A new study examining how the IT service management (ITSM) industry will look in 2030 shows a high level of optimism for the future as service management frameworks become applied across organizations in support of a wider adoption of technology.
 
The report by AXELOS (www.AXELOS.com) reveals that ITSM professionals see future growth in the industry with 77% agreeing that non-technical business units will be more involved in service governance, service strategy and service design, and the same number believe end user interactions with IT will become simpler, lighter-touch and less complex.
 
They welcome developments such as 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 free up time for responding to demands for more creativity and “human” input.
 
The report suggests future concerns among ITSM practitioners are primarily about keeping up with technology as it develops at an exponentially fast pace in all directions. 90% agree that new technologies will generate new risks that will need to managed carefully, while 92% agree that ITSM professionals will need a much stronger strategic vision, aligned with the wider business.
 
Meanwhile 91% agree that cyber-attacks, security breaches, and hacking will continue to increase and present a bigger threat to business, and 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.

“We carried out this research to give us more insight into how our customers foresee the future of the IT industry going, to help us ensure ITIL remains as relevant in the future as it is today,” Peter Hepworth, AXELOS CEO. “It is encouraging to see that the vast majority of ITSM practitioners are as dynamic, upbeat, and optimistic about the future of IT as we are. Perhaps of most interest is the belief that service management will be huge across all industries – IT as a term will disappear because it is ingrained in everything we do. So there is an opportunity to take the best practices of IT service management and apply them across the whole organization.”

AXELOS is a joint venture company co-owned by the UK Government’s Cabinet Office and Capita plc. It’s responsible for developing, enhancing and promoting a number of best practice methodologies used globally by professionals working primarily in project, program and portfolio management, IT service management and cyber resilience.