IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Operations Management (ITOM) are both popular subjects among many IT experts. They are similar yet different and can bring crucial advantages to every digitized business. So, what exactly are they, and how to choose the one most adequate for your company? Let’s take a look at their definitions and main differences.
ITSM and ITOM - what are they?
ITSM takes care of how businesses use IT by designing, delivering, managing, and improving it using a strategic approach. Activities it supplies support a company's processes by change, service, problem, incident, asset, and knowledge management.
ITOM, on the other hand, applies to an administrative area of IT operations including different processes and services like storage, applications, connectivity elements, and networking. Thanks to such a solution business operations are more efficient, available, and stable.
ITSM vs. ITOM
Looking at both definitions, you can already see what the solutions vary at. But let’s take a closer look at their characteristics.
1. ITSM focuses on how services are delivered whereas ITOM takes care of processes such as IT teams and event management, performance, monitoring.
2. Both services are intertwined. Although a business can invest in only one of them, most organizations decide on a two-way solution to make their processes maximally effective. If they’re not combined, a company may face: policy gaps, loss of productivity, poor employee experience, and wasted spend.
3. Their tasks may differ, but they both need to be coordinated and integrated with management.
But let’s show the differences in some real-life examples and imagine being at a restaurant. The facility’s service management includes the work of waiters and kitchen, the menu card, and the food. Whereas its operations management covers the restaurant’s infrastructure - air conditioning, comfortable furniture, pleasant lighting, subtle music, convenient billing system, internet connection, electricity, bathroom facilities, etc. Both functions are different but together they compose a unified and positive customer experience. And that’s how ITSM and ITOM work within an organization
ITSM and ITOM’s common ground
As mentioned above, synchronizing both solutions and managing them in a collaborative and unified way can raise the value and efficiency of a business. Nevertheless, ITSM and ITOM can’t work with maximum effectiveness without lacking IT Asset Management (ITAM). The Discovery of available assets systematically and precisely involves mapping the linking relationships, providing IT services, and their consumers.
Both ITSM and ITOM also need a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to work successfully. It takes care of a company’s IT infrastructure supporting the two solutions and maximizing the value of the business’s IT investments.
ITSM and ITOM’s integration
Integrating both solutions can result in a more resilient and proactive organization and support a business's strategic needs. Thanks to bringing ITSM and ITOM together you can:
● Facilitate an agile IT environment
● Enable fast digitization of your business
● Diminish costs by optimizing the allocation of resources
● Raise customer experience
● Control and maintain your IT assets entire life cycle
● Minimize risk, increase resilience, and eliminate service outages
● Streamline operational efficiency
● Make real-time analysis
● Automate incidents resolutions by escalating them to the right teams
● And more!
Using ITSM and ITOM in cohesion requires some effort and planning, but it’s extremely beneficial for business’s agility and value, leveraging automation and minimizing people-generated incidents
Summing up
Now you understand that although both solutions can work separately, they’re actually better combined. Applying ITSM and ITOM together in your organization will bring the best possible results and it’s definitely worth the investment. You can use the help of adequate companies that’ll help you implement the systems in your organization to make them even more efficient.
