicians waiting for end-users to complain. We discussed monitoring when infrastructure teams were mostly reacting to failures after end-users had already been affected.
We introduced subjects such as IT asset management (ITAM), identity management, privileged access management (PAM), endpoint management (EPM), service-level agreements (SLAs), service catalogs, change management, and structured IT operations long before many of these topics became common priorities in the Iranian market.
Teaching the Market What ITSM Meant
There were no shortcuts. Every organization needed education. Every technical team had its own concerns. Some were worried about international licensing. Others questioned implementation, upgrades, long-term availability, technical support, or the effects of sanctions.
In many cases, we had to build trust before we could even begin talking about features. We learned the products deeply because we had no other choice. A superficial sales presentation was never enough. Customers expected real answers, real demonstrations, practical configuration advice, and guidance based on their own technical environments.
ManageEngine’s Growth in Iran
Over time, ManageEngine became more familiar in Iran. IT managers began recognizing the name. Technical teams started comparing its products with international alternatives. Organizations that initially adopted one solution often became interested in other parts of the portfolio.
I do not claim that we achieved all of this alone.
Markets are never built by one person or one company. Many professionals, consultants, administrators, customers, technology enthusiasts, and other businesses contributed to the growing awareness of ManageEngine in Iran.
But I can honestly say that we were there for many years, working consistently, even when there was no official title attached to our name.
Beyond Selling ServiceDesk Plus
Our contribution was never limited to selling or recommending software licenses. Over the years, we have:
- Published thousands of technical articles
- Produced hundreds of educational videos
- Designed and printed Persian-language product brochures
- Delivered specialized training
- Created detailed documentation
- Prepared product presentations
- Assisted organizations with implementation and troubleshooting
- Developed independent third-party plugins and extensions compatible with selected ManageEngine products.
These plugins, documents, training materials, and services were created independently. They should not be interpreted as products officially developed, approved, endorsed, or supported by ManageEngine.
We are still not currently an authorized reseller, official representative, or formal partner of ManageEngine. The distinction matters, and we have never wanted to create a false impression about our status. However, at the same time, we believe that very few companies in Iran have invested in the scientific, educational, and technically specialized introduction of ManageEngine products with the same continuity, scale, and long-term commitment. For us, ManageEngine has never been merely another brand in a sales portfolio.
We invested years of knowledge, time, credibility, and hands-on experience in building real awareness around its products, especially ServiceDesk Plus, within the Iranian IT community:
- We introduced the products
- We educated the market
- We created Persian-language knowledge
- We trained technical teams
- We independently assisted organizations using the products
- We discussed their strengths honestly and criticized their weaknesses whenever improvements were necessary
Most importantly, we stayed.
What This Experience Taught Me
This experience taught me that meaningful professional commitment is not always defined by a certificate, a logo on a website, or a signed agreement. Sometimes it begins with belief. You recognize the value of a product, invest your reputation in it, and continue working with it because you have seen what it can achieve in real organizations.
Of course, official recognition still matters. Commercial clarity matters.
A genuine partnership should be transparent, legally defined, and mutually beneficial. Years of market education, technical investment, documentation, training, product development, and brand awareness should not remain invisible forever. We still hope that, one day, circumstances will allow us to establish a formal, official partnership with ManageEngine.
Until that happens, our position remains clear: the work described here has been performed independently, based on our own experience, resources, technical knowledge, and commitment to the Iranian IT community. And despite all the difficulties, I do not regret the journey.
Through these products, we met remarkable IT professionals, participated in challenging projects, learned from real-world implementations, and helped organizations improve how they manage technology, end-users, assets, requests, and services.
Twenty Years On, Still Waiting for the Partnership
Nearly 20 years after my first encounter with ManageEngine, my view is more realistic than it was in the beginning. Good technology alone does not create a market.
A market is created by people who translate technology into local needs, language, knowledge, trust, and practical outcomes.
This is what we tried to do.
We never became ManageEngine’s official partner in Iran. But in many meeting rooms, for many organizations, and over many years, we were among the people explaining what ServiceDesk Plus was, why it mattered, where it worked well, where it needed caution, and how it could actually be used in practice.
The formal relationship was never completed.
The work, however, was real.
And sometimes, the work tells the story better than the title.
ServiceDesk Plus FAQs
No. Despite years of trying, including exploring reseller, sales partner, and exclusive representative agreements, no formal partnership was ever finalized. The obstacle was the political and commercial restrictions on Iran, which made contracts, payments, licensing, and banking arrangements extremely difficult.
Directly through ManageEngine’s official channels. A claim shouldn’t be accepted just because it appears on a website, brochure, or social media page.
It’s ManageEngine’s ITSM platform, and more than a ticketing system. It brings requests, incidents, technicians, assets, approvals, service levels, reports, and operational knowledge into one environment.
Thousands of technical articles, hundreds of educational videos, Persian-language brochures, specialized training, detailed documentation, product presentations, and independent implementation and troubleshooting support, carried out over nearly 15 years without any formal partnership behind it.
Hadi Ahmadi (Soroush)
Soroush is a ITSM consultant and helping organizations to start, implement and develop effective services strategies. He is a leader, ITIL lecturer, and consultant with +15 years of activity to business strategy. Also, Soroush is a storyteller, poet and novelist and wrote and published a few books about specialized fields: ITSM,ITOM,ITAM, ESM and Digital transformation in Persian language.
