The elevator pitch for enterprise service management is: “The use of IT service management (ITSM) principles and capabilities in other business areas to improve performance, service, and outcomes.” Although there are many definitions and many different names for it out there such as, “outside IT,” “beyond IT,” “taking the IT out of ITSM,” and simply “service management.” It can also be equated to an enterprise-wide digital transformation. Plus, both global business services (GBS) and shared services models are a way to leverage enterprise service management. 

Importantly, enterprise service management is an approach to service and support, not a tool or technology. It’s aimed at the delivery of better service outcomes and business results, not simply the sharing of the corporate ITSM tool across different business services such as HR. It might have started this way – as a lift-and-drop of the corporate ITSM tool into another business function to help improve operational efficiency and effectiveness – but modern enterprise service management needs to be so much more