As the pivotal link between technology and a company's personnel, service management would be expected to always be on the cutting edge of new trends in technology. The latest and greatest tech can often completely transform the way a company operates, introducing better tools, efficiency, and profits.

Often the opposite can be true for IT service management. When something is already working the way it needs to, introducing new changes can have a serious impact on the way IT service management works. This is particularly true for large companies where changes can take years to implement and cost huge amounts of money, time, and resources.

That doesn't mean the introduction of new technologies shouldn't be applied to IT. There are a few technologies we're already seeing having a huge impact on service management.

Automation

Often associated with artificial intelligence, and for good reason, as they tend to go hand in hand, automation is already here but continues to advance at a rapid pace. No software worth its salt is without some automation features to help service staff ferry along tickets or make initial contact with the end-user. More advanced forms of automation will continue to mimic the appearance of a true artificial intelligence but in a simpler way.

Everything from answering calls to addressing service tickets is already being handled by so-called “virtual agents”, simple forms of automation that take a basic set of rules or parameters and react accordingly. Automation takes the mundane tasks we do every day and handles them for us, allowing our time to be used more effectively.

More advanced forms of automation begin to cross into the artificial intelligence space. Being able to ask an automated program for its assessment on this month's incoming service requests and potential problem areas and getting an informed answer, for example. Or allowing a network administrator to simply ask a program to identify a routing configuration issue between separate routing zones.

Automation continues to march to the beat of progress, and its applications in IT are nearly limitless. When combined with the next item on this list, a truly powerful IT solution begins to take shape.

Artificial intelligence

While a true human-like intelligence is still a long, long ways off, researchers continue to turn to artificial intelligence to create code that is far better at true automation than what we've seen in the past. It's not hard to see how advanced artificial intelligence will eventually rework the IT landscape. With data-driven solutions already quickly becoming the norm, the ability for an artificial intelligence to both interpret and reach conclusions based on this data at a very rapid pace will be a huge benefit to IT staff in the near future.

Using artificial intelligence means fewer resources and faster solutions. Picture an end-user submitting a ticket to a service platform orchestrated by an advanced artificial intelligence. Within seconds of receiving the incoming ticket, the program recognizes a common issue with the software in use. Not only does it instantly pull the knowledge base article on the given issue, it's able to offer a basic walk-through to the end-user on how to solve the issue at hand. The end-user isn't even aware they're being addressed by a computer program.

Impact of artificial intelligence

Taking a more complex issue, this artificial intelligence could easily handle ticket routing and escalation all on its own without IT staff ever needing to see the initial ticket. Before IT staff even see the ticket itself, a proposed solution could already be in place with any change requests already submitted. This is only the very beginning of the applications for artificial intelligence, and we're already seeing similar programs being implemented in new software.

The biggest impact artificial intelligence will have, beyond initial point-of-contact and ticket routing will be in data interpretation and end solutions. Using computers to do what they were designed to do, calculate huge amounts of data in a small period of time, will enable agile management. Take an advanced form of IT change management software. It could take an aggregate look at when the lowest usage is on a particular set of servers that are ready to undergo a significant change that will take them offline. After looking at the data it submits its own change request and gets proper clearance for the date. Technicians get to work without ever having to do anything but check the final change request.

These are just a few of the applications artificial intelligence will soon, and in some cases already do, have. These new technologies will continue to take more precedence in our daily tasks.

Metrics and data

Despite being decades old at this point, IT management is still a fledgling industry with a lot of room to grow and learn. As stated above, changes in the IT space can sometimes be ponderously slow when compared to the speed at which technology advances. We're not only slow to adopt, we're slow to adapt. Some have found it difficult to introduce proper metrics and data into our daily work to get a solid grasp on performance and effectiveness.

Some of this should change with the update to the ITIL framework. There's been enough time and research to give more tangible goals and measures than was previously available. This should be easily translatable into other new technology areas, like cloud computing, that can be difficult to quantify and measure. The addition of more concrete metrics should enable further evolution and adaptation that will help the IT space grow.

Big Data

Data serves a similar but more interesting purpose. As big data concepts continue to advance, the application for this technology on IT is going to be enormous. By analyzing big data, IT professionals can begin to solve problems before they happen. Spotting a trend in analytics is already used to identify knowledge base solutions or common procedures. Imagine being able to extend this across millions of tickets instead of just a hundred and see what trends emerge. This kind of adoption of data acquisition can create a more effective IT industry if it gains enough ground.

Metrics and data already play a huge role in the way IT staff operate, but soon they will have more defined roles in our daily tasks.