Staff time issues? Find out how your IT department can do more for less
When it comes to IT there are a number of ways to do more with less which all companies can do to ensure they get the best value for money from their team.
Here’s our top 5 resolutions for IT professionals in 2016:
Forget using Email
A big source of pain for organisations is one of the most common practices seen across all industries – the use of email for requests. Workflow processes in email remain unstructured, invisible and unmanaged.
Using email for a litany of service requests across a company, from HR onboarding to managing compliance, is inefficient and carries inherent issues including a lack of tracking and visibility. But if you can whiteboard a process from request to approvals to fulfilment, you can build – and therefore automate – practically any business process in HR, legal, marketing or more.
Earlier this year, IT professional association HDI conducted a survey which discovered that 73% of organisations they questioned said they were applying this capability outside of the IT department, something we’ve written about previously in our “Take the IT out of ITSM” piece.
Building custom apps around processes for the line of business (LOB) also allows the IT department to align these workflows onto a single management system. This gives a bird’s eye view of the operations of the business and a single source of record for all actions.
Encourage your team to be self-reliant
IT teams can use the efficiency of a well-run e-commerce site to set up easy-to-navigate catalogues for employees. Some call this self-service but it can more accurately be referred to as self-reliance, where employees can have 24/7 access to areas such as HR benefits.
While this is often done for traditional IT needs, it’s also time to consider expanding the idea to create service catalogues for facilities, HR, marketing, legal and more. Building these catalogues gives a one-stop shop for employees and reduces demand on the IT department.
Ensure a strong culture of service
Your finance, legal, logistics and HR departments want to deliver a strong internal service experience to their colleagues but many lack the technical know-how to make that happen. By coaching the various departments on the “how-to” possibilities, everyone in the company becomes more efficient.
The other benefit for an IT department is the more structure which is put in place at the beginning of the process, the less projects there will be to struggle with later. Find people in the LOB who have specific pain points and talk to them about what can be done to make their jobs easier.
Cultivate colleagues outside the IT department who can shepherd tech projects. Having someone on your side in the LOB can be the difference between success and failure.
Make decisions based on the data
If those working on the LOB move their unstructured email and phone requests into a structured and tracked system – like that provided by Gartner recognised industry leader ServiceNow – then they can start to glean information from their operations which leads to actionable insights.
For example, if HR can see that a large percentage of new employees are inquiring about benefits, that information ca be promoted on a company portal to pre-empt future inquiries.
Be innovative
Even though innovation is plugged as a key component of a business strategy, many IT departments will tell you they’re dedicated to repetitive tasks which are mostly aimed at just “keeping the lights on”.
Automating these mundane tasks which occur in the LOB is the most important thing a business can do as it allows time to innovate. Ask your colleagues how they could impact the business in 2016 if they got 10 percent of their time back, thanks to IT.
Going into the new year, IT professionals should feel empowered to drive impactful efficiencies into their business units. Lead with key strengths and reach into the LOB to talk to colleagues about their processes and consider an automated ITSM service.
Here at Technosys we can help you implement these changes. As valued partners of both ServiceNow and BMC, we can deliver a solution which meets your business’ unique requirements. Contact us for a free consultation to see how an ITSM could bring benefits to all areas of your company.
