Where do IT services come from?

The IT support function was born in the late 1980s as an ability to help solve IT problems. It was a highly technical feature focused on technology rather than end users. The early IT helpdesks did not have the concept of SLA or temporal goals for solving problems. It was only when ITIL entered the scene in the 1990s, capturing the best practices of IT services, that the concept of a user-centered IT service center began to emerge. The service center was seen as an essential part of "IT management as a service".

In the mid-1990s, research by Iain Middleton of Robert Gordon University revealed that the value stemmed not only from a responsive response to user problems, but also from the unique position of the help desk to communicate daily. with many customers or employees. Information obtained on technical issues, user preferences and what satisfies users can be useful for planning and developing IT services.

With the release of ITIL v2 in 2001, the Service Desk function and its role in incident and request management have become an important component of IT service operations in many organizations. Over the decade, globalization and increasing pressures to reduce IT operating costs have led many organizations to centralize the functions of IT services with many attractive third-party support partners to assist them. The outsourcing of IT service center functions has led to greater standardization of processes and growth in the help desk ticketing software market.

Modern technological trends, including cloud services, widespread use of third-party components in the IT ecosystem, and advances in discovery and monitoring capabilities have led to the integration of stand-alone support ticket systems into ITSM platforms more complete which act as center operations not only for IT support, but for the entire IT function. As businesses seek to modernize and pursue their digital transformation initiatives, the IT Service Desk is evolving again to focus more on business, with greater awareness of business processes and data, becoming in many case an integral part of commercial operations.

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