The Reality of ITSM Tools as Enterprise Service

Management Tools
FOUNDATIONAL Refreshed: 6 December 2019 | Published: 9 August 2018 ID: G00367332

Analyst(s): Chris Matchett, Daniel Stang, Carol Rozwell, John A. Wheeler, Desere Edwards, Rob Dunie,
Stefan Van Der Zijden, Melanie Lougee, Joachim Herschmann

ITSM vendors often position their products as a platform for workflows

throughout the organization, including HR, facilities and application
management. I&O leaders must assess all of their options to obtain tools
that best support their business objectives in all areas of the organization.

FOUNDATIONAL DOCUMENT
This research is reviewed periodically for accuracy. Last reviewed on 6 December 2019.

Key Findings
■ Business leaders seek to justify new IT service management (ITSM) tool purchases by
stretching the business case for them, challenging I&O leaders to limit the use of these tools to
tasks for which they are best-suited.
■ Because ITSM vendors position their products as all-encompassing enterprise system
management (ESM) solutions, I&O leaders could become locked in to unsuitable tools for their
needs and be faced with a difficult exit strategy.
■ The desire to save money by reusing tools can tempt I&O leaders to use ITSM tools for poorly
matched use cases, resulting in increased costs.

Recommendations
I&O leaders focused on optimizing IT operations transformation should:

■ Focus the scope of the tool selection on the most suitable use cases by purchasing ITSM tools
for ITSM as part of an IT operations management (ITOM) tool engagement minisuite. They
should not be for anything more than simple trouble ticket or request management in the use
cases beyond ITSM.
 ■ Evaluate each use case on its own merits when buying an ITSM tool for use cases beyond the
engagement ITOM tools minisuite by consulting stakeholder experts in those markets.
■ Mitigate the long-term risks of extending an ITSM tool beyond ITOM engagement minisuite use
cases by clearly defining specific business objectives and confirming that an ITSM product can
support them.

Table of Contents

Strategic Planning Assumption............................................................................................................... 3

Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Focus the Scope of ITSM Tool Selection...........................................................................................4
Consult Domain Experts When Assessing Non-ITOM Capabilities of ITSM Tools.............................. 5
Intelligent Business Process Management Suites........................................................................7
Integrated HR Service Delivery..................................................................................................11
Procurement and Sourcing Technology.....................................................................................13
Project and Portfolio Management............................................................................................15
Application Portfolio Management............................................................................................ 17
Integrated Risk Management.................................................................................................... 19
EAP, ADLM and SCCM Tools....................................................................................................21
Integrated Workplace Management Systems............................................................................23
Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 25

List of Figures

Figure 1. ITSM Tools Applied to Non-ITSM Functions............................................................................. 4

Figure 2. Applicability of ITSM Tools for Non-ITOM Functions................................................................. 7
Figure 3. Critical Capabilities for an Intelligent BPMS.............................................................................. 9
Figure 4. Integrated HR Service Delivery............................................................................................... 12
Figure 5. Source-to-Settle Solutions..................................................................................................... 14
Figure 6. Utilization of PPM Tools..........................................................................................................16
Figure 7. Tolerate, Invest, Migrate and Eliminate (TIME) Quadrant......................................................... 18
Figure 8. Use Cases for IRM Solutions..................................................................................................20
Figure 9. Workflow With Enterprise Agile Planning Tools....................................................................... 22
Figure 10. Core Areas of IWMS Functionality........................................................................................ 24

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 Strategic Planning Assumption
By 2022, more than 90% of I&O leaders who selected a new ITSM tool in 2018 because of its
promoted capabilities beyond ITSM will remain below ITScore for I&O Level 3.

Analysis
1
The market for ITSM tools is saturated with more than 450 products, making it increasingly difficult
for most vendors to grow their market share. For this reason, vendors complicate purchasing
decisions for I&O leaders by trying to upsell their products for existing customers and rebrand their
offerings as general-purpose workflow tools that can connect anything and everything (see Figure
1). Vendors most commonly refer to this use case as enterprise service management, and some
have rebranded their products as ESM tools. Other common terms include shared service
management platform, service relationship management, business service management and mini
ERP. I&O leaders that like the idea of using ITSM tools beyond the scope of the ITOM engagement
management tools minisuite (see Note 1) must carefully weigh their options when considering an
ITSM tool for its versatility. A particular tool might be perfect for an IT application, but not be suited
to tasks in other areas of the organization. This research explains how I&O leaders can evaluate the
potential suitability of ITSM tools for nontraditional applications. Gartner analysts from areas that
frequently fall into this category (for example, project and portfolio management [PPM]; application
portfolio management [APM]; HR; integrated workplace; software development; governance, risk
and compliance [GRC]; and business process management [BPM]) share their perspectives.

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 Figure 1. ITSM Tools Applied to Non-ITSM Functions

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Enterprise service management tool is not an actual market that is defined or tracked by Gartner. It
is a construct created by vendor marketing teams to put a fresh spin on using ITSM tools for non-IT
service management functions. It is also not new, as the workflow features found in ITSM tools have
been used outside of the IT department for decades. However, most ITSM providers' perspective of
"case management" is quite narrow, typically constrained by some of the ITIL constructs for service
requests and incidents (see “Critical Capabilities for Intelligent Business Process Management
Suites” for a full description of "service request"-style cases).

Focus the Scope of ITSM Tool Selection

ITSM vendors position their offerings as ESM tools because it allows them to narrow the scope of
competition to a vendor-selected ITSM or ESM tool conversation, insulating their ITSM tool's PPM
capabilities (for example) from comparison with PPM tools. The marketing language that vendors
use is reminiscent of the rush to deploy enterprisewide ERP software suites at the turn of this
century. The legacy of that rush was bloated customized applications that didn't fully meet the
needs of the business and from which organizations struggled to migrate.

The same risks are present today for ITSM tools. The effort to switch ITSM tools when used for both
ITSM and ITOM is already significant. When other non-IT business workflows need to be migrated
at the same time, the barriers to exit are much higher. Exacerbating these risks is the growing

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 ubiquity of subscription-based licensing for ITSM tools. In SaaS scenarios, access to the
application and data may be cut off once subscription payments cease, so the timelines for a large
migration are compressed by hard deadlines, resulting in even more expensive barriers to exit.

Some organizations can get acceptable results by using ITSM tools for generic ticketing, but they
increase the lock-in with the single vendor. I&O leaders buying ITSM tools for those other functions
should recognize these not as ESM purchases, but as HR, PPM, APM, facilities, BPM and other
purchases. They should compare the tools on their shortlists as such.

Current ITSM tools support web-based APIs (for connecting to external data sources and
applications) and have better configuration capabilities than the code and database schema
customization of older products. This reduces the risk of rendering the tool unsupportable because
of the changes made by customers, but does not completely mitigate it. The ESM movement does
not fully solve the old issues, and I&O leaders should be cautious of vendors that promise their
products will never struggle with updates.

Aside from some rare exceptions, ITSM tools are purchased by I&O leaders primarily for a subset of
ITOM purposes within the engagement management minisuite (see "IT Operations Management
2020: Shift to Succeed"). Rather than business leaders selecting an ITSM tool as opposed to tools
designed specifically for their needs, I&O leaders are effectively reselling the suite to the business
leaders on behalf of the vendors — acting as citizen developers trying to extend the solution
beyond its core use case (see "Citizen Development Is Fundamental to Digital Transformation").

Sometimes, parts of the business are interested in using ITSM functionality. But because ITSM tools
are often a poor fit for these use cases, attempts to use tools purchased for these purposes
frequently are abandoned, and the tools go unused. Integrated HR service delivery is one exception
to this, as the HR line of business is sometimes involved in the tool strategy. Organizations are
treating ESM as an opportunistic tactical approach to consolidate software or get access to simple
functions quickly rather than pursuing an enterprise strategy that requires in-depth analysis of the
long-term risks and benefits. They do so to the detriment of I&O maturity progression. Currently,
90% of I&O organizations are below Level 3 of Gartner's ITScore for I&O, which keeps them
focused on process and technology. Just 10% possess the capabilities to provide I&O services that
have strategies focused on business value. Less than 1% of I&O organizations have evolved to an
organizational structure that enables a product-based I&O required for Mode 2 operations (see
“Adopt a New I&O Operating Model and Organization Design for Digital Business”).

By 2022, more than 90% of I&O leaders who selected a new ITSM tool in 2018 because of its
2
promoted capabilities beyond ITSM will remain below ITScore for I&O Level 3.

Consult Domain Experts When Assessing Non-ITOM Capabilities of ITSM Tools

3
With interest in ESM brands so high, it is understandable that vendors follow their competitors by
adopting this marketing strategy. But do these ESM functions beyond ITSM offer long-term benefits
for the businesses that I&O organizations support? We have gathered perspectives on this matter
from Gartner analysts who research the following markets that ITSM tools are marketed as covering:

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 ■ Enterprise agile planning tools
■ Intelligent business process management suites
■ Integrated HR service delivery
■ Procurement and sourcing technology
■ Program and portfolio management
■ Application portfolio management
■ Integrated risk management
■ Integrated workplace management systems

Our conclusion is that ITSM tools are not consistently capable of supporting these additional use
cases beyond very basic requirements in some limited instances.

ITSM tools, for the most part, are not disrupting the non-ITOM incumbent vendors in their native
markets. Since the first edition of this research note was published in 2015, some ITSM tool
vendors have released separate software products built specifically for those other markets. Those
products have had more success than ITSM tools that are customized to suit those use cases.
(Regarding these products, our advice remains the same: Evaluate them against the true
competitors within that market, not against ITSM tools.) This research focuses on the ITSM tools,
and not non-ITSM tools sold by the same vendors.

Figure 2 shows a summary of the relative strength of ITSM tools in these non-ITOM use cases
(analyst opinion represented by a score of 1 to 5). A score of 1 means the ITSM tools are unsuitable,
3 means the tools meet enough critical capabilities to be viable, and 5 means that the tools are a
perfect fit and compete with best-of-breed tools.

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 Figure 2. Applicability of ITSM Tools for Non-ITOM Functions

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

The analysis that follows describes these market definitions, how ITSM tools facilitate these use
cases, and the strengths and weaknesses of ITSM tools in doing so. I&O leaders considering an
ITSM tool for such purposes should consult with Gartner analysts specialized in those areas to
ascertain how feasible their requirements are, and read the research recommended in the respective
sections. This will help to determine if a tool or service designed specifically for a non-I&O use case
is necessary.

Intelligent Business Process Management Suites

Analysis by Rob Dunie

The market for BPM platforms references a category of products and platform as a service (PaaS)
offerings that feature a high-productivity authoring environment and an integrated execution engine
for accelerating the development of process-centric applications (see "Technology Insight for
Intelligent Business Process Management Suites"). These features are typical in support of a digital
optimization or transformation initiative or to enable self-service process-centric application
development by line-of-business citizen developers (see "Digital Business Ambition: Transform or

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 Optimize?" and "Critical Capabilities for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites"). All such
products include, at a minimum, graphical workflow and rudimentary business rule design and
execution, as well as some lightweight process intelligence business activity monitoring (BAM).
Because intermediate and advanced ITSM tools include workflow, rules and reporting, they are
often considered for addressing BPM — also called "workflow automation" or "business process
automation" — needs.

However, business processes exhibit very different styles. They can be structured (consistent
execution) or unstructured (variable execution — see "Make Business Operations More Agile With
Intelligent Business Processes That Reshape Themselves as They Run"). ITSM providers often call
their workflow automation capability case management, but it is not case management in terms of
how Gartner typically defines it within the BPM market. We consider case management as focused
on unstructured processes that have a significant dependence on interaction with unstructured
content during the case life cycle. In broader terms, multiple styles of case management exist, with
varying degrees of unstructured process and content use throughout. Gartner would describe the
case management style typically exhibited in an ITSM product as service request management (see
Figure 3). This is the most structured of the case management styles, allowing for ad hoc task
creation during prescriptive parts of the case life cycle. It requires a minimal level of interaction in
the unstructured content beyond storing and viewing. Many ITSM providers have latched onto this
style as a potential adjacent use case with needs similar to IT help desk workflows. However, even
within this one style, solution requirements can range from simple to complex.

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 Figure 3. Critical Capabilities for an Intelligent BPMS

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Service-request-style processes that could be automated by ITSM tools are those in which the
workflow is easily prescribed with simple routing logic and structured data (see Note 2). However,
many service request case workflows are much more complicated and involve redoing work,
research and situational decision making. ITSM tool providers do not understand these nuances.

Due to the few workflow constructs typical of most ITSM tools, clients who use them as a substitute
for a BPM platform are soon disappointed. They realize these tools can orchestrate only a few types
of interactions between humans and systems, whereas their business processes require the
coordination of events, business moments, decisions, social interactions, collaboration, etc. to
deliver the desired business outcomes. In particular, an ITSM tool is not suitable for orchestrating
processes that involve numerous interactions with outside parties (customers, partner ecosystem,
the Internet of Things [IoT], etc.). The introduction of more external process participants, whose
behavior you cannot control directly, necessitates the ability to orchestrate processes in less
predictable and prescriptive ways.

Furthermore, strategic business processes are often less structured and require higher degrees of
process IQ (see "Eight Dimensions of Process IQ Determine How Smart Your Process Needs to

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 Be"). Most ITSM tools provide insufficient business activity monitoring capacities. There is no real-
time visibility into progress toward business outcomes, no drill-down into the root causes of
process problems and often weak operations intelligence capabilities. Clients also find that ITSM
tools do not provide analytics and operational decision management capabilities in the context of a
specific process instance to enable process variation at scale. This prohibits responding effectively
to business moments.

Overall, ITSM tools should be considered only for addressing the most basic, structured workflow
automation requirements. Specifically:

■ Process styles in which the workflow is easily prescribed with simple routing logic — that is,
logic that is easily expressed as decision tables (not nested or chained business rules or more
advanced decision automation algorithms)
■ Simple form-driven workflows that depend on structured data, with only a handful of
integrations with systems of record or databases
■ Workflows with content such as documents as attachments only, with no interaction other than
storing and viewing required
■ Processes in which IT development staff will be expected to construct and maintain the solution

If there is no emphasis on BPM as a management discipline and no focus on managing the

complete business process life cycle, then investments in ITSM to solve specific workflow
automation needs can be considered. (See "Use Business Outcomes to Determine the Scope of the
'Business Process' to Be Improved.")

If the goal is to optimize current processes or create new ones that deliver better business
outcomes by leveraging BPM disciplines, clients should use a BPM platform matched to the
dominant styles exhibited in business processes. The wide range of process styles, along with the
balance between ease of use and the degree of process IQ, leads most organizations to require
multiple BPM platforms.

In our BPM research and inquiries, the ITSM vendors that we frequently encounter are ServiceNow
and BMC.

The suitability of ITSM tools for workflow automation is scored 2 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for iBPM Suites

"Technology Insight for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites"

"Make Business Operations More Agile With Intelligent Business Processes That Reshape
Themselves as They Run"

"Eight Dimensions of Process IQ Determine How Smart Your Process Needs to Be"

"Magic Quadrant for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites"

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 “Critical Capabilities for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites”

Integrated HR Service Delivery

Analysis by Melanie Lougee

Integrated HR service delivery tools enable organizations to manage HR service operations and
communications more effectively. Functionality may include:

■ Content and knowledge management

■ Content delivery via manager and employee self-service portals and devices
■ Case and incident management
■ SLA monitoring
■ HR business process mapping for processes such as employee onboarding or life event
changes

These tools are used to manage confidential cases, such as medical leaves of absence or
disciplinary actions. They also provide access to personal information that is subject to extensive
privacy legislation, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe or Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. If the ITSM solution includes a BPM
tool, the HR shared-service center can use it to build workflows for simple to moderately complex
structured processes, such as onboarding. These processes may benefit from more advanced
technical capabilities than what is provided within a core HR or talent management solution.

The effective deployment of ITSM tools for integrated HR service delivery (with development to
support HR-specific use cases) can help reduce HR administrative costs (in some cases, up to
30%). It also can deliver:

■ Additional business value and risk mitigation through consistently applied policies
■ Improved employee satisfaction and engagement
■ Redeployment of scarce internal HR head count to more-strategic tasks — with the added
benefit of avoiding the implementation of a stand-alone solution that may add another layer of
cost and complexity

Typically, these solutions integrate with core HR systems and also may link to enterprise portals and
identity management applications (see Figure 4).

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 Figure 4. Integrated HR Service Delivery

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

ITSM vendors encountered in our integrated HR service delivery research and inquiries include, but
are not limited to, BMC, Cherwell and ServiceNow.

ITSM tools can be used effectively in HR shared-service environments only if the vendor has
invested to build out, and continues to support, HR-specific use cases that take into account the
security and confidentiality requirements of HR processes. For example, managing a request such
as, "My PC just crashed" has very different requirements than when an employee opens a grievance
against a manager or needs to take a medical leave due to a serious health issue. Application
leaders who decide to custom configure an IT solution to handle HR cases find that maintaining
compliance with multiple privacy laws is an intricate endeavor and that the risk of privacy breaches
is ever present.

Few ITSM tool vendors have made significant investment in the HR market. Using ITSM tools from
vendors with insufficient investment in the build-out of HR use cases can result in additional
consulting costs to develop the required security and confidentiality, and to populate the underlying
knowledge base "from scratch." It also can result in expensive litigation or negative publicity if an
improperly configured solution reveals confidential data to those without the need to know.

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 If the organization already has an ITSM tool, it should determine the level of investment that the
vendor has made to build out HR-specific use cases. If the results are positive, the use cases
should be included in the evaluation process, along with other appropriate solutions (for example,
core HR modules and stand-alone offerings).

The suitability of ITSM tools in the HR service delivery use case is scored 2 out of 5, but this varies
widely depending on the vendor. This score may move upward as these providers incorporate
feedback from HR early adopters and invest in building out their capabilities. ServiceNow's HR
Service Delivery is an exception to this rule because it is built and sold as a separate product
specifically to meet HR requirements. While built on the same platform, it is not an extension of the
company's ITSM tools.

Recommended Reading for Integrated HR Service Delivery

"Market Guide for Integrated HR Service Delivery Solutions"

Procurement and Sourcing Technology

Analysis by Desere Edwards

An established global market exists for enterprise software for procurement, sourcing and contract
management. Organizations deploy general-purpose applications to support all types of spend:
direct materials, IT, contingent workforce, and other indirect goods and services. The leading
solutions for procurement and sourcing provide out-of-the-box, configured support for common,
cross-industry processes such as conducting RFPs, supplier self-service registration and employee
shopping. These solutions can be deployed as broad source-to-settle (S2S) suites from a single
vendor or as a mix of suite modules and best-of-breed point solutions (the latter of which is most
common). Many implementations integrate with one or more ERP systems for sharing master data
and recording payables.

S2S solutions support the upstream strategic sourcing and downstream procure-to-pay processes
(see Figure 5).

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 Figure 5. Source-to-Settle Solutions

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

■ Strategic sourcing suites are a set of integrated solutions that support sourcing, planning and
supplier management. Typical modules include spend analysis, e-sourcing, reverse auctions,
contract life cycle management (CLM) and supply base management.
■ Procure-to-pay (P2P) suites are integrated solutions that automate workflows to request,
procure, receive and pay for goods and services across an enterprise. P2P suites optimize the
purchasing process, resulting in improved financial controls, process compliance, reduced risk
and cost savings/avoidance. Core P2P suite functionality includes e-purchasing, access to
catalog content, e-invoicing and accounts payable invoice automation (APIA). Extended P2P
functionality includes dynamic discounting, supplier registration and statement-of-work services
procurement.
■ Broader ecosystem solutions provide a cornucopia of tools purpose-built to support specific
business needs of procurement and sourcing organizations. Supplier diversity, corporate social
responsibility, analytics, market intelligence, contingent workforce management, travel and
entertainment (T&E), and risk and compliance management are examples of these solutions.

We rarely see ITSM tools working well in the procurement and sourcing technology markets. ITSM
tools used as procurement and sourcing management tools lack functionality that broader suites

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 have. For example, typically requisitioning is delivered as an element of a broader procure-to-pay
suite that supports e-invoicing and supplier self-service invoice status checking. Occasionally, we
see an ITSM solution used as a contract repository with limited CLM functionality, or as a requisition
solution used for lightweight, general-purpose procurement requisitioning via a service catalog.
Organizations deploy ITSM solutions in this way when they lack the budget for a robust, general-
purpose tool, and when having something basic is better than having nothing.

ITSM tools should not be leveraged as a platform for broad procurement and sourcing use cases.
Clients should use an existing ITSM tool for this purpose only temporarily and when there isn't the
budget for a standard solution.

ITSM vendors encountered in our procurement and sourcing technology research and inquiries
include, but are not limited to, ServiceNow, OpenText and BMC.

The suitability of ITSM tools in the contract life cycle management and e-purchasing use case is 2
out of 5, and for supplier management is 1 out of 5 (which comes to a 1.5 score). All other
procurement and sourcing use cases are unsuitable.

Recommended Reading for Procurement and Sourcing Technology

"Magic Quadrant for Procure-to-Pay Suites"

"Magic Quadrant for Strategic Sourcing Application Suites"

"Fast-Track Creating a Contract Life Cycle Management Shortlist With These 3 Steps"

"How to Best Select and Deploy Cloud-Based Strategic Sourcing Application Suites"

"2018 Strategic Roadmap for Automating the Procure-to-Pay Process"

Project and Portfolio Management

Analysis by Daniel Stang

Project and portfolio management is a set of best practices and standard processes, as well as an
enterprise software market. Both aim to prioritize, rationalize, align and optimize a project
organization's distributed spend of time, people and money against demand satisfied through the
execution of programs, projects and other types of work.

The PPM market represents an ongoing evolution from mere data collection and reporting around
time, people and projects, toward business engagement, alignment and multimode execution of
work. Pure-play PPM providers, as defined in Gartner's research, can support not only the data
collection that triggered the market 20 years ago, but also the modern modeling and planning
required for advanced, effective PPM decision making (see Figure 6).

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 Figure 6. Utilization of PPM Tools

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

In recent years, the core features of time, resource, and project tracking and reporting have become
commodities. As such, vendors from other spaces outside of the PPM market have encountered
customers with some very basic project assignment, tracking and reporting needs. In response,
they often mimic these basic needs on a "platform" or product not originally designed with PPM in
mind. They anoint these added capabilities as a "PPM" solution or suite. But, in reality, all they can
do is automate assignment, data collection and reporting for project management. This is a far cry
from advanced PPM.

Basic project reporting needs can be satisfied by some non-PPM providers, such as ERP, salesforce
automation, workforce management and ITSM vendors, on their existing platforms. But only pure-
play PPM providers offer advanced capabilities that are of interest to maturing program
management offices (PMOs).

ITSM tools often do not work well for PPM leaders and PMOs charged with facilitating difficult
decision making regarding the use of limited resources for project work. Pure-play PPM providers
offer project reporting and the advanced planning needed to support this type of decision making.
For example, a glaring weakness in the "PPM" pieces of ITSM and other non-PPM providers is the

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 inability to provide resource capacity planning and modeling that matches the sophistication of
pure-play PPM providers identified in Gartner's research.

Other weaknesses of non-PPM providers claiming a stake in the PPM space include claims of "out
of the box" PPM features and functions that, in reality, require more customization of user-defined
fields and templating than would be expected. Also, ITSM vendors that pitch a "PPM" suite or
capability often lack depth in both their core team and partner network to implement their
capabilities for differing PPM use cases. Pure-play PPM providers do not demonstrate these
weaknesses and have established strong subject-matter expertise both in their core team and with
their partners.

Additionally, PPM pricing from non-PPM providers is often misaligned with market averages.
Customers of these solutions run the risk of paying as much or more for substandard functionality
from a non-PPM provider as they would for pure-play PPM, without getting the same level of
advanced capabilities or industry expertise.

An extension into project management features from an ITSM system will fit only in cases in which
infrastructure and operations has its own basic project management and reporting requirements. If
there is little or no evidence of an existing, or emergent independent PMO with its own advanced
PPM needs, ITSM vendors may be able to support basic project management and reporting needs
on their platforms. ITSM vendors do not support the advanced PPM needs of IT or business-side
PMOs well, as they are missing key functions, such as what-if scenario planning and an
independent planning and reporting database geared toward project prioritization, planning and
decision making.

ITSM vendors encountered in our PPM research and inquiries include, but are not limited to, BMC,
CA Technologies, Cherwell, Micro Focus, Project Open Business Solutions, ServiceNow and
TeamDynamix.

The suitability of ITSM tools in the PPM use case is 1.5 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for Project and Portfolio Management

"Magic Quadrant for Project Portfolio Management, Worldwide"

Application Portfolio Management

Analysis by Stefan van der Zijden

Application portfolio management is the set of processes that organizations use to profile and
categorize business applications based on business fit, business value, technical health, risk and
costs. The objective is to identify and prioritize opportunities to improve the fitness and value of
their application assets. APM is merely an application portfolio assessment to feed initiatives for
simplification, standardization, rationalization and modernization of the application portfolio.

APM tools include visualization capabilities to provide high-level insight into the application
portfolio's health for all stakeholders (business and IT). An example is Gartner's tolerate, invest,

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 migrate and eliminate (TIME) quadrant application categorization that many tools support (see
Figure 7).

Figure 7. Tolerate, Invest, Migrate and Eliminate (TIME) Quadrant

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

APM tools enable the following actions:

■ Creating and managing a business application inventory

■ Capturing and maintaining application value and fitness data for a limited set of indicators
■ Supporting data capture and data maintenance by business and IT stakeholders
■ Tying applications to business capabilities and organization entities (departments, locations)
■ Assessing, scoring and categorizing applications
■ Adjusting the weighting of individual business value and technology fitness indicators
■ Analyzing redundancy and overlap of applications
■ Creating scenarios and roadmaps

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 ■ Analyzing dependencies and impacts
■ Visualizing analysis results

ITSM tools typically support some of these capabilities, but not all. The main issues include:

■ ITSM vendors often use the term APM in their sales and marketing, but their capability does not
go beyond providing an application inventory function. The application inventory allows
recording of application attributes and some reporting functions to slice and dice this
information. Typically, the products/tools lack functionality to score, analyze, plan (what-if)
scenarios and visualize results.
■ What business stakeholders would call a business application differs from the software
components and products it comprises. ITSM tools often focus on managing software
components, software products, versions and licenses. A business application is a higher
abstraction level that is not always supported by the ITSM tools, including the ability to tie it to
business capabilities and organization entities.
■ APM requires assessment of an application from a business and IT perspective. ITSM tools
often focus on collecting data from an IT perspective and offer limited support for capturing
data on business dimensions, business indicators and by business stakeholders.

ITSM tools contain valuable data for assessing the technical quality of an application. Many APM
tools, therefore, support integration with and mapping to ITSM tools.

In our APM research and inquiries, the only ITSM vendor that we encounter is ServiceNow.

The suitability of ITSM tools in the APM use case is 2 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for Application Portfolio Management

"How to Assess Your Current Application Portfolio Using Fitness and Value Review Processes"

"Don't Waste Time on an 'Application' Definition — Start Identifying Application Boundaries

Instead"

Integrated Risk Management

Analysis by John Wheeler

Gartner defines integrated risk management (IRM) as a set of practices and processes supported by
a risk-aware culture and enabling technologies that improves decision making and performance
through an integrated view of how well an organization manages its unique set of risks. A key
distinction in Gartner's definition of IRM is the integration with enterprise risk management (ERM) as
it relates to the strategic risks impacting operational and IT risk management objectives. IRM
excludes the broader management of risks beyond operational and IT.

Gartner, Inc. | G00367332 Page 19 of 27

 Companies' adoption and understanding of strategic-level risk management specifically related to
operational and IT risks are being motivated by executives and boards of directors. Despite the
integration of monitored security data at the execution layer, IRM is focused on providing a much-
needed management layer of integrated data to support decision making related to operational and
technology risks, including digital risk management and cybersecurity. Gartner's coverage of IRM
solutions (see Figure 8) includes a focus on the core strategic, operational and IT core solution
components supported by six primary use cases:

1. Digital risk management (DRM)

2. Business continuity management (BCM)
3. Vendor risk management (VRM)
4. Audit management (AM)
5. Corporate compliance and oversight (CCO)
6. Enterprise legal management (ELM)
Figure 8. Use Cases for IRM Solutions

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Integration of data and processes across these use cases can be highly valuable in managing risk
proactively and generating cost savings by eliminating spend-redundant processes and technology.
Buyers and influencers include chief risk officers, chief information security officers, chief

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 compliance officers, chief legal officers, chief information officers, chief procurement officers, chief
financial officers and chief operating officers. Large-enterprise buyers are currently focused on
replacing, upgrading and connecting a broad array of legacy IRM tools and/or services. Midsize
enterprises are looking to buy single-vendor IRM solutions to simplify and automate their risk
management processes.

Using an ITSM tool works well when clients are focused primarily on incident or issue management
related to a control deficiency or IT loss event.

Risk analysis features of ITSM tools typically are limited to a tactical infrastructure perspective when
assisting in assessing the impact of a change request. ITSM tools often do not feature risk
assessment capabilities that help clients determine where priorities need to be placed or the level of
risk that must be mitigated via controls or risk mitigation action plans. However, risk assessments
can be informed by ITSM and may be a good opportunity for data integration between ITSM and
IRM tools.

In our IRM research and inquiries, the only ITSM vendor that we encounter is ServiceNow.

Clients should not rely solely on ITSM tools for risk management purposes. The suitability of most
traditional GRC tools for effective risk management are between 3 and 4 out of 5, with leaders
between 4 and 5 out of 5.

The suitability of ITSM tools in the risk management use case is 1.5 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for Integrated Risk Management

"Market Trends: GRC Era Is Over as Customers Adopt Integrated Risk Management"

"Top Use Cases and Capabilities for Integrated Risk Management"

"Transform Governance, Risk and Compliance to Integrated Risk Management"

"Forecast Snapshot: Integrated Risk Management Solutions, Worldwide, 2017"

"Market Opportunity Map: Security and Risk Management Software, Worldwide"

EAP, ADLM and SCCM Tools

Analysis by Joachim Herschmann

In the last few years, project-centric agile tools and application development life cycle management
(ADLM) tools have evolved into enterprise agile planning (EAP) tools that enable organizations to
use agile practices at scale to achieve enterprise-class agile development (EAD). This is done with
practices that are business-outcome-driven, customer-centric, collaborative and cooperative, as
well as with continual stakeholder feedback. There are many factors to consider when procuring
technology solutions for enterprise agile planning (see Figure 9).

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 Figure 9. Workflow With Enterprise Agile Planning Tools

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

The majority of tools in this space play into the overall ADLM product set, acting as a hub for the
definition and management of work item tracking. ADLM is the management of change,
configuration and release artifacts and workflow from initial business requirement definitions
through completion of both functional and nonfunctional testing, often associated with waterfall-
type projects. DevOps overlaps with ADLM, beginning with the build step and extending through
application release to production, focused predominantly on agile projects.

Software change and configuration management (SCCM) tools are key enablers of software
development teams. This category of tool encompasses earlier version control systems and source
code management systems, as well as centralized version control systems and distributed version
control systems that are more generalized and can version and manage broad classes of source,
binary, metadata and change set objects. The SCCM software market is of interest to managers of
teams that are responsible for application development, maintenance and release. Basic
functionality enables core development. More advanced offerings coordinate access and versioning
across multiple streams and multiple stages of development.

ITSM tools support some narrow cases of maintenance (bug tracking) or change activities, but
these focus more on IT infrastructure and are less appropriate for software.

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 ITSM tools provide an incomplete view of which subitems or tasks are entailed in a work item, and
do not provide complete security and source code access control by software module or role. They
struggle to support any of the three high-value EAD use cases:

■ Agile development methods

■ Geographically separated software teams
■ Complex processes

Moreover, integration issues exist with the test and development workflows.

ITSM tools should not be used for EAD, ADLM and SCCM if a new or enhanced development is
underway. Instead, I&O leaders should establish bidirectional integrations between the ITSM tool
and EAD or SCCM tools. This will provide a process interface for IT change, release management
and problem management to flow from IT service support to application support and back again.
ALM integration tools can provide the necessary connectivity between incumbent tools.

In our EAD, ADLM and SCCM research and inquiries, the only ITSM vendor that we encounter is
Atlassian.

The suitability of ITSM tools in the EAD and SCCM use case is 1 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for EAP, ADLM and SCCM Tools

"Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools"

"Market Guide for Software Change and Configuration Management Software"

Integrated Workplace Management Systems

Analysis by Carol Rozwell

An integrated workplace management system (IWMS) is a software platform that enables IT

application leaders to manage the end-to-end life cycle of their facilities. It helps optimize the use of
workplace resources to provide an improved employee experience. It also assists in cost
containment by monitoring the real estate portfolio.

The five core areas of functionality that IWMS platforms offer are:

■ Capital project management

■ Real estate/property portfolio management and lease accounting
■ Space and facilities management
■ Maintenance management
■ Sustainability and energy management

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 Use cases and business forces acting on IWMSs are shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Core Areas of IWMS Functionality

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Increasingly, IT leaders are teaming up with their colleagues in facilities management and real estate
to create workspaces that excite and inspire. Historically, the main driver for implementing an IWMS
solution was cost management. Managing facilities expenses is still important, but providing a
flexible workspace where people actually want to work also has become an important
consideration.

The maintenance management module of an IWMS includes elements of a computerized

maintenance management system (CMMS) and enterprise asset management (EAM). Some IWMS
vendors have extended their applications to cover management of nonfixed assets, but the major
focus of an IWMS is fixed assets (real estate).

Resource scheduling is a submarket of the space and a facilities management module of an IWMS
that allows employees and visitors to reserve workspaces and services such as catering. Some
functionality exists that enables the scheduler to request certain items for a meeting, such as an
electronic whiteboard, but the emphasis is on booking space and reporting on its usage.

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 ITSM tools are a complement to an IWMS because they focus on the technology that is provided to
employees used in conference rooms and individual workspaces, as well as keeping it in good
working condition. ITSM integration with the space and maintenance management modules of an
IWMS would provide valuable information that gives IT and facilities managers a complete picture of
the space and the services they provide. But ITSM tools do not provide functionality for the other
modules of an IWMS to manage capital projects, the real estate portfolio or energy and
sustainability issues.

In our IWMS research and inquiries, the only ITSM vendor that we encounter is ServiceNow, and
that is infrequently.

The suitability of ITSM tools to replace an IWMS is 1 out of 5.

Recommended Reading for Integrated Workplace Management Systems

"Market Guide for Integrated Workplace Management Systems"

"Market Guide for Resource Scheduling Applications"

"Crafting Workspaces That Enhance the Employee Experience"

"Create a Catalog of Activity-Based Spaces in the Digital Workplace to Improve the Employee
Experience"

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

"6 Smart Steps for ITSM Tool Selection Success"

"Critical Capabilities for IT Service Management Tools"

"Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tools"

Evidence
1 Gartner analysts have encountered more than 400 ITSM tools through vendor briefings, client
interactions and external sources (including, as of 30 July 2018, 97 ITSM tools appearing on
Capterra and 439 products appearing on the crowdsourced Helpdesk Tools for ITIL & Service
Management hosted on Listly). Although some are duplicates or general help desk tools, Gartner
has encountered other ITSM products that are missing from those sources on client inquiry.

2The average I&O maturity score for organizations that have completed Gartner's ITScore
assessment for I&O (ITSIO) is 2.38. Just 10% of organizations scored 3 or higher.

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 3Of over 1,600 Gartner client inquiries on the topic of ITSM tools between July 2016 and July 2018,
18% have included discussion of using ITSM tools beyond IT. HR use cases were the most
common of these, followed by platform and ERP.

Note 1 ITOM Minisuites

Minisuites are composed of a small number of tools that address a defined need (for example, end-
user management, server provisioning or configuration) or specific IT operations processes (for
example, incident and problem management), or that are aimed at a specific user or buying center
(for example, network administration). Minisuites can also reflect how vendors group, integrate,
market and sell their products. See "IT Operations Management 2020: Shift to Succeed."

Note 2 Simple Workflow

Workflow patterns have been well described for years by many groups, including the Workflow
Management Coalition (WfMC), Object Management Group (OMG), and most recently, the joint
effort of Eindhoven University of Technology and Queensland University of Technology. Simple
workflows require only a handful of these patterns and only the most simplistic of these patterns.
These include single-level approval, escalation, delegation, human review and routing logic that is
not conditional. Examples of more-complex workflow patterns include conditional approvals,
escalations, delegations, routing and reviews (such as those relating to separation of duties and
voting).

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