‘AI’ is the topic du jour everywhere right now. In service management there are many opportunities for improvement, development, progress, and opportunity, using AI.
This can mean progress for our users and customers, our service delivery and support staff and for our businesses and organisations.
- For our users/customers can receive more services, with more options for speed and availability. We can also help them by spotting issues and fixing them or alerting them before they know they’ve happened.
- For our (ITSM) people we can make the workplace more efficient and less frustrating, we can also help them to develop and deliver more innovative and strategic work. They can also have a more fulfilling work experience as we remove a lot of the repetitive and low-level tasks.
- For our organisations there are many opportunities to improve service levels, offer more service and also operate more efficiently.
With increased interest also comes increased rigour, and the need for clarity and certainty. IT people can get very excited about the opportunities, whilst those with business minds will also ask questions and look for good answers around challenging concepts like ‘value’, ‘ROI’ and ‘cost’…
It’s important to remember that this requires the same level of feasibility and expectation setting as any other area of technology, regardless of the hype – particularly because of the hype…
So, whilst this is necessary to meet your organisation’s needs, its also helpful and useful to clarify your own objectives and expectations around;
The why – what will be the outcome(s) of doing this?
Business Case – numbers and expected returns in quality improvements, maturity, reduced risk, cost savings, increased capability.
Risks – to people, jobs, customers, company image, service perception, business relationships, data and security, and possibly financial impact.
Transformation activity – what will be involved, and by whom and with what level of disruption etc…
Its vital to keep focussed on 2 key areas –
User/Customer experience – this must be at least as good, or better than present levels. No point in alienating your customers just to save a few bucks.
People and ways of working – you must bring your people with you , make work better for them and use the tools to do some things that have been difficult to date, like knowledge management
If AI is simply used to save money, then this will be high risk, unless there is also a clear view of how this will impact on your service, your users and your people. Saving and financial benefits will come in time – people and experience matter first.
BRC provides AI feasibility services to help organisations navigate this process – come and chat with us at SITS stand 124.
