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10 Easy Ways Process Mining Improves IT Service Management in '24

IT service management (ITSM) designs, delivers, manages and improves the IT services of organizations. Recently, IT sector has gone through a major change due to developments in the:

  • AI-based capabilities: The number of companies using AI grew 270% in 4 years. This trend will continue in the following years as well. For instance, global expenditure on AI systems will be  $204 billion in 2025.
  • Hyper-automation: Market revenue for RPA in 2021 was ~$2 billion. The growth rate will be more than 30% in the next few years. 
  • Advanced analytics and data science: Increase in big data production leads companies to invest in the analytics market. For instance, the big data analytics market will grow by 13% in the next few years. Among these use cases, customer and market analysis by 69%, IT by 52% and online business operations by 52% were ranked as the top in a survey. 
  • Remote IT support:  The global remote software market is expected to grow by 12% until 2030. IT & Telecom already has a large share in the market with 23.5%, which is forecasted to dominate the market. 

All these developments push IT leaders to look for ways to adopt AI-powered capabilities, automation and analytics tools. Yet, 

  • 37% of these leaders were happy with the implementation cost of RPA
  • 47% of business executives find it challenging to integrate machine learning algorithms into their existing systems and business processes.
  • And companies could only leverage 12% of their existing data for the analysis.

Process mining software can tackle these challenges by bringing full transparency to IT processes and services and mapping SLA process flows through the core and machine learning driven additional features:

1. Utilize the system data

IT service management systems generate data that contains:

  • Incident and issue records
  • Service requests
  • Change records 
  • IT asset data
  • User contact details
  • Instruction documents, videos and articles 
  • Process models
  • Customer interactions on the web and mobile portals
  • Systems monitoring data 

However, these diverse data sources make it challenging for IT teams to pull them together to analyze and convert them into actionable findings. Moreover, it may take work to act on the results of the data science project. For example, in a survey, only 3% of business professionals could fully generate value from customer data they worked on. 

Process mining can extract and analyze all event data to map workflows and discover business process models. Also, leading process mining vendors integrate task mining capabilities allowing users to capture web and mobile interactions between IT agents and customers. Thus, business analysts can explore the potential of the event log data and turn them into valuable information and useful insights for IT operations. 

2. Discover automation opportunities

Every ticket and call costs the firms around 70% while taking 30% of employees’ time. On the other hand, 40% of these time-consuming IT support tickets demand password changes or resets.   

This is why The IT sector automates its service operations by replicating the repetitive tasks in technical support requests and ticket resolution with the help of an RPA bot. Self-service automation can easily: 

  • Reset password and login information
  • Configure software on machines
  • Responds to hardware requests   

As a result, the IT sector decreases the workload of IT support requests on employees and improves fast response and resolution rates by 65%, improving customer and employee satisfaction. Figure 1 shows the benefits customer service achieves by automating their processes:

Figure 1: Benefits of automation for customer service, Source: ZDNET

However, only 9% of clients resolve their issues with self-service. It is because companies struggle to automate their processes, and the IT industry is no different.1 For instance, surveys indicate that almost half of RPA projects tend to fail or they cannot meet the expected ROI. Automation initiatives can be challenging to implement for IT teams since they may lack

  • A clear vision of business processes they want to automate
  • Understanding of the implementation cost for the project
  • Ready data to build a digital transformation strategy.  

Process mining can be a helpful tool to

  • Understand complex IT processes
  • Identify areas to automate
  • Measure the expected ROI before any implementation
  • Monitor the entire transformation project. 

As a result, IT leaders can prevent any undesired obstacles and increase the success of their transformation project. For further information, check out our 4 steps guide to deploying RPA with process mining

3. Improve SLA process flow 

Service Learning Agreement (SLA) refers to the rules and definitions between a service provider and a customer: 

  • Describing the product or services
  • Measuring the level of service 
  • Setting remedies and penalties when service levels cannot be achieved.

An ideal IT service SLA process executes the issues as follows:

  1. SLA starts when a customer sends a request to a service provider about an issue  
  2. The customer service team creates a ticket and assigns it to a member or technical expert.
  3. The expert works on resolving the ticket.
  4. Once the issue is resolved and the customer is informed, SLA ends, and the service request is closed.  
Figure 2: Actual SLA flow discovered by process mining, Source: Process Mining in IT Service Management: A Case Study

However, the process may not always be this smooth because it may contain unnecessary or skipped steps, such as user validation (see Figure 2). These issues prolong the resolution of a problem, leading to a decrease in customer satisfaction. In a survey, customer expectations were not met for 30% of customers as the customer service agents took more than one day to finalize the SLA. 2

Process mining techniques automatically visualize the system data, illustrating the entire SLA processing and resolving lead times and team members involved. This way, users can easily identify happy paths, fastest process paths, and locate undesired activities or mistakes in SLA workflows.  

4. Ensure compliance with SLA 

SLAs are essential IT vendor contracts, and a lack of compliance can cost the company because of the penalties and customer churns.   

Process mining can ensure compliance with SLA by running conformance checking against actual processes and identifying violations and parties associated with these violations. By using process mining, IT teams can intervene to prevent SLA breaching in the ticket resolution process. 

For example, an  e-commerce company utilized process mining for improving customer experience. The firm increased its SLA compliance by 10% once it identified and improved a major error in its cancellation and refunding activities that caused 26% of the delays.   

5. Streamline IT Incident management 

Incident management refers to restoring service disruptions without breaking service level agreements (SLAs). It requires categorizing and prioritizing problems based on their urgency and impact on users and businesses (See Figure 3). 

Figure 3: Incident Management Process Flow, Source: Manage Engine

Good management of IT incidents can enhance the efficiency and service quality provided to the customer. Therefore, IT teams must invest in analytics and process optimization capabilities to: 

  • Streamline their incident management flow
  • Forecast potential problems
  • Alert relevant parties.

Process mining can serve for analyzing processes. Predictive process monitoring and mining can analyze process data to locate and predict any interruptions in service delivery or breaks in SLAs. Consequently, process owners can anticipate before the issues happen.

For instance, Telefonica, a telecommunication vendor in Spain, deployed process mining for incident management processes and decreased major issues from 124 to 14 in 2 years.

6. Enhance IT help desk 

83% of customers expect to contact an agent immediately after they report an issue. 3 On the other hand, service agents state that they struggle to provide quality service in a given short time by 78%4
It is because some technical questions are not always straightforward to find the root cause on the first try.   

Figure 4: The number of service organizations using metrics, Source: ZDNET

Process mining provides customized KPIs that IT help desk teams can use to assess their service performance and develop data-driven strategies. For instance, Process mining can deliver information on popular metrics that service organizations use, such as SLA performance, customer effort and first-time resolution (See Figure 4). 

Also, leading process mining vendors offer an automated root cause analysis that helps users identify the reasons behind long waiting times and unnecessary interactions.  

With process mining, IT desk help teams can seamlessly find out problems and why they occur to take corrective actions. As a result, they can increase their first-time resolution rate or decrease the efforts and time dedicated to solving a ticket, improving IT help desk service.  

For example, an IT service provider in Italy improved their help desk service for universities by using process mining. The firm could:

  • Mapped help desk services and ticket processes
  • Detected the root causes behind loops and errors
  • Improved customer orientation in help desk services.

7. Enable change management 

As mentioned above, remote IT support and adopting AI-powered platforms are trends shaping IT services. However, more than following directions can be misleading and costly.  

For example, Figure 5  shows organizations’ channels for customer interaction where online and self-service channels, such as video support and mobile apps, have been increasing. On the other hand, a study proves that adding new channels does not bring higher customer satisfaction or lower customer effort. 5

One way to avoid such a mistake is to enable fact-driven change management.  

Figure 5: The adoption of different customer service channels in 2 years, Source: ZDNET

Process mining can help manage change because it allows for understanding end to end processes and building a data-driven strategy. Process mining can generate a digital twin of an organization to:

  • Measure past performance
  • Estimate desired KPIs
  • Compute the expected ROI. 

As a result, IT teams can determine the objectives they aim to achieve and observe the effects of the planned changes. Also, executives can monitor and manage the entire change implementation process and report the evaluation of the change initiative with process mining. 

For instance, Zig Web software, a technology firm in the Netherlands, deployed process mining to redesign their housing allocation process. The IT firm identified a major bottleneck and automated its digital offering system. The software company reduced the waiting period from 16.4 hours to 64 minutes. 

8. Optimize IT operation costs 

28% of CEOs aim to reduce or rationalize their IT expenditures (See Figure 6). A useful way to reduce additional process costs is to look for ways to optimize operational spending.

Figure 6: CEOs’ top three priorities to preserve their business, Source: Statista

 With process mining, process analysts can reduce additional operational expenditures by detecting and eliminating inefficiencies like bottlenecks, reworks, and unnecessary steps. Moreover, business leaders can improve their cost optimization strategies and estimate the expected result of any investment before implementing it.     

In a process mining case study, a retailer from Germany, EDEKA, simplified their service management processes which increased process quality and downsized the costs.

9. Facilitate IT asset management

Managing IT assets requires systematically developing, maintaining and upgrading assets to reduce costs and risks while increasing performance. Some of the activities to manage IT assets can be listed:

  • Determining unused hardware and software to minimize extra maintenance cost 
  • Stolen hardware and software to diminish losses and replace stolen components
  • Purchasing or disposing of aged equipment to avoid potential failures and slowdowns 

Process mining facilitates IT asset management because it enables users to have a comprehensive understanding of their assets, including hardware and software. Therefore, business leaders and IT service teams maintain control over their assets.

10. Maintain and develop IT system 

IT service teams must maintain and develop the systems where they interact with customers and execute the services, which requires additional efforts.   

Process mining can help maintain and optimize these systems by pinpointing mistakes or gaps in the IT systems, such as SAP, Salesforce and ITSM. 

For instance, in a case study, Lassila & Tikanoja deployed process mining to reduce risk and cost in ERP system implementation. 

Process Mining IT Service Management Case Studies  

Process mining in IT support examples constituted 29% of all process mining case studies we collected. Here, we display these specific real-life examples:

Company

Country
Process Mining Tool
Industry


ProcessResults
Ana Aeroports de Portugal

Portugal

Process Sphere

Travel & Leisure

Service Process

▪ Identification of unoptimized steps ▪ Elimination of non-value-add tasks which speeds up the process ▪ Quick identification of problems and improvement opportunities
Basware
Finland
QPRTechnologyInvoice Management
▪ Identification of bottlenecks
▪ Increased customer satisfaction
Credem Bank
Italy
IBMBanking
Back Office operations
▪Detection of repetitive and manual work ▪ Analysis and automation over 50 processes
EDEKAGermanyCelonisRetail & E- Commerce
IT Service Management
▪ Simplified process
▪ Reduced cost
▪ Increased process quality
E-commerce company UnknonwApromoreRetailOnline Sales Processes
▪ Ensured SLA compliance by 10%. ▪ Identified a major error in order expected time of arrival (ETA). ▪ Detected 267 different pathways in sales transactions. ▪Increased customer retention & satisfaction.
FennovoimaFinlandQPRUtilitiesDocument Handling
▪ Creation of a centralized portal which contains documentation and information about business processes ▪ Identification of root causes of process delays
Fiducia

Germany
Celonis

Telecommunications

IT Service Management

▪ Extracted and re-established the dataset on HP Service Manager and SAP Solution Manager ▪ Analyzed 10 years long process performance and process reconstructions ▪ Identified and eliminated bottlenecks, long-running tickets, and process inefficiencies in real-time processes ▪ Generated dashboards for continuous monitoring
Hessischer Rundfunk
Germany
CelonisTelecommunications
IT Service Management
▪ Analyzed and optimized service desk processes
ING Bank (Netherlands)
Australia
CelonisBanking and financial services
Website and call center improvements
▪Develop their website and call center.

IT Service FirmUnknonwApromoreTechnologyIT Service management
▪ Improved incident management, change management and help desk. ▪ Enabled faster resolution time by 35% ▪ Reduced SLA violations for incidents and change requests by 43%. ▪ Optimized 60% of deviations in handling issues
IT Service Provider company
Italy
HSPI Management 2016 Consulting (Italy); Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia)
Public Administration and Government Bodies
Help Desk Service
▪ Generated the actual service desk and ticket management process maps ▪ Detected the root causes behind bottlenecks and reloops ▪Obtained more transparency about the ticket processes ▪ Improve service desk customer orientation
Siemens AG

GermanyCelonisPersonal & Household Goods
Service Process Management
▪ Analyzed data from a multitude of SAP systems ▪ Automation of ordering channels ▪ Standardization of the process ▪ Quick identification of inefficiencies and weak points ▪ Constant improvement
Telefonica SpainFluxicon
Telecomunications
IT Service Management
▪ Major incidents decreased from 124 to 13 in two years ▪ Halved restoration time in one year ▪ Improved customer relations
VTB Bank
Russia
CelonisBanking and financial services
IT support process
▪Cheaper and faster processes
▪Optimized products
Zig WebsoftwareNetherlandsCelonisTechnologyHousing Allocation Process
▪ Identification of three major bottlenecks ▪ Recreation of the process by automating its digital offering system ▪ Reduced waiting period from 16.4 hours to 64 minutes ▪ Shortened turnaround by 4000 days for the first six months

Further reading

Read more on other process mining use cases, case studies and stats: 

Compare different process mining vendors through our data-driven comprehensive lists, if you believe your business can benefit from process mining. 

Check out comprehensive and constantly updated list of process mining case studies to understand process mining IT service management with real-life examples.

And,  if you need more help, let us know: 

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Cem Dilmegani
Principal Analyst
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Hazal Şimşek
Hazal is an industry analyst in AIMultiple. She is experienced in market research, quantitative research and data analytics. She received her master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Carlos III of Madrid and her bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Bilkent University.

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