IT Service Management (ITSM) is changing dramatically in scope and value in many IT environments, according to EMA industry research. And yet in some IT organizations, ITSM remains a reactive holdover with declining relevance to both the business and to IT as a whole. This can result in severe impacts on IT performance, business value, and business relevance, as well as escalating costs from administrative overhead and declining IT efficiencies due to lack of cohesive processes, automation, governance, and IT service insights. Legacy ITSM platforms can also impact ITSM efficiencies through rigidity, administrative overhead, and unnecessary consulting expense.

Informed by extensive EMA research and two compelling deployment narratives, this report examines what EMA calls "next-generation ITSM" and its contributions toward optimizing changing IT and business requirements. We will also contrast these advances with the risks of staying with legacy ITSM models and then evaluate and itemize the risks of "doing nothing" and allowing legacy ITSM to persist.