Enterprise Service Management (ESM) is the practice of applying service management principles—traditionally used in IT Service Management (ITSM)—to other areas of an organization, such as HR, finance, facilities, legal, or customer service. Essentially, it extends ITSM’s structured approach to managing and delivering services across the entire enterprise.

Key Features of ESM

  • Unified Service Delivery: ESM centralizes support requests and workflows across various departments through shared tools, such as service portals or ticketing systems.
  • Process Standardization: It enforces consistency in how services are managed and delivered, reducing inefficiencies and silos.
  • Automation: ESM often leverages automation to handle repetitive tasks, improve response times, and enhance user satisfaction.
  • Data and Insights: By aggregating data across departments, ESM helps organizations gain insights into service performance and operational bottlenecks.

Who Maintains ESM?

Unlike ITSM frameworks like ITIL or COBIT, ESM is not maintained by a specific governing body or standards organization. Instead, it is an evolving concept promoted by service management tool providers, consultants, and thought leaders in the industry. Key Contributors to ESM:

  • Tool Vendors: Major service management software providers like ServiceNow, BMC, Atlassian (Jira Service Management), and Ivanti have been instrumental in shaping ESM. These companies develop platforms that integrate service management practices across enterprise functions.
  • Industry Frameworks: While no single framework governs ESM, it borrows heavily from ITSM practices. ITIL, maintained by AXELOS, is often cited as a foundation for implementing ESM principles.
  • Consulting Firms: Organizations like Deloitte, Accenture, and PwC often provide ESM implementation strategies, helping companies adapt ITSM methodologies for broader use.
  • User Communities and Forums: Groups such as the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) and industry conferences contribute to the exchange of ideas and best practices for ESM.

What Makes ESM Different from ITSM?

  • Scope: While ITSM focuses on IT services, ESM applies to services across the entire organization.
  • Users: ESM serves all employees and departments, not just IT users.
  • Goals: ESM aims for enterprise-wide efficiency, improving both internal employee experience and external customer satisfaction.

What Defines ESM’s Boundaries?

  • Purpose: ESM focuses on internal operational efficiency and service delivery, not external market or customer engagement.
  • Stakeholders: ESM serves internal employees and departments, whereas customer-facing tools serve external users.
  • Technology: ESM tools are often integrated with enterprise platforms but may face limitations with legacy systems or specialized applications.
  • Processes: It thrives in areas with structured, repeatable workflows but struggles in creative or highly specialized domains.
  • Regulation: Legal and compliance considerations can restrict the extent of service unification or automation.

ESM Platform vs ESM Landscape

Vendors such as ServiceNow extended their ITSM Platforms with capabilities that stretch beyond the management of IT. In the picture below,

WHAT TO USE FOR WHAT?

The solutions used, often are Common Off The Shelf (COTS) IT solutions provided by multiple vendors, that are either used for specific technology-capability combinations, or are used enterprise-wide for one or more capabilities.

Some companies use multiple instances of the same IT solution, e.g. differentiated per geographic area or organization. The latter makes enterprise integration and sharing of data more complex, but makes carve-out and data segregation much simpler.

Each of the vendor’s have their own ideas, definitions, language and concepts that apply to their own IT solutions. The individual IT4ESM solutions each have their own human/technical interfaces that are typically are used by fulfillers, IT4ESM solutions typically provide a set of capabilities that are each licensed separately, that can be used stand-alone and that can be integrated with capabilities provided by the same -or by another- platform.

Companies that believe in “the best interface, is no interface” choose Best of Suite Solutions. Other companies use Best of Breed Solutions and let them interface with each other. Most companies nowadays select a handful of Best of Suite Solutions and let them interface with each other and with a number of Best of Breed tools. Most vendors offer API’s and micro services via which Integrations can be achieved. Increasingly vendors offer out-of-the-box Connectors and Plugins which simplify the integration, and innovation and maintenance thereof.

A landscape that includes majority of the logo’s on the left, is not uncommon. And, this picture includes just a subset of the vendors that provide IT4ESM solutions. Some companies “only” use 20 solutions, others use more than 200 IT solutions, with several hundred integrations between them.

Things that can be done on enterprise level, should be done on enterprise level. If a company already has Best of Suite in house, it often is wise to extend that suite than to interface with a new Best of Breed. Architects with a wholistic enterprise view, must be involved in the selection of IT tools.