IT Service Management Enhanced efficiency by automating
loader image

We enable business and digital transformation decisions through the delivery of cutting-edge ICT solutions and products...





Get inspired…
  
  
  

Enhance efficiency by automating IT Service Management

We look at the role of artificial intelligence and chatbots in IT service management. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology is serving an important role in IT service management (ITSM) as organizations seek to become more efficient and find ways to avoid repetitive tasks.

According to a survey of 529 IT professionals in March, conducted by Spiceworks, 40% of large businesses plan to implement intelligent virtual assistants over the next year, while 53% currently use AI in their IT departments.

IT could be the main beneficiary of AI and intelligent automation, with IT professionals estimating that almost a fifth of their current daily tasks could be automated by such technology. The vast majority of respondents (76%) said AI and intelligent automation would help to automate repetitive processes in IT.IT service management

Doing more with less – IT service management

IT teams are under increased pressure because budgets continue to drop, while both technology use and customer expectations of service and support are increasing, says Stephen Mann, principal and content director at ITSM.tools.

Business users are asking IT to take on more work, he says, adding: “There are many frustrations that relate to what now seems age-old mantra of having to do more with less. IT, and potentially the business, is also more complex.”

Mann believes artificial intelligence technology and chatbots can address some of these issues by offering 24×7 support and a quicker response time. This could result in a better customer experience and reduce the number of requests to the IT helpdesk.

Take password resets, for instance. Such requests account for 20-50% of service desks calls, according to analyst Gartner. The manual process kicks off when a user calls the service desk. Staff on the helpdesk then authenticate the user by asking a series of security questions. Mann says the helpdesk agent may need to create a temporary password for the user, who will need to change this to a new password of their choice once they’ve logged in using the temporary password.

The Spiceworks survey shows that IT professionals believe automating these simple processes would free up a considerable amount of their time.

AutomationEdge has developed just such an automation tool, which requires users to click on the AutomationEdge Password Reset app in the self-service helpdesk portal to initiate a password reset. Users can reset their passwords from the service desk portal or request a temporary password, which is automatically sent to their registered mobile phone. The system can also be used by a colleague to reset a password on behalf of a user.

Keeping pace with DevOps – IT service management

IT teams can also use AI technology to keep up to date with new services as they are added to the IT portfolio. “One of the biggest challenges in IT is the velocity with which services and technologies are onboard and changed,” says Forrester principal analyst Charles Betz.

In the age of DevOps and software as a service (SaaS), the time between a bug being identified and being fixed has shortened. “This means keeping up to date on issues and their current resolution is increasingly challenging, and it is in solving this problem that I believe AI will add the most value,” says Betz.

Automating frequently asked helpdesk questions is another easy win for IT. Kaleo Software offers machine learning to categorize similar helpdesk tickets and present a suitable reply. One of Kaleo’s reference customers is US food company Venture Foods, which uses the product to automatically answer “how to” questions for users of its JD Edwards enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

A growing application of AI in IT operations (AIOps) is the use of machine learning to automate IT admin tasks. AI is used to analyze database and system logs to predict potential issues.

“In the case of AIOps, AI makes it easier for IT operations to handle the increasing number of technology-related alerts,” says ITSM.tools’ Mann. “It removes manual activities, delays, and costs through the use of algorithms to automatically cluster and reduce event management alerts.” He says the use cases for AI technology enable IT departments to deliver better, faster and cheaper services.

Chatbots on the IT helpdesk – IT service management

Mann says chatbot technology has performed well in the consumer sector, and therefore it makes sense to bring it to the IT department.

It depends what the service desk is trying to achieve across ‘better, faster, cheaper’. Ideally, the driver should be delivering a better customer experience through quicker resolutions and perhaps offering out-of-hours support,” he says.

Organisations can learn from consumer-facing chatbots, using such use cases to implement similar technology for the service desk. Online users could start by raising a concern through a virtual assistant, which could eventually be passed on to a human agent.

If a staff member has to spend time looking at the context of the conversation or asking the user what their issue is, and potentially passing the request on to another member of staff, that creates a negative experience for the customer. Organisations can learn to implement a smoother transition between the AI interface and the human agent in their chatbot service for employees. Contact Musato Technologies to learn more about our innovative and ingenious ICT solutions and services.

 

Gideon E. M
Author: Gideon E. M

Gideon Ebonde M. is the CEO and Chief Software Architect at Musato Technologies. He is experienced Software developer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. He has a strong engineering professional skilled in Mobile Application Development, Enterprise Software, AI, Robotics, IoT, Servers, Cloud and business application. He is an accomplished DevOps software engineer and a visionary computer scientist and engineer.

Leave a Reply