ITSM per team high velocity
Understanding IT services and why they’re important
Embracing the value of IT services while maintaining your profit margin is a balancing act. Historically, IT services meant purchasing hardware, hiring people with specialized skills, and investing in upgrades and maintenance. This forced many businesses to limit their investment, reducing scalability and hampering flexibility.
However, modern IT service management (ITSM) is changing this by opening a field of new IT services to address every aspect of business operations at a fraction of the cost. This guide discusses modern IT services and ITSM software, including how they help today’s businesses safeguard data, optimize operations, and rapidly scale to meet new opportunities.
What are IT services?
IT services map, organize, and manage systems, platforms, and infrastructure to provide value to businesses and their customers. IT services involve nearly every technology and process businesses use, such as payment platforms, servers, websites, products, application stacks, and even people.
They encompass ITIL best practices and everything from infrastructure management to software development and cybersecurity. But, the fundamental value of IT services is enabling businesses to make intelligent decisions.
Jira Service Management helps optimize processes, enhance communication, and ensure the security of digital assets, which are key goals for IT management. Jira Service Management streamlines IT services with the following features:
- Request management helps IT manage work across teams on a single platform.
- Incident management brings development and IT operations together to respond rapidly and resolve incidents.
- Problem management allows teams to group issues for root cause analysis and minimize the impact of incidents.
- Asset management helps manage inventory, track ownership, and life cycle, and reduce costs.
- Configuration management provides a view into the infrastructure that supports critical applications and services, including dependencies.
- Change management provides a richer context for changes to help IT teams make better decisions and minimize risk.
- Knowledge management helps users self-serve while fostering team collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Types of IT services
IT services fill a variety of business needs while providing value. They can include payment platforms, legal teams, websites, or application stacks. An airline, for example, may require IT services to manage secure flight data or global air traffic information. The following are a few of the most common IT services.
Servizi di infrastruttura
Infrastructure services include managing cloud environments, network tiers, LAN routers and modems, firewalls, and security. Infrastructure’s critical nature means these services must deliver exceptional reliability and performance to protect against lost productivity or data.
Infrastructure services also support compliance in data collection and retention. For example, a cloud-based service that collects customer data as a part of sales must be able to segregate personally identifiable information from accounting data and comply with various local regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation.
Technical support services
Technical support services provide operational support for everything from devices, such as laptops and smartphones, to servers and other hardware. Remote management is an option for some services, including troubleshooting and applying patches, while others may require on-site attention, such as upgrading hardware.
Technical support services generally include help desk support for end users. For example, if a user is having trouble logging into an application on the network, the help desk can reset passwords, activate accounts, or identify and resolve version compatibility issues.
Software services
Modern IT services often use software as a service application in the cloud. The service provider manages all aspects of software functionality, including optimizing efficiency and developing, testing, and releasing new features. Software services provide the knowledge and experience of a technical team without the cost of developing or managing the solution in-house.
Customized software services can help meet the needs of the business or industry while remaining in segregated environments that protect data and business-specific functions.
For example, a hosted e-commerce site can provide the tools to build inventory lists, advertise, take payments, and fulfill orders. One business may accept payments in the local currency, while another may accept payments in a variety of currencies, depending on location.
Security services
Security services safeguard businesses against cybersecurity threats, data breaches, and compliance risks. Security services can include everything from implementing and managing firewalls to orchestrating antivirus policies and data encryption protocols.
Credit card fraud, for example, is one of the most persistent cybersecurity threats. Businesses that take credit card payments need confidence that their processes comply with regulations and protect against exposure. Security services may implement tokens to link payment information with trackable or refundable invoices. This allows the business to return funds using the original payment method without storing credit card or other payment details and risking fraud.
How does Jira Service Management help with managing IT services?
Jira Service Management streamlines IT service delivery. Incident and problem management features help teams improve response and resolution time. Change management and knowledge management components give teams the tools to answer questions and make informed decisions. The following benefits of Jira Service Management help businesses balance the cost of IT services and improve their bottom line.
Increases efficiency
Automating repetitive and manual tasks, grouping incidents for root cause analysis, and collaborating on shared documents and tasks help eliminate bottlenecks. It also improves overall efficiency and productivity. Jira Service Management’s AI-powered virtual agent can automate front-line response by searching the knowledge base directly from messaging services like Slack. It can also route more complex tickets directly to team members.
Improves collaboration
Jira Service Management enables smooth communication across teams. Document sharing, task linking, and project collaboration help IT teams quickly respond to issues and find resolutions. Knowledge management allows teams to document solutions, share information, capture decisions, and incorporate continuous improvement and innovation. It provides end users with the tools to resolve common issues independently.
Enhances security
It’s crucial to implement robust security measures to protect data, reduce risks, and maintain regulatory compliance. Jira Service Management supports flexible permission control across all its features. This helps IT teams manage data and protect business intelligence. Configuration management provides visibility into the infrastructure supporting critical business systems, maps dependencies, and alerts IT to unauthorized changes.
Enables scalability
AI-powered automation eliminates repetitive tasks and manual processes, which increases delivery speed and optimizes resources. Its cloud-based infrastructure allows businesses to expand at any velocity without disruption.
Reduces costs
Modern, streamlined IT services reduce costs. Jira Service Management optimizes resource allocation and productivity with automated incident processes and self-service knowledge management. Cloud-based solutions also reduce hardware investments and minimize service downtime.
Use Jira Service Management for IT services
Modern IT services can give businesses the agility to respond to new opportunities. They provide scalability for rapid growth while reducing costs and improving overall productivity. Using Jira Service Management for IT streamlines service delivery, incident resolution, and change management processes.
With Jira Service Management, customizable workflows give teams the power to define their own path. Service portals tap into team knowledge built on collaborative problem-solving. Its unlimited number of service level agreements (SLAs) can automate incident escalation to prevent SLA breaches. Teams collaborate, communicate, and avoid repeat issues with reporting and analytics features.
IT services: Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between traditional IT services vs. modern IT?
Traditional IT services are in-house and require staff with highly specialized roles to maintain servers, networks, and databases. In this isolated environment, more focus is on securing the perimeter and protecting business intelligence. Traditional IT services also tend to have slower, less frequent release cycles. Due to complexity, businesses often work with only a few vendors. This limits the available solutions and knowledge necessary to keep pace in a rapidly changing IT landscape.
Modern IT services provide greater flexibility and scalability because they are often cloud-based solutions with embedded expertise. Developing, testing, releasing, and maintaining systems and services shifts from the business to the provider. Businesses have more options and can use a broader range of solutions. Release cycles are shorter and more frequent and often include extensive collaboration. Security concerns shift from mitigation to a more comprehensive and proactive approach.
What is an example of an IT service?
Securing business intelligence and customer data is a major concern for businesses. For example, cybercrime is an ever-present and constantly changing threat that requires highly specialized, focused skills that can be challenging to maintain.
I servizi di sicurezza informatica possono portare un team più numeroso con più esperienza nella tua azienda, proteggendo dati e reti da attacchi dannosi. I servizi IT possono migliorare la difesa con vari approcci, come firewall, software antivirus, monitoraggio della rete e reti a più livelli.
I servizi IT possono aiutare con il backup dei dati?
I servizi IT possono aiutare le aziende con soluzioni di backup dei dati affidabili e rapidamente recuperabili in caso di perdita di dati o disastro. Questi servizi migliorano l'integrità dei dati e garantiscono che i sistemi operativi e i programmi rimangano disponibili in caso di guasto dell'hardware.
The Total Economic Impact™ Of Atlassian For ITSM
The Total Economic Impact™ of Atlassian Jira Service Management. The report includes cost savings and business benefits enabled by Jira Service Management.
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