USU’s 3 Takeaways from the Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tools 2021

According to Gartner, “IT service management tools are vital for infrastructure and operations organizations to deliver business value in the services they provide.” USU recognized in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for IT Service Management Tools.

We are proud to share that USU is recognized in the 2021 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for IT Service Management Tools 2021. Of the 11 vendors evaluated, USU is the only German ITSM tool vendor to be included.

According to Gartner, “IT service management tools are vital for infrastructure and
operations organizations to deliver business value in the services they provide”.

Here are 3 takeaways to consider when chosing an ITSM vendor:

1. Highly functional tools will ensure future viability
2. Ease of adaptability is vital to support specific requirements
3. Close customer relationships pay off in high customer satisfaction

1. Highly functional tools will ensure future viability

According to the Gartner report, ITSM tools are “most heavily used by IT service desks and IT service delivery functions to support the tasks and workflows for processes including incident, request, problem, change, knowledge and configuration management.”

According to the Gartner report “ITSM tools are classified based on the ability to meet customer ITSM practice requirements and integration needs with other IT operations management (ITOM) and external solutions, and include: basic, intermediate and advanced ITSM tools”.

We believe the functional breadth and depth of an ITSM tool is vital to build a comprehensive solution and make it future-proof, ensuring the project investment pays off long term. Therefore, when selecting a new ITSM tool, it makes sense to evaluate strategic and operational processes that go beyond the core ITSM processes, such as:

• Service desgin and service portfolio management
• Service catalog management and a service shop for end users
• IT financial management incl. calculation, budgeting and chargeback of demand-based IT services
• Managing hybrid and cloud resources
• Software asset management
• Service monitoring and service level management
• Management of enterprise services e. g. HR, facility, and corporate services
• Knowledge management incl. chatbot integration
  

USU has an ITSM solution portfolio offering a one-stop solution with the full range of integrated functionalities, along with in-house consulting and support services. Companies can manage their service lifecycle in one central tool and benefit from a consistent one-channel user experience, reduced administration efforts, and end-to-end automated processes with no system interruptions.

Learn more about USU IT Service Management.

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In this white paper you'll learn how to successfully implement your ITSM tool.

2. Ease of adaptability is vital to support specific requirements

The Gartner report says “ITSM tools help infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations manage the consumption of IT services, the infrastructure that supports the IT services and the IT organization’s responsibility in delivering business value with these services.”

On average, companies decide on a new ITSM tool every 5 to 10 years and have to go through a new, often time-consuming evaluation process. This happens either because the previous ITSM tool doesn’t meet the ever-growing requirements for a modern, user-friendly solution or is too heavily "customized" and thus no longer adaptable and upgradeable with justifiable economic effort.

Two aspects are particularly important when selecting a new ITSM tool:

• Use standardized processes and templates that are "out of the box" and rely on established ITIL-compliant and certified tools.
• Remain flexible enough to adapt the tool to growing requirements and specific processes.

The credo is: standard if possible, flexibility as needed. A tool must fulfill both requirements. There is no “one size fits all” solution.

It’s also important to consider these three aspects for adaptability:

• The adaptation of the ITSM tool is possible through customizing by the customer independently of the manufacturer in order to keep the costs for consulting services low.
• To automate IT services, the adapation of standardized processes, new workflows and approval steps is easily done by graphical process modeling based on the standard BPMN 2.0.
• The original decision for an on-premises solution or a SaaS solution is "not carved in stone", but should be adaptable to changes in strategy or conditions.

In terms of customizing and system integration, USU offers virtually unlimited flexibility for adapting the ITSM tool to customer-specific requirements, as proven in many customer projects. Also, USU IT Service Management is available both as on-premises and SaaS solution, so customers can chose their preferred operating model.

3. Close customer relationships pay off in high customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction plays a decisive role when chosing a new ITSM tool. What customers say about the tool and its vendor have an impact. According to the opinion of USU customers on Gartner Peer Insights, USU IT Service Management achieves an excellent rating of 4.9 out of a maximum possible 5.0 based on 48 reviews (as of September 8, 2021).

Learn more about customer ratings of USU IT Service Management on Gartner Peer Insights

For more than 25 years, USU has been promoting the exchange of information and knowledge among ITSM tool users and actively involving the user community in the further development of our ITSM tool by

• 2 user group meetings per year – face-to-face and online
• Intensive exchange with product management on product strategy
• Active participation of customers in shaping the next development steps
• Early insight of users into new product generations and planned innovation
• Targeted request for feedback and user tests of new functionalities
• Continuous information of users about current product news via newsletter
• Ongoing exchange of user experiences in the USU Online Community

Our customers value the long-term relationship through lifelong support directly from our team, as opposed to "sell and forget" often experienced from other vendors. We believe that is why international analysts also from Forrester Research and Research in Action have mentioned in their research and market reviews that USU achieves high ratings for customer satisfaction in the field of IT and Enterprise Service Management.

See how USU IT Service Management can help you plan, deliver, and manage your IT services with ease.

Gartner, “Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tools”, Rich Doheny, Keith Andes, Chris Matchett, August 30, 2021.

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