Focus on skills development vital for the future growth of the IT Service Management industry
Professional development will be fundamental in enabling IT Service Management (ITSM) practitioners to adopt the skills required to provide strategic business advice and grow their influence outside the traditional IT function.
The advice comes at the launch of a major new report from AXELOS which finds that as organizations increasingly rely on technological innovations to deliver their services, for both internal and external customers, they will look to ITSM professionals to manage and direct this process.
The report - The Future IT Service Management Professional - is based on a survey* of attitudes and outlook of the ITSM profession. The vast majority of practitioners – 92% – agree that professionals will need a much stronger strategic vision aligned to the wider business, and will be expected to take a holistic view of the services their organisation provides.
“Increased investment in technical capabilities and automation is having a huge impact on the role of ITSM practitioners,” explained AXELOS CEO, Peter Hepworth. “The onus will increasingly be on guiding businesses on how to adapt services to the needs of the customer. To be successful ITSM professionals will need to focus on business skills such as communication, negotiation, relationship and change management.”
Looking at future trends and concerns among ITSM practitioners, the report finds that:
- 91% agree that cyber-attacks, security breaches, and hacking will continue to increase and present a bigger threat to business;
- 90% agree new technologies will generate new risks that will need to managed carefully;
- 89% think that an increase in automation will take over the repetitive tasks of IT, creating more time for service managers to focus on delivering more value to their organizations.
The report also finds that ITSM professionals welcome artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning - 77% said they believed these trends would have a profound impact on the IT workforce, liberating ITSM professionals from routine tasks and freeing up time for more creativity and ‘human’ input.
Peter Hepworth, AXELOS CEO, said: “The growth of AI is just one example of how developing technologies is having an impact on the role of the ITSM practitioner. Such trends will require the professional to adopt new skills, offering the business critical thinking and strategic analysis to ensure machine intelligence benefits the customer and the organization.”
He added: “The findings from this report highlight interesting scenarios that we are keen to explore further with our ITSM community and help them prepare for the future.”
The full report can be found on the AXELOS website www.axelos.com/skills-for-the-future