That’s the view of Kevin Kimber, UK country manager for ServiceNow, who says that rather than reacting to new technologies with fear and distrust, forward-thinking businesses are letting SaaS vendors handle the management and upgrades of their service management tool, meaning they can focus instead on developing useful services.  “We are pre-conditioned to think that service management looks and acts in a certain way, yet when you give businesses a glimpse of the alternative, they become very excited by the possibilities.  Visit Google’s headquarters, for example, and staff are able to ask service management questions on tablets provided by the service desk.  If you’re a bank, or a retailer, you want IT to build a new trading platform, or commerce tool that increases conversion rates, not spend months migrating ITSM software.”

Because ServiceNow technology was built just as web-usage began taking off, it is not burdened with the legacy of what was once required of service management software – a legacy which has now become a barrier to progress, according to Kimber.  “When Fred Luddy formed the company in 2003, he was able to take the experience he had working for Peregrine/Remedy and build the ServiceNow platform to accommodate the way the people want to work.”

ITSM vendors should be helping businesses transform the way they work, not create barriers.  “Technology and the way we use it has changed; we no longer want a battleship-grey form to work on.  The conversation shouldn’t be about how much it will cost to customise a field, we should be looking at how we integrate the service desk with Google Maps, or build a chat service which updates all the relevant ITIL processes during the session.”

Research from eDigital has found that companies with successful mobile strategies receive a higher level of customer satisfaction.  Pure-play retailers Amazon and ASOS come out on top in the customer satisfaction stakes with 86 and 84 per cent respectively, with both retailers creating mobile channels that are built for the medium of smartphones, and not simply scaled down versions of websites.

“This is an important and exciting time for the retail industry.  The dramatic rise of mobile has been customer led, with more and more people wanting to use their smartphones to shop and browse.  It is important, therefore, for retailers to fully understand how their customers are shopping and what they expect from online, mobile sites and transactional apps,” says eDigital head of research Derek Eccleston.

Don’t forget that for the first time ever this year, YOU are being invited to decide some of the hot topics debates, so make sure you nominate topics by using the comment section below this article, or alternatively send them to @SDITS on Twitter.

If you want to learn more about the Back2ITSM initiative that encouraged the organisers to allow nominations to decide several of the hot topics, have a look at our article here.

Ian Aitchison, director of product management at LANDesk, told ServiceDesk360 that holding onto the IT status quo “won’t work” and that, rather than locking down technology, we must be inspiring businesses to work better.  “IT shouldn’t be the police, it should enable the customers of technology to do great things.  We are constantly impressed by how our customers are embracing this idea.  One business, for example, recently bought some App developer licences, but rather than giving them to IT, they have given them to the end users to see what tools and ideas they would come up with.”

The historical break/fix mentality of many service desks must quickly change according to Aitchison.  “The service desk should be the point in the business which employees know will give them guidance to work better, get them out of trouble and act as a centre of guidance and innovation.”

Ignoring the explosive growth of mobile devices is also ill-advised.  “The CEO of one of our large multi-national customers gave all the executives an iPad a year ago with the message: ‘you must get to grips with this now, or you will be irrelevant.’”

There is too much emphasis on the delivery mechanism and the behind-the-scenes elements of ITSM according to Aitchison.  “LANDesk products can be delivered on-premise, via cloud or a hybrid option.  Similarly, we are mapped against 15 ITIL processes, but it is important to use these features as a strength, rather than just a tickbox on a spec sheet.  Consumerisation is the biggest thing to hit IT, maybe ever, and certain employees have more knowledge of the latest technology than the service desk.  However, ITSM could be the saviour as it’s the only thing that can take the individual-centric view and manage it effectively.”

The contract, worth £74 million, will see Atos deliver integrated IT desktop and support services, plus create shared services accessible by DoH affiliates, with the objective of meeting the government’s strategy for ICT by both reducing costs and implementing reforms and modernisation.

“ICT shared services is a core business for Atos and, as a company committed to service excellence, we will ensure that migration to the new solution is as seamless and easy as possible,” says Atos vice president Wayne Gibson.

One of the key tenets of Back2ITSM, the concept introduced by Stephen Mann last summer, is collaborative problem solving.  The thinking goes that most best practice is currently delivered as a one-way communication, with the ‘teacher’ – whether it be a book, a trainer, or a qualification – giving ideas, processes and examples to the ‘student’ who then applies it to their work.

The historical way of learning within ITSM is flawed because too much of the material is generated by the ‘teachers’, who deliver material they believe their audience needs.  Back2ITSM is designed to break the tradition by asking the practitioners what they really need, and for the ‘teachers’ to become equals as both parties combine their intelligence to fix issues.  Therefore, rather than pushing a definitive ‘solution’, best practice becomes a fluid, two-way communication process in which both practitioners and experts challenge each other, suggesting solutions for common problems by considering its true value in the real world, rather than the pedigree of the person that made it available.

Stephen and his colleagues on ITSMWPROW have already surveyed the community and are working on materials to answer some of the most requested problems, but as Pat Bolger from Hornbill explained to ServiceDesk360, this is simply to get the ball rolling.  “We want to create some solid examples of the kind of work that Back2ITSM can provide, but I want to stress it’s not about us producing content or gurus pontificating.  The materials we are working on are designed to start the dialogue and help people understand what we are trying to do.  The aim of Back2ITSM is simple: get vendors, practitioners, trainers and consultants working together to find solutions to ITSM challenges.  This may manifest as a paper, a case study, a process, or perhaps just even a conversation between two people – as long as it gets results.”

This is where you come in.  ServiceDesk360 readers have been invited to suggest topics, either via the comment section below this article, or through Twitter (send topics to either @servicedesk360 or @SDITS, using #SDITS12).  The most popular topics will be chosen for two of the Hot Topic round table discussions at SDITS12.

You may already have a subject in mind, perhaps an important ITSM issue which you feel is often overlooked, or an issue specific to your business.  Alternatively, take a look at the SDITS12 seminar programme to see some of the key issues already being covered; you might feel that some of the really hot issues (mobile, social, SaaS) need the Back2ITSM touch or other areas that need expanding upon.  Or you might want to take part in a live discussion about the three topics that Back2ITSM is already working on – metrics – what should be measured; incident categorisation and structuring; and service catalogue – what’s the best place to start?

Ultimately, the choice of round tables will be driven by what you and your peers want to see, so make sure you get involved or make sure you tell us your views.

With the launch of Myservicedesk.com, Hornbill says Supportworks service management software customers can now use whatever delivery mechanism suits them, with subscription plans that allow for switching between full SaaS and hosted options, or even back to on-premise if circumstances change.

“SaaS isn’t for everyone, Gartner says that 50 per cent of all software will use the model in the next few years – well what about the other 50 per cent?  With myservicedesk.com, businesses can choose the options which suits them best and because the underlying code is all Supportworks, we can switch the delivery method at the flick of a switch,” says Hornbill’s Pat Bolger.

With 11 Pink Verified ITIL processes built into the software, Bolger says the product can be deployed without months worth of labour and consultancy.  The ITIL heritage of the product also elevates above other call logging and tracking tools on the market.  “There are many web-based ticketing tools available that look very pretty and work on mobile devices but they are really just case management tools.  If you need change control, asset management, incident escalation, useful reporting etc, you need a proper ITSM tool and this is where myservicedesk.com excels.”

The service is available on short-term, three month contracts with per user monthly licences costing £39.  Yet the promise of low start-up costs does not mean sacrificing quality or functionality according to Bolger.  “Gartner positions us as an enterprise-level provider, proving we can scale up to the biggest client, but myservicedesk.com means that businesses of all sizes can benefit from our technology.”

Everyone I have spoken to has said the same; January 2012 has been notable for a lack of activity, giving the impression that people have not yet shaken off the Christmas break.

And then like the parade of buses that arrive after your 20 minute wait, the last day of the month heralds two announcements that have shaken the IT services and support market to the core.

First I’ll consider the BMC acquisition of Numara (the specifics of the deal are reported here if you’ve missed it).  It would be easy to dismiss this deal as being driven purely with customer acquisition in mind.  After all, BMC already has products in the mid-market space – Service Desk Express (using Magic technology it acquired in 2004) and RemedyForce – so why does it need more technology?

Yet by looking at BMC’s own messaging, the motivation becomes clear.  This is the first time that BMC, or indeed any enterprise software vendor to my knowledge, has been so explicit in its intentions to target smaller businesses.  Two conclusions can be drawn from this:

1) The mid-market has more growth potential than the high-end.

2) BMC didn’t take it seriously enough in the past and therefore needs to start from scratch with a product more in tune with what the market needs.

Regardless of the motivation, BMC’s play sends a strong message to the mid-market vendors – the race to win customers will no longer be largely fought among yourselves.  If BMC makes good on its promise and proves there is money to be made by winning high volume, (relatively) low value deals, don’t be surprised if other enterprise software vendors start looking for their own share and blow the market wide open in the process.

The other blockbuster news comes from salesforce.com, a company known for successfully pitching Software as a Service (SaaS) to the external customer support market.  Desk.com is clearly an ambitious move, pressing all the right buttons (social, channel integration, mobile) as it aims to simplify the provision of IT and customer support.

Look at the videos on desk.com.  You may not like the messaging; you may argue it ignores the intricacies of the issues in pursuit of an idealised vision of how support works (and you are partly correct – giving all staff the tools they need to become customer-facing is relatively easy, but convincing them to do so?  Not as simple).

However, those videos and the desk.com brand are not supposed to appeal to you.  They are designed for executives and business leaders who have no interest in the complexities of IT support.  These are the same people swayed by Apple’s vision of technology, neatly packaged with clean messaging to match the clean lines of the products, who insist on having an iPad on your network.

We have known for some time that IT needs to communicate more effectively with the business, using language and concepts that appeal to the layman, not techies like us.  Well, desk.com is an example of this imperative in action.  If we don’t repackage and rebrand IT, someone else will.  Once this someone else, whether it be salesforce or another vendor, has won the hearts and minds of business by presenting a vision, they will believe fully in the version of reality presented to them.  The scary part is that if this vision negates the need for an IT department, we will be powerless to counter the argument.

If you doubt salesforce’s ability to win business in the IT support industry, remember what it did to Siebel.  Once the fastest growing software company in the world, Siebel accumulated customers for its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software at a furious rate in the late nineties, taking a seemingly unassailable marketshare.  All this changed when salesforce began offering similar software in a far easier to digest format, introducing the corporate world to SaaS in the process.  Despite huge resources and installed customer base, Siebel was unable to react to the salesforce challenge and was purchased by Oracle in 2005.  The Siebel name still remains, but salesforce and its peers are the ones now the leading a customer service market that has embraced web-based software to help bridge the gap between traditional support mechanisms (the contact centre) and online customer communities.

It is clear to anyone that has followed IT support and services for some time that massive change is occurring.  On one end, we have the legacy of incumbent ITSM tools – which would have been replaced years ago were it not for the recession – aligned to entrenched thinking around ITIL and the once highly controllable IT environment.   At the opposite end, we have the pull of mobile and social technologies that are undermining the IT department by making its support policies look antiquated.  In the middle, there is a huge range of available tools, but each starting from one of the extremes – the established vendors trying to adapt their tools for current challenges, and the young businesses trying to appeal to the old guard.

Both of today’s announcements are bold moves designed to address these challenges and fill the void.  Will January the 31st 2012 be the day which defines what the ITSM software picture will look like for the next ten years?

That’s the bold pledge of Salesforce.com, which has promised to transform how IT support technology is delivered and priced in a same way it redefined CRM software in the late nineties.

With licences starting from $49 per user, salesforce says that the fully web-based desk.com integrates social media, phone, email and web support, making contacts and cases available to all staff through mobiles, tablets and PCs.

In making the announcement, salesforce says it already has thousands of customers, including Klout and Spotify, using the tool.  It is claimed that out-of-the-box functionality and simple configuration means businesses of any size can build a support function in a few days, without needing any IT support staff.

In its announcement of the buyout, BMC has clearly advertised its intention to target small to medium-sized businesses, suggesting a dramatic strategic shift for a business which has traditionally seen most trade from large-scale enterprise installations.

BMC says the addition of Numara, which has 13,000 mid-sized businesses using its TrackIt and Footprints IT and asset management software, will enable it to offer a complete portfolio of services to companies of all sizes.

“Now BMC can effectively serve the entire spectrum of organisations hungry for IT management with products that truly meet the specific needs of their businesses.  Numara’s solutions, customer base, and sales and channel partners will round out BMC’s market leadership in Business Service Management and focus on customer care and support,” says Paul Avenant, president of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) for BMC.