85% of Service Desk Users Say ITSM Analytics Is Critical to Improving IT Service Delivery

ManageEngine, announced the results of its survey, Everything You Need to Know About ITSM Analytics: Industry Insight 2016, which indexed the attitudes of 160 ManageEngine users - including CIOs, managers and technicians from around the globe - toward their requirements for an advanced analytics tool to analyze service desk data.

The survey revealed that 85 percent of users believe ITSM analytics would enhance IT service delivery, which includes 36 percent who believe that analytics would improve service desk efficiency and 30 percent who believe it would identify any gaps in the IT service management (ITSM) process.

The survey also looked at the critical area of reporting. While 43 percent of users preferred to generate reports on their own, 21 percent of those users depended on third-party software or other teams.

Over the past few years, ITSM has become increasingly important to an organization's IT strategy, and companies are seeking new ways to improve IT service delivery and efficiency via better ITSM processes. This increases the importance of tracking and measuring critical KPIs. However, due to overwhelmingly large amounts of data, users find it challenging to manually access, track and analyze critical help desk information quickly. Analytics solutions enable users to visually analyze critical information so they can improve IT service delivery.

"While this survey highlights the importance of analytics when it comes to enhancing IT service delivery, it also sheds light on what users expect from an analytics tool," said Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President, ManageEngine. "There are currently many analytics tools in the market, but most are too complicated, require expert assistance, or are too time-consuming and expensive. Based on the survey findings, users want a self-service analytics tool that will allow them to build and personalize reports quickly. Empowering users in this regard is the first step toward achieving any form of process efficiency."

Analytics for ITSM: Survey Highlights

This survey identified some common data analysis challenges and preferences that service desk users share, including the following:

Report creation takes too long. Users still find it challenging to create reports, with 48 percent stating that they took more than 30 minutes to create a service desk report. As reporting is not a primary task for most IT users, they need to be able to create and share reports quickly with other decision makers.

Increased dependency on other sources. 43 percent of users prefer to build reports on their own and use a visually driven interface to analyze data. Visualization tools, including charts, tables and widgets, help users gain more insight from data. Query reports seem to be the second most popular option (30 percent), but non-technical managers either depend on third-party reporting software (13 percent) or contact the support team (8 percent) to generate reports.

Report customization is critical. 43 percent of respondents prefer custom reports over standard ones. When asked how many custom reports they have created, 35 percent reported that they have more than 10 in hand. When asked how frequently they generated reports, 33 percent said they did so on an ad hoc basis. Ad hoc reports tend to be more popular as they provide answers to particular questions and analyze specific data. 43 percent of respondents prefer custom reports over standard ones. When asked how many custom reports they have created, 35 percent reported that they have more than 10 in hand. When asked how frequently they generated reports, 33 percent said they did so on an ad hoc basis. Ad hoc reports tend to be more popular as they provide answers to particular questions and analyze specific data.

Incident management module needs more attention. When asked which modules need more reports, 22 percent of respondents chose incident management, 17 percent voted for asset management and 13 percent wanted more customization for change management. As the foundation of any ITSM system, incident management helps reduce the impact of an outage.

Deep analysis uncovers hidden gaps in ITSM process. 36 percent of respondents believe that an analytics tool would detect inefficiencies and gaps in the ITSM process, while 30 percent felt that reporting helps them identify problem areas and tackle issues, and 19 percent believe an analytics tool improves customer satisfaction. Proactive incident reporting helps teams easily detect repetitive issues, take stock of unprepared situations and, in general, work more efficiently.