6 ITSM Trends for 2022

As the year comes to an end, many of us turn eyes on planning the future. We in Efecte Product Management certainly do the same. Taking time to discuss industry trends is fundamentally important part of longer-term product planning. It helps us build products that allow companies adapt to their changing environments in sustainable manner. This is especially important during these extraordinary times. Today I’d like to share some of our thoughts and trends we see on the Service Management market for 2022 and beyond.

1. Changing expectations for digital business services
   Employees’ expectations towards business applications are changing. Ubiquitous consumer digital services have set new standards many of us are now accustomed. In particular the generation of digital natives are no longer willing to accept a lesser experience with business applications. Users today expect workplace software that is joy to use and seamlessly helps them in their daily work. They expect modern and intuitive usability. They want user interfaces that are personalized, guide to results, while also providing powerful search and self-help capabilities. And they need all this to be natively designed for mobile and easily accessible no matter where and how you decide to work.
   
   
2. Still lot of untapped potential in process automation:
   Hyperautomation is widely discussed, but many real-life projects still tend to focus on automating individual tasks rather than complete end-to-end processes. As a result, productivity gain from automation has still lot of untapped potential. Companies have recognized this and are keen to increase scope and coverage of their process automation to derive better returns going forward. We therefore expect automation projects will increase in 2022 and beyond. Organizations will also pay more attention on ensuring that processes for the provision, delivery and maintenance of digital services are automated end-to-end.
   
   
3. Operationalizing AI deep into work processes is the next big thing.
   Adoption of AI has been increasing every year and no doubt the same will continue going forward. But a more interesting trend is about how companies approach AI projects. We are happy to witness a shift from heavy algorithm centricity to use cases and operationalization of AI. Companies are increasingly starting AI projects with a clear problem definition in mind - and then come up with right algorithms to help solve the problem. Operationalizing AI deep into work processes remains a big potential for many companies. Even small incremental improvements from AI, when applied to repeatable processes at industry scale can provide massive benefits. This will require AI development beyond algorithms and data science: Strong understanding of domain and use case, seamless integration into existing tools, optimized usability, and transparency on AI generated insights and predictions.
   
   
4. Growing demand for identity management by SMEs and public administration
   Professional and data protection-compliant identity management has so far mainly been a topic for larger organizations. But the market is currently on the move: We are seeing strong demand for identity governance and administration (IGA) solutions from small and medium-sized enterprises and public authorities. The reasons are clear: with the increased use of cloud services, the management of access rights and policies is becoming much more complex and the associated processes vulnerable to errors and security threats. Added to this are increasing reporting requirements and a pervasive shortage of skilled IT staff. We therefore believe that identity management requirements will continue to increase in 2022: Users will give preference to solutions that can be rolled out quickly and easily, regardless of the size of an organization, and that can be administered with as little effort as possible.
   
   
5. Public sector and critical industries’ need flexibility with deployment models
   The universal public cloud trend has certainly helped many businesses to transform themselves. But it has also left quite many companies and institutes to “in-between” situations. Number of public sector and mission-critical infra providers like health care, on-line payment, defense and government agencies are often regulated by law to follow strict policies on deployment models and access to data. Which means public cloud is simply not an option. These companies need to have their solutions on private data centers, with strict policies on data staying “on-premise”.
   
   
6. Emerging convergence of internal and external services
   Classically companies have had different processes, tools and teams to manage their external service offering vs. internal services. While the offerings will continue to have their differences, companies have started to recognize the similarities in the capability set to deliver and support them. Both require omnichannel access for end-users, with increasing focus on conversational user interfaces and use of AI and knowledge management to drive personalized user experience. Both need to be deployed, consumable and maintained as digital services – with flexibility to drive changes as organizations adopt to new demands. And both also require strong underlying platforms to drive process automation, with help of open integrations, visual workflow tools and low-code config capabilities.

Hope you enjoyed our thoughts on the market drivers. We’d love to hear your views and feedback! Let us know if you would like to discuss more.

Santeri is the Chief Product Officer (CPO) of Efecte since March 2021. He is responsible for leading Efecte's product management, vision, and strategy. He has considerable experience in the field of international product and customer experience development in tech industries.