Since organizations have gotten better at implementing ITSM and ITIL concepts and processes across their departments, businesses started looking for ways to simplify them and communicate about them with one another. The expression “Enterprise Service Management” was given as a catchall, a term that rounds up the employment of ITSM and ITIL concepts throughout their company and departments.
However, what is ESM exactly? It will be easier for you to understand its framework if you think of it as “Employee Service Management” or a company’s effort to create one platform that will serve all and any needs that the employees might have. So, the answer to the question is that ESM is an employee-centered concept that is expanded all over the departments within one organization. There are various benefits to ESM and some of them include:
Improved efficiency and reduced costs of operations
Workflow, automation, optimized processes, and alerting can remove the unneeded manual effort and rework. This is added when self-help capabilities and self-service are used by the workers.
Self-service efficiency and workload reductions
Through self-help, employees will be able to get answers and solutions faster. Hence, this and the ability for workers to log problems and requests by the self-service means that there will be less telephone call to the help desk. The automated delivery of solutions and requests will add to the potential labor savings and it will reduce the stress your desk agents might be feeling.
A better ROI on the corporate ITSM solution investment
The more people and business function that use the ITSM solution, the better the ROI will be, as well as per-user ongoing management costs. Also, according to the experts from Right Hand Technology Group, depending on the business function systems that can be phased out, there will be a potential for adding technology that would be cost-efficient.
Improved efficiency
Using an ITSM solution for ESM can help you to ensure that all employee problems and requests are dealt with and if possible, to agreed service levels. There will be no more losing requests in email accounts or delays.
More insights into performance and operations
The use of ITSM allows the staff and management to understand what has been done and achieved, and what has not been done. It will give you insight into the value that each process provides and it will make it easier for this to be communicated to consumers and other company stakeholders.
Increased governance and control
ESM processes and technology can be used to implement internal controls and to provide more insight into who achieved or did what, as well as a higher-level of reporting.
Better customer experience and service
ESM boosts the corporate service provider game to better deliver against the expectations of employees across self-service, service request catalogs, knowledgeability, ease-of-use, easy access, and people or customer-centered support.
A better understanding of what services are provided and needed
ESM does not have to be limited to support and change management. The ITIL service lifespan can also be used to manage business function services from strategies through to service operation which in return allows better insight into the services that are provided and needed.
Conclusion
So, not only does the enterprise service management offer an opportunity for other business functions to benefit from ITSM capabilities and principles, but it is also a chance for IT to further demonstrate its worth through its service management skills, experience, and knowledge of the technology to support business-wide service management.
Nina Smith 
Nicola Holder