market overview: saas it service management tools

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Market Overview: SaaS IT Service Management Toolsby Stephen Mann, February 21, 2013

FOR: Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

KEY TAKEAWAYS

SaaS Can Be A Compelling Opportunity, But Look Beyond The Delivery ModelWhile SaaS tools are sold on the promise of reduced costs, increased simplicity, and quicker time-to-value, you should ultimately base your tool decision on what you need rather than what the tool can off er. And not just your ITIL-capability-based needs -- be driven by “customer needs.”

Not All SaaS Tools Were Born EqualBe clear as to the benefi ts you wish to get from the SaaS delivery model. Just because a solution is labeled “SaaS” doesn’t mean it will deliver all of the espoused SaaS benefi ts -- as with an on-premises tool, ask focused questions in areas such as ease of upgrade and total cost of ownership.

Procuring A New ITSM Tool Is Not EnoughBuying a new ITSM tool won’t necessarily improve your ITSM mojo. It will excite technologists and maybe add to or improve process-based capabilities, but your I&O organization may also need signifi cant investment in people and process to gain maximum business value from the technology investment.

© 2013, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®, Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. To purchase reprints of this document, please email [email protected]. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.

FOR INFRASTRUCTURE & OPERATIONS PROFESSIONALS

WHY READ THIS REPORT

The practice of IT service management (ITSM) is widely adopted by IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations around the globe to help deliver technology services better, faster, and cheaper. To succeed with ITSM, I&O professionals rely heavily on fit-for-purpose ITSM tools; however, there is often discontent with such tools, and consequently organizations follow a regular cycle of tool churn. And, unfortunately, selecting the right ITSM tool has never been easy, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) now adds an extra dimension of complexity. This market overview offers: information on the growth of the SaaS for ITSM market; guidance on the key functional criteria to assess; a summary of SaaS-related benefits and risks; and overviews of 21 SaaS ITSM vendors and 23 tools classified by target markets. The SaaS delivery model has turned the ITSM tool market on its head; read this report to ensure that you remain grounded when considering the potential of SaaS for ITSM and the available options.

Table Of Contents

Software-As-A-Service: The Answer To Your On-Premises ITSM Tool Woes?

Key Evaluation Criteria When Selecting An SaaS ITSM Solution

Segmenting The Landscape Of SaaS ITSM Tools And Vendors

RECOMMENDATIONS

Let Your Level Of ITSM Maturity Determine Your Tool Needs

Supplemental Material

Notes & Resources

Forrester analyzed SaaS ITSM offerings from 21 vendors: Absolute Software, Axios Systems, BMC Software, CA Technologies, Cherwell Software, EasyVista, helpLine, Hornbill, HP, IBM, LANDesk Software, ManageEngine, SAManage, Serena Software, ServiceNow, Sunrise Software, SunView Software, SysAid Technologies, TOPdesk, Vivantio, and Zendesk.

Related Research Documents

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Market Overview: SaaS IT Service Management ToolsEvaluate The Core And Differentiating Capabilities In An Increasingly Crowded Marketplaceby Stephen Mannwith Doug Washburn and Miroslaw Lisserman

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Market Overview: SaaS IT Service Management Tools 2

© 2013, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited February 21, 2013

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE: THE ANSWER TO YOUR ON-PREMISES ITSM TOOL WOES?

The practice of IT service management is widely adopted by IT I&O organizations around the globe to deliver technology services better, faster, and cheaper. When done right, ITSM improves staff productivity, heightens the quality of service, and reduces operational costs to improve your reputation with the business.1 And as bring-your-own-technology and as-a-service offerings proliferate, I&O must transition from a provider of technology components to a broker of technology services. Mature ITSM is paramount to this.

To excel at ITSM, I&O professionals rely heavily on the use of fit-for-purpose ITSM tools. The landscape for ITSM tools has long been established, with market share dominated by the on-premises offerings from the big four IT management software vendors: BMC Software, CA Technologies, HP, and IBM. However, the space is quickly being disrupted by software-as-a-service options from existing and new competition. Early indicators show favorable economics and higher customer satisfaction. But is SaaS actually cheaper and is this higher customer satisfaction due to the SaaS delivery model or to new and better-fitting solutions from new and traditional vendors alike? The question remains: Is SaaS the answer to your on-premises ITSM tool woes?

Traditional Vendors And Their On-Premises Offerings Lead To Customer Dissatisfaction

During the mid-to-late 2000s, many industry pundits considered the landscape of ITSM tools and vendors both stagnant and saturated. Large enterprises would often select a big four IT management software vendor tool by default. The midmarket would choose a big four tool if they could afford to; if not, then another traditional vendor. In either case, the ITSM market was focused on on-premises solutions where tools were hosted by the customer and bought via a perpetual licensing model. Customer dissatisfaction with this model was rife with customers churning from their vendors every five years. Commonly cited reasons included poor usability and excessive time and resources required to move between versions. Heavily customized big four ITSM products in particular were particularly prone to these issues.

Today, the on-premises ITSM tools market continues to see a high level of churn as customers swap “vendor A’s ITSM tool” for “vendor B’s ITSM tool.” Forrester continues to hear similar echoes of dissatisfaction from buyers and users of ITSM tools, citing that the incumbent on-premises tool:

“Is too costly to run.”

“Is a poor fit to operational and customer requirements.”

“Is complicated and cumbersome to use.”




“Hasn’t kept pace with the latest service management thinking.”

“Is an out-of-date version because it would cost too much to upgrade.”

So are we right to blame the on-premises tools? Not always. On-premises tools are often not perfect, but the entire ecosystem is responsible, from the ITSM tool vendors, consultancies, and advisory firms to ITIL publication and training providers, and finally the customers themselves. Specifically, Forrester finds that customers often ask the wrong questions during product evaluations and therefore don’t get the answers they need. Likewise, customers that customize the tool within an inch of usability not only frustrate users but make it difficult to move between versions. Finally, many users do not use tools to their maximum potential due to a number of issues. An example is the inability to extend ITIL process adoption (and thus tool use) due to the pressures of day-to-day ITSM activities such as incident-management-driven firefighting.

We have all had a hand in placing too much emphasis on ITIL capabilities and drifting away from the real drivers for ITSM: to facilitate and ensure positive business outcomes from IT.

Enter Software-As-A-Service

In 2007, two things forever changed the landscape of ITSM tools and vendors:

■ ITIL v3 extended the scope of ITSM from 10 processes to 28. The introduction of the service catalog, for example, was a game-changer. Vendors with extended service desk capabilities were no longer seen as enough if they didn’t support ITIL v3.

■ ServiceNow started to gain real traction with its “modern” SaaS ITSM tool. The subscription-based pricing model native to SaaS is an operating expense (opex), not a capital expense (capex). These economics led to a quicker time-to-value that became attractive to large organizations that continued to feel the pressure from the 2008 financial crisis.

Jumping forward to 2012, nearly all ITSM tool vendors across all market segments now offer an SaaS solution, and ITSM tool vendors of all sizes now have far greater geographic reach in terms of both marketing and sales capabilities. There is also a blurring between enterprise and the midmarket, with an emphasis on an organization’s ITSM maturity as well as its size.

The Key Benefits Of SaaS For ITSM

The software-as-a-service delivery model can offer fast deployment speeds, low upfront costs, and ongoing flexibility to scale up or down as needs change. These benefits are universal, whether applied to customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), collaboration, or ITSM.2 Key benefits of the SaaS delivery model for ITSM include:




■ Subscription-based pricing that lowers total cost of ownership, initially. For many firms, the key benefit of SaaS is its simple, subscription-based pricing model: Firms pay a subscription fee per month (or year) per user that covers everything needed to operate, including support and maintenance. This model provides a lower and consistent level of opex without any of the capex investment required for on-premises hardware and software licenses. As a result, the total cost of ownership of SaaS is lower. However, this is often only temporary, as the total cost of ownership of SaaS often can become more expensive than on-premises after three to four years, depending on customer ITSM maturity. Also, some vendors offer subscription-based pricing (opex rather than capex) for their on-premises offerings.

■ Simple implementation and upgrades that minimize staff effort. An SaaS-delivered ITSM tool only requires a web browser and an Internet connection to function — no client to install, no hardware to support, and nothing to upgrade locally. SaaS also offers seamless, automatic upgrades, typically two to four times per year (a caveat here is that customer customizations can still cause issues with the ease of said upgrades). This means that users can access the latest features and functionality faster than in an on-premises deployment, where upgrade cycles often take 18 to 24 months.

■ Reduced support needs. SaaS can reduce or eliminate internal IT support since the SaaS provider typically includes support and maintenance in the subscription (with the provider responsible for patching and bug fixing).

■ Greater opportunity of use. The simplicity of pricing can also be viewed from a value-for-money perspective, in that a per-seat subscription will usually cover access to capabilities across multiple ITIL processes rather than the traditional need for organizations to buy multiple licenses across multiple ITSM products (or modules). This gives an organization the freedom to continue its adoption of the ITIL framework over time without additional cost, other than for additional users and seats as necessary.

■ Higher user satisfaction. Although Forrester hears frequent complaints about ITSM tools, the data suggests that satisfaction is higher than dissatisfaction (see Figure 1). However, SaaS customers are far more satisfied. While all other models maintain an about 70:30 satisfied/dissatisfied ratio or worse, SaaS is an impressive 88:12. We believe it’s a combination of the benefits above. Software-as-a-service’s ease of use, instant availability, and pay-per-use nature are in stark contrast to older on-premises experiences that firms perceive as clunky and which take months or years to rollout, all while spending significant capital investment upfront before value is received.




Figure 1 ITSM Tool Satisfaction Levels

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.81743

Source: Forrester/itSMF Q4 2012 US ITSM Online Survey

SaaS

Smaller vendor

Homebrew

Major vendor

12%

43%

40%

31%

88%

57%

60%

69%

Base: 192 itSMF members, Forrester clients, and Twitter respondents

“What is your current state with service desk?”

Satis�edDissatis�ed

Take A More Critical Look At SaaS To Determine If It Is Right For You

Finally, consider the risks associated with the SaaS delivery model. In a survey of 3,534 global IT budget decision-makers, Forrester found that technology leaders are not interested in SaaS for a variety of reasons, stemming from security to deployment.3 While this data is not specific to SaaS ITSM tools, Forrester believes that the following buyer concerns are valid:

■ Security concerns. On average, 42% of IT budget decision-makers who were not interested in adopting SaaS cited concerns about how well their corporate data and information would be protected in a SaaS solution. Respondents from both larger firms and midsize firms felt the same way about this.

■ Integration challenges with other applications. Twenty-two percent of respondents felt that SaaS software would be hard to integrate with other legacy software products. Again, respondents from both larger firms and midsize firms felt the same way.

■ Total cost concerns (i.e., total cost of ownership). Twenty percent of respondents worried that SaaS would have a higher total cost of ownership over time, as constantly rising usage and escalating costs swallowed up initially low startup costs. Respondents from midsize firms expressed this concern very slightly more often than larger or smaller businesses.

■ Difficulty and risk of migration or installation. Where companies already have an existing licensed, behind-the-wall software product in place, the costs and effort of moving data, process models, and customized adaptations to an SaaS product are formidable, and were a barrier for 18% of respondents in 2011. The effort and costs involved will vary by vendor and tool.




KEY EVALUATION CRITERIA WHEN SELECTING AN SAAS ITSM SOLUTION

IT infrastructure and operations departments should not perform an ITSM process just because it seems like a good thing to do or is an ITIL-espoused best practice. You should adopt a process to help deliver specific outcomes related to business objectives and operations. Likewise, don’t favor SaaS ITSM tools simply because they seem like the right thing to do.

Remember: The functional requirements for a SaaS ITSM solution are no different from on-premises tools. Your decision should be based on the maturity of your ITSM processes and people, and even more importantly your “customer needs” — that is, the business’s pain points and desired business outcomes. The following section outlines the core and differentiating functionality I&O professionals should focus on when evaluating SaaS ITSM tools.

Of course, as with on-premises tools, there is also the need to look at the key nonfunctional requirements, such as: integration with existing IT and enterprise software; technical requirements, such as performance, including service-level agreements (SLAs), security, and resilience; supplier background, such as product assurance, financial stability, and reliability; implementation parameters, such as experience, quality, duration, and cost; and support and maintenance arrangements. The technology itself is also an area to review in terms of single versus multitenancy, what SaaS really means for each vendor, and the reality of vendor “cloud infrastructure” claims where appropriate.

Evaluate Three Core Requirements For SaaS ITSM Tools

While ITIL 2011 espouses more than twenty ITSM processes, many organizations have more limited needs and even more limited capabilities in terms of ITSM maturity. Forrester recommends that buyers and users of SaaS ITSM tools first focus their evaluation on three core requirements:

■ Support for the most commonly adopted ITSM capabilities. Commonly adopted ITSM capabilities include incident, service request, problem, change, service level, and configuration management. These capabilities allow I&O pros to support an IT service desk as the single point of contact between the service provider and IT end users. They enable the discrete ITSM processes responsible for managing the life cycle of all problems and changes, as well as for negotiating achievable SLAs and ensuring that these are met. These ITSM capabilities also ensure that the assets required to deliver services are properly controlled and that accurate and reliable information about those assets is available when and where needed.4

■ A configuration management database (CMDB). Either as a standalone CMDB or as part of a configuration management system (CMS), or even as part of a service information system (SIS), the configuration management database is a database used to store information about services and technology and service components, commonly called configuration items or CIs, throughout their life cycle.5 The CMDB will generally include information about




incidents, problems, known errors, changes, and releases, and it may contain data about employees, suppliers, locations, business units, customers, and users.6 The CMDB provides vital information to support other ITSM processes such as incident, problem, and change management.

■ A service catalog or self-service capabilities. A service catalog is a database of information about live IT services that is published to customers to support the awareness of the “sale” and delivery of the IT services.7 The use of service catalog management and a fit-for-purpose service catalog offers a raft of potential financial and process benefits. This happens through capabilities such as internal management and workflow, an improved customer “shop window” and interface for ordering, and links to automation capabilities for increased speed of provisioning and cost savings. Optimizing the traditionally people-intensive process of request fulfillment can pay massive dividends.

In addition to these core requirements, I&O professionals should consider two other categories of capabilities: first, additional ITSM process support; second, generic “enabling” capabilities — including automation exploitation, social enablement, and support for mobility — that will improve efficiency and customer support.

Assess Additional ITSM Process Requirements As Well

While the ITSM tools should enable the core ITSM processes above, Forrester recommends that I&O professionals also focus on the following additional processes, all of which are espoused by ITIL:

■ Operational IT capabilities — release, event, availability, and capacity management. Operational IT capabilities are mainly proactive ITSM processes that I&O organizations may aspire to, and need, beyond the aforementioned core ITSM processes and capabilities. They help organizations minimize IT firefighting (in response to incidents) and, more importantly, reduce business disruption by taking the necessary steps to ensure that the IT infrastructure and IT services are in good health and capable of continued IT service delivery.

■ IT business management capabilities — financial and supplier management. IT business management capabilities focus on the business rather than technical side of delivering IT services. It’s the effective, business-focused stewardship of corporate resources in the delivery of customer-driven IT services. While saving IT costs is an obvious benefit, IT financial management and supplier management are not just about cost cutting. They are more about starting on a journey through which the I&O organization achieves greater insight and control — moving to cost efficiency, then cost optimization, and finally value demonstration — whether services are internally or externally provided.




■ IT asset management (ITAM). ITAM or IT asset life-cycle management is accounting for, and effectively managing, all IT assets throughout their life cycle, from procurement to disposal.8 Often seen as a separate discipline to ITSM, ITAM is (or should be) part of ITSM — the issue is that it has never really been given significant air time and sufficient support by ITIL. ITAM, and in particular software asset management (SAM), is a growing requirement for Forrester clients that can help I&O leaders cut costs, reduce risk, and improve the quality of IT services.

Don’t Forget About “Enabling” Capabilities: Automation, Social, And Mobile

These capabilities in many ways better enable the modern IT support organization to respond to the changing business and IT landscape. They address two main challenges: the increasing customer expectations of IT organizations and IT service delivery, and the ability of the I&O organization to deal with increased IT complexity with fewer people resources. Enabling capabilities are:

■ Automation. This is not the automation of ITSM processes — a long-standing capability for most ITSM tools — this is automation above and beyond the ITSM process itself, often calling up third-party software to orchestrate a previously manual activity. Examples include password resets, provisioning of virtual servers, or the remote and automated installation of software. Many vendors use the term “runbook automation” or “orchestration” to describe their automation-related capabilities.

■ Social enablement. This can be the use of social aspects within ITSM processes or the addition of social channels for customer interactions, among other things. For example, use chat as an additional customer contact channel and remote support capability. Provide forums and Facebook-like walls to enable collaboration between different permutations of IT staff and end users. And let IT support groups monitor internal and external social media software, such as Twitter or Yammer, for trending customer issues.

■ Support for mobility. There are two distinct perspectives. First is the enablement and support of mobile employees through mobile services and devices. Second is the ability to provide support and enablement for mobile IT support people and end users. The focus of this report is on the latter only — allowing service desk operatives and field support personnel to access service desk processes and data on the move. Allow process-driven “authorizers” to review and perform things such as change requests while away from their desk. And allow end users to access self-service, knowledge bases, or service desk process entry points on their work (and maybe personal) mobile devices.




SEGMENTING THE LANDSCAPE OF SAAS ITSM TOOLS AND VENDORS

Forrester’s market overview of SaaS ITSM tools identifies 21 of the leading vendors and their 23 SaaS ITSM offerings. There are a number of ways to segment this market; for example, by vendors that offer SaaS versus on-premises, by ITSM processes supported, by geographies covered, or by traditional versus new ITSM tool vendors. But Forrester opted to segment the SaaS ITSM tool market by the vendors’ target market and their customer success to date (see Figure 2):

■ Target market. To determine target market, Forrester reconciled the vendor’s stated target market with Forrester’s view of its current market positioning based on the type of customer successes (i.e., the average deal size) to date. Here is a snapshot of how many vendor tools fall into each target market segment: seven of 23 vendor tools target the “lower midmarket”; 10 of 23 target the “upper midmarket”; and five of 23 target the “enterprise” market.9

■ Customer success. To determine the level of customer success, Forrester collected customer numbers from the vendors included in this market overview (see Figure 3). To be clear, this classification is based purely on the customer success of the vendor’s SaaS ITSM offering, not its on-premises offering, which may be significantly different. Nor does it factor in geographic success (and limitations) or customer satisfaction or retention levels. Also, please appreciate that success levels should not be compared across target market groupings — it would not necessarily be comparing like with like; e.g., 100 enterprise customers is far removed from 100 lower midmarket customers in terms of both revenues and complexity. Here is a snapshot of how many vendors fall into each customer success segment: six of 21 vendors are in the “ramp-up” stage; eight of 21 are in the “major success” stage; five of 21 have achieved “significant success”; and four vendors did not provide customer numbers (BMC and CA Technologies are reported twice).

Figure 2 Forrester Segments The SaaS ITSM Tool Market By Target Market And Customer Success


How Forrester de�nes target marketEnterprise: Average customer seat size of more than 100 subscriptions

Upper midmarket: Average customer seat size between 25 and 99 subscriptions

Lower midmarket: Average customer seat size of fewer than 25 subscriptions

How Forrester de�nes customer successRamp-up: Fewer than 100 customers

Signi�cant success: More than 100 customers but fewer than 300 customers

Major success: More than 300 customers




Figure 3 The Leading SaaS ITSM Tools Segmented By Target Market And Customer Success


Vendor ProductVendor-statedtarget market

Level ofcustomer success

Enterprise

Axios Systems assystSaaS Mid-to-large enterprises Ramp-up

BMC Software BMC Remedy OnDemand Enterprise and serviceprovider organizations Significant success

HP HP Service Anywhere Mid-to-large enterprises No customer numbers provided

IBM IBM SmartCloud ControlDesk

Enterprise and serviceprovider organizations No customer numbers provided

CA Technologies CA Service Desk Manager(hosted)

All markets includingservice providers No customer numbers provided

Cherwell Software Cherwell ServiceManagement Mid-to-large enterprises Signi�cant success

ServiceNow ServiceNow All markets Major success

Upper midmarket

BMC Software BMC Remedyforce ServiceDesk All markets Major success

CA Technologies CA Nimsoft ServiceDesk

All markets includingservice providers Significant success

Serena Software Serena Service ManagerOn Demand Enterprise Ramp-up

EasyVista EasyVista ITSM SaaS Upper midmarket Major success

helpLine helpLine Mid-to-large enterprises No customer numbers provided

Hornbill ServiceManagement myservicedesk.com Mid-to-large enterprises Ramp-up

LANDeskSoftware

LANDesk Service Deskas a Service All markets Ramp-up

Absolute Software Absolute Service Mid-to-large enterprises Significant success

SunView Software ChangeGear Cloud Midmarket to enterprise Ramp-up

TOPdesk TOPdesk as a Service All markets Major success

Lower midmarket

ManageEngineManageEngineServiceDeskPlusOn-Demand

SMBs/SMEs Significant success

SAManage SaaS IT Service & AssetManagement

SMB and emergingenterprises Major success

Sunrise Software Sostenuto ITSM All markets Ramp-up

SysAid Technologies SysAid — Cloud edition All markets Major success

Vivantio Vivantio Service Desk All markets Major successAn alternative to

ITSM suitesZendesk Zendesk for IT All markets Major success




Enterprise SaaS ITSM Tools

Vendors in the enterprise SaaS ITSM segment have an average customer seat size of more than 100 subscriptions. The traditional on-premises view is that an enterprise-level organization should evaluate the big four: BMC Software, CA Technologies, HP, and IBM. More recently, organizations are also turning to Axios Systems, Cherwell, and ServiceNow for an enterprise-level ITSM tool vendor. With that in mind, I&O professionals should evaluate the following enterprise SaaS ITSM vendors and solutions (see Figure 4-1 and see Figure 4-2):

■ Axios Systems. Launched in October 2009, Axios Systems’ assystSaaS targets mid- to large-sized enterprises. Key geographies include North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Highlights of Axios’s core and differentiating capabilities include automation capabilities, such as the ability to launch remote control applications, automatic provisioning of cloud services and storage, standard runbook operations, and the ability to automatically reset passwords. Likewise, the assystMobile application and Axios also provide social capabilities around IT-to-IT collaboration and customer-to-IT chat. Beyond solution capabilities, assystSaaS’s allows for concurrent user subscriptions, as well as the ability to move between SaaS and on-premises as business needs change or use an SaaS-style payment for the on-premises solution.

■ BMC Software. BMC Remedy OnDemand has been available since April 2010, with the solution aimed purely at the enterprise space. Remedy OnDemand provides mobility across service desk, asset, change, and service request management, and, as a result of the acquisition of my-eService, social enablement is now a core part of the offering. Other capabilities including automation, event management, and discovery are provided through existing integrations with additional-cost BMC products that are deployed on premises. Key differentiators include: the largest market share in the on-premises ITSM space, discrete midmarket and enterprise solutions, concurrent licensing, global partner network, IT asset life-cycle management capabilities, and support for business service management (BSM). BMC partners with Dell for the public sector offering in the US and with Capgemini for the private sector offering in the US and in Europe. In addition, BMC’s overlay capability allows customers to define and manage customized objects separate from the original base object, greatly simplifying upgrades.

■ CA Technologies. CA Service Desk Manager r12.7, available since October 2012, is sold across all geographies and industries as a hosted and managed offering by the CA global sales force. CA Technologies states that this is the same functionality of the CA Service Desk Manager on-premises offering with the benefits of an SaaS delivery model. Key differentiators include: social media-based collaboration and self-service, remote support automation, robust CMDB and service visualization, mobility capabilities, IT asset management capabilities, and significant discounts based on volume. CA Nimsoft Service Desk is another SaaS offering from CA Technologies that is targeted at the upper midmarket as well as organizations needing a purpose-built, multitenant SaaS offering.




■ Cherwell Software. Cherwell Service Management, launched in 2007, is targeted at mid-sized to large enterprises globally; approximately 30% of new deals are SaaS deals. Designed to easily switch between the SaaS and on-premises deployment models, users can purchase product licenses or use a subscription financing model regardless of the deployment model. Cherwell’s One-Step functionality enables automation and also supports social and mobile. A separate product, Cherwell Discovery and Inventory, is an automated tool for the discovery and inventory of hardware and software assets. Key differentiators include: high customer retention rates (98%), the affordability of concurrent licensing (there is no fixed license option), an application development platform (ADP), and codeless business application technology (CBAT). In the US, Cherwell directly manages its customers’ hosted data out of its Denver colocation center. Cherwell plans new data centers in Brisbane, Australia; British Columbia, Canada; and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and a disaster recovery site in Ashburn, Va., in the next six to 12 months. In late 2012, Insight Venture Partners made a minority investment of $25 million in Cherwell.

■ HP. HP has retired its initial SaaS offering, HP Service Manager Software as a Service, in favor of a new offering — HP Service Anywhere. Key differentiators include: the concurrent licensing option; codeless configuration tools for processes, forms, tables, and business rules; an “interaction” handling capability where a call can be initially tracked as an interaction before being assigned to be a request, incident, or other type; and the benefit of HP’s long ITSM history. Self-service ticketing is provided in the initial release, but a full-service catalog, self-service request portal, request management, and mobility are planned for future releases. As with other HP ITSM solutions, HP Service Anywhere can call HP Operations Orchestration or one of the domain-specific HP products to perform various “automation” tasks, and it leverages HP Enterprise Collaboration capabilities for social support.

■ IBM. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk was launched in March 2012 — successor to Tivoli Live Service Manager launched in December 2010 — and combines IBM’s ITSM and IT asset management capabilities into a single solution. The solution is aimed at enterprise and service provider organizations with a minimum of 25 authorized users globally. Differentiators include IBM’s IT asset management, remote control, and password reset capabilities, along with automation, social, and mobile. Runbook automation capabilities are included with the product with a large number of prebuilt scripts for common tasks. For social capabilities, instant messaging enables agents to chat with customers or with each other, saving transcripts for future searches, and users can engage the service desk through Twitter, email, or forum posts. Users can access IBM SmartCloud Control Desk via BlackBerry, Android, or iOS devices. Likewise, IBM offers concurrent licensing and the ability to move between different delivery models as customer needs change (the SaaS and on-premises versions share the same code base).




■ ServiceNow. ServiceNow’s SaaS for ITSM offering was launched in 2004. The solution is aimed at all markets and all geographies, although clients with fewer than 35 seats require a partner-delivered solution. ServiceNow Orchestration allows customers to reset passwords and automate the life-cycle management of cloud services and virtualization operations. Social capabilities have been available for nearly two years and include peer-to-peer support, chat, and Facebook-like walls; mobility supports location-based services. Key differentiators include: the highest SaaS-for-ITSM customer numbers (more than 1,500); ServiceNow’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering to create new applications; a content management system; and additional applications for project management, IT asset management, and IT governance, risk, and compliance; and application templates for common business functions like human resources (HR), facilities management, and field service management. ServiceNow has traditionally provided three major releases per annum, although this slowed with two in 2012.

The upper midmarket vendors outlined below may also provide a better fit and better value for money solution for some enterprise-level organizations.




Figure 4 Enterprise Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Solutions


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capabilities

A = capability provided by another tool; P = partial capability




Figure 4 Enterprise Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Solutions (Cont.)


Enterprise SaaS ITSM solutions — core and di�erentiating capabilities (cont.)4-1

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HP HP

ServiceAnywhere

x x x x x P A x Integrationwith HPorchestrationcapabilities

IBM IBM

SmartCloudControl Desk

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Enterpriseassetmanagementcapabilities

Serv

iceN

ow ServiceNow x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x The ServiceNowhigh-availabilityarchitecture isdesigned toensure thatcustomersachievemaximumsecurity anddata isolation,to improvedisasterrecovery, and toallow for highavailabilityduringmaintenancewindows.






Enterprise SaaS ITSM solutions — additional evaluation criteria4-2

Vendor Product Technology Contracte

d

availabilit

y

Average

implementa

tion

Release

schedule

On-pre

mises

version

List priceAxios

SystemsassystSaaS Rackspace hosts Axios

Systems’ solution in five US and two UK locations, as well as in Hong Kong.

99.9% 1 to 3months

Quarterly Yes

BMCSoftware

BMCRemedyOnDemand

Remedy OnDemand isdelivered via a hostedASP model. The public-sector o�ering is hostedin the US by Dell. Theprivate-sector o�ering ishosted in the US andEMEA by Capgemini.

99.5% 2 months Annual Yes

$150 perconcurrentlicense permonth(typical 3:1)versus $100per nameduser permonth

$149 pernamed userper month;a concurrentprice optionis also available

CATechnologies

CA ServiceDeskManager(hosted)

A hosted version of theon-premises CA ServiceDesk Manager,CA Service Catalog, andCA IT Asset Managersolutions. Tier 3 datacenters with N+1.

99.5% 6 to 12weeks

4 to 6months

Yes $109 pernamed userper month

CherwellSoftware

CherwellServiceManage-ment

A version of theon-premises o�ering ishosted by Latisys inDenver, Colo., iLand in Dallas, Texas, and iLand in London, UK; new centers are planned.

99.9% 1 month 3 to 5 timesper annum

Yes $114 perconcurrentlicenseper month






Enterprise SaaS ITSM solutions — additional evaluation criteria (cont.)4-2

*On-premises alternative available


d

availabilit

y

Average

implementa

tion

Release

schedule

On-pre

mises

version

List priceHP HP Service

AnywhereHP Service Anywherehas been specificallydesigned as an SaaSsolution. Data centersare in Austin, Houston,London, Paris, andSydney.

99.9% 3 to 4months

Unknown No*

IBM IBMSmartCloudControlDesk

This is a hosted versionof the on-premisesproduct. Data centers are in the US, Canada,Germany, Singapore,and Japan.

99.5% 2 to 3months

Semiannual Yes

ServiceNow ServiceNow ServiceNow provides allcustomers withdedicated applicationsand relational databases.Globally distributedServiceNow data centersinclude full redundancyand fault-tolerantinfrastructure. Six pairsof mirrored data centersreplicate productiondatabase servers innear real-time.

99.8% 3 months At least twoper annum

For selectcustomers

$89 pernamed userper monthor $178 perfloating userper month

$86 perauthorizeduser permonth; aconcurrentprice optionis alsoavailable

$100 peruser permonth




Upper Midmarket ITSM Tools

Vendors in the upper midmarket SaaS ITSM segment have an average customer seat size between 25 and 99 subscriptions. However, most of these vendors also have customers that meet the enterprise criteria. Based on relative success to date, I&O professionals should evaluate the following upper midmarket SaaS ITSM vendors and solutions (see Figure 5-1 and see Figure 5-2):

■ Absolute Software. Absolute Service (formerly LiveTime Service Manager) was launched by LiveTime Software in 2002 aimed at mid-sized to large enterprises across all geographies. In addition to the core ITSM capabilities, Absolute Service also offers runbook automation to orchestrate other tool sets for activities such as provisioning or patching software. Social capabilities are imminent and mobility is currently supported for iOS and Android devices. Key differentiators include field service management capabilities, runbook automation, a low professional-services-to-subscription ratio, and the availability of a virtual appliance as an on-premises option. LiveTime Software (and LiveTime Service Manager) was acquired by Absolute Software in November 2012.

■ BMC Software. BMC Remedyforce, built on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, was launched in April 2010. It is aimed at the midmarket globally but is equally suited to enterprise-level organizations that don’t need the depth and breadth of capability offered by Remedy OnDemand. Key differentiators include: the ability to leverage BMC’s ITSM experience and saleforce.com’s SaaS credibility in a single solution; the ability to build out in Force.com; BMC’s rapid Remedyforce development schedule; and competitive pricing. Remedyforce leverages Force.com’s Chatter capabilities for social, and it offers both self-service and agent capabilities via mobile devices. The Force.com platform segments the application and configuration layers so customers can customize without affecting upgrades. It also allows customers to build new applications that can extend Remedyforce from an ITSM perspective or to support non-ITSM requirements.

■ CA Technologies. CA Nimsoft Service Desk 7 has been available since December 2012 and is sold across all markets supported by CA Technologies’ global sale force.10 Key differentiators include: codeless configuration to modify workflow and rules, social capabilities to “follow” incidents, concurrent licensing, aggressive volume-based “discounts,” and a single solution combining IT monitoring and service management in Nimsoft Unified Manager. While the solution does not currently support automation capabilities and a mobile app, both are on the short-term product road map. In terms of technology, Nimsoft acquired InteQ’s SaaS help desk software in 2010 and has since made significant customer-guided enhancements. CA Nimsoft Service Desk is delivered to market via an SaaS-only model by CA and several strategic partners. CA also offers its traditional enterprise on-premises solution — CA Service Desk Manager.

■ EasyVista. EasyVista’s ITSM SaaS offering has been available since mid-2005.11 The target market is upper midmarket enterprises with more than 50 IT users, as well as service providers globally. This is via the direct channel in North America and Europe and with a partner ecosystem




worldwide. Automation is focused on ITSM process enablement, mobility is supported on a variety of devices, and EasyVista has an aggressive strategy to add significant social capabilities. Key differentiators include: significant capabilities for IT asset management, IT project management, and IT governance; business intelligence for simulations and what-if analyses; and native password reset capabilities. EasyVista is hosted across 10 data centers worldwide.

■ helpLine. In May 2012, helpLine 5.2 was launched, targeted at mid-sized and large enterprises in Europe. Since the end of 2012, the SaaS offering has been hosted in helpLine’s data center in Germany. Core capabilities include chat functionality between service agents and Twitter as a channel of customer communication and interaction. Mobility is supported by an iPhone app. Key differentiators include a concurrent licensing option, built-in workforce management for the optimal assignment of HR to tasks and projects, and the integration of field service management capabilities. In addition to bespoke implementations, helpLine also offers QuickStart (five-day) and SmartStart (10-day) packages.

■ Hornbill. Hornbill’s SaaS offering, myservicedesk.com, was released in January 2012 aimed at mid-tier to low-end enterprises in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the US, and Oceania. Hornbill’s Visual Process Management Engine provides the facility to interact between processes and external systems, rich Twitter integration, and “My Community” facilitates collaboration where users may interact with users for peer-to peer-support. Likewise, Hornbill Supportworks mobile provides a simple interface for both business users and IT employees on the move. Key differentiators include: “Human Touch” features that remind IT staff of the importance of service experience; IT asset management capabilities (third-party discovery tool required); Supportworks Execview ITSM Scorecards for performance management, governance, and executive decision-making support; and a minimum contract commitment of just three months.

■ LANDesk Software. LANDesk Service Desk as a Service was launched in October 2011 and is targeted at organizations of all sizes, in all verticals, across all geographies. A core process engine enables the automation of ITSM processes and the included LANDesk Process Manager provides a layer of systems-automation between Service Desk and external tools, data, and systems. From a social perspective, LANDesk offers a number of capabilities, including discussions (comment, tag, and like), RSS feeds, and integration with social media software such as Facebook and Twitter. LANDesk has also partnered with social collaboration software vendor blueKiwi Software. LANDesk Mobile Web Desk is provided as a free feature with LANDesk Service Desk as a Service for mobility needs. Key differentiators include automation capabilities, integration with other LANDesk (or third-party) offerings such as Asset Lifecycle Manager for IT asset management, concurrent licensing, and the breadth of social enablement.

■ Serena Software. Serena Service Manager on demand was launched at the end of 2011 aimed at Global 2000 customers with an emphasis on North America and Europe. Social enablement for real-time collaboration is available and Serena Service Manager is optimized for use on




mobile devices. Key differentiators include Serena’s application life-cycle management software portfolio, a process management platform for process-based apps that can be offered as services through the request center, and the focus on change and release integration to help bridge the DevOps divide with Serena Service Manager. In addition, Serena offers an upgrade model where it upgrades the core platform and customers may optionally upgrade the applications themselves. The rack rate is $69 per user per month; test and development instances are an additional $10,000 per year but waived for contracts over $100,000.

■ SunView Software. SunView’s ChangeGear cloud was launched in early 2012 aimed at North America midmarket organizations, but it can also support customers in Europe and Asia. As well as the expected ITSM business process automation, ChangeGear also provides workflow automations that extend into operational IT activities. In terms of social support, the solution offers the ability for a customer to establish a live chat/support session with IT staff users. Mobility is supported via iOS and Android apps. Key differentiators include IT asset management capabilities, concurrent licensing, and the ability to use the ChangeGear platform to build additional applications (e.g., for HR or facilities). SunView’s solution runs on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform.

■ TOPdesk. TOPdesk as a Service was launched in December 2007 aimed at all organizations regardless of size, industry, and geography, with clients in more than 45 countries. Key differentiators include IT asset management capabilities and flexibility for shared services enablement across IT, HR, facilities, and others. In addition, TOPdesk integrates with the main social media software and has browser-based support for mobility. While a customer can be live one day after ordering, professional-services-assisted implementations take significantly longer depending on customer complexity. Pricing depends on the number of modules, version, and number of end users.




Figure 5 Upper Midmarket Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Tools


Upper midmarket ITSM tools — core and dierentiating capabilities5-1


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x x x x x x x x x The ability tobuild out inForce.com

x x x x x x x x x x IT monitoring

BMC

Soft

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CATe

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Abs

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ServiceIT servicecontinuity,serviceportfoliomanagement,and field servicemanagement

x x x x x x x x

x A

x x x x




Figure 5 Upper Midmarket Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Tools (Cont.)


Upper midmarket ITSM tools — core and dierentiating capabilities (cont.)5-1

OthercapabilitiesVe

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help

Line helpLine x x x x x x x x x x Workforce

managementand fieldservicemanagementcapabilities

Hor

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desk.comx x x x x x x x A x x x x Service

portfoliomanagementand “HumanTouch” features

LAN

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Service Deskas a Service

x x x x x x x x x x x x x A x x x Serviceportfoliomanagementand IT servicecontinuitymanagement


x x x x x x x x x x x x x x IT projectmanagementand ITgovernance;businessintelligence forsimulations andwhat-if analyses; and nativepassword resetcapabilities

Easy

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x






Upper midmarket ITSM tools — core and dierentiating capabilities (cont.)5-1

OthercapabilitiesVe

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SunV

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x x x x x x x x x x x x Ability to usethe ChangeGear platform to build additionalapplications,and auto-discovery anddependencymapping

TOPd

esk TOPdesk as

a Servicex x x x x x x x A x TOPsis, the

TOPdeskinventorytool


Sere

na S

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Service Manager On Demand

x x x x x x x x x x x Integration withSerena’sapplicationlife-cyclemanagementsoftwareportfolio,processmanagementplatform






AbsoluteSoftware

AbsoluteService

SaaS solution is thesame as Absolute’son-premises o�ering,with each customerhaving their ownhosted instance inAmazon.com’s sevenglobal data centers.

99.999% 1 to 2weeks

Semiannually Yes $150 per userper month

Upper midmarket ITSM tools — additional evaluation criteria5-2


d

availabilit

y

Average

implementa

tion

Release

schedule

On-pre

mises

version

List price

BMCSoftware

BMCRemedyforceService Desk

BMC Remedyforce is built on salesforce.com’sForce.com platform.

N/A 1 to 6months

Triennially No*

CATechnologies

CA NimsoftServiceDesk

International datacenters are inGermany and the US,with plans to expand to other countries. There is a single multitenant instance per data center.

99.9% 2 to 7weeks

Quarterly No*

EasyVista Easy VistaITSM SaaS

An exact match tothe on-premisessolution, it’s hostedin 10 data centersworldwide: four inEurope (France andSwitzerland), four inthe US (via iLand),and two in Canada(via RackForce).

99.9% 2 to 3weeks

Annually Yes

helpLine helpLine Hosted in helpLine’sdata center in Leipzig,Germany

99.5% 1 weekupward

1 to 2 timesannually

Yes

$79 per nameduser per month

$95 per nameduser per month

$100 pernamed userper month

$100 pernamed user permonth







Hornbill myservicedesk.com

Has the same code asthe on-premiseso�ering. Hosted inPortsmouth, UK(primary), London, UK(backup), andSan Antonio,Texas (primary).

99.5% 1 to 3weeks

Semiannually Yes £39 (roughly US$61) per named user per month

Upper midmarket ITSM tools — additional evaluation criteria (cont.)5-2


d

availabilit

y

Average

implementa

tion

Release

schedule

On-pre

mises

version

List price

LANDesk LANDeskService Deskas a Service

A configuration ofthe on-premiseso�ering. Hostedglobally by Equinix(via US hostingpartner DinCloud).Non-US-governedalternatives arehosted in Germany(Pironet NDH) andthe UK (Phoenix).

99.9% 1 month To bedetermined

Yes

SerenaSoftware

SerenaServiceManagerOn Demand

Multitenanted SaaSsolution that mirrorsthe on-premiseso�ering. Hosted byTerremark NAP of theAmericas, whose datacenters are globallydistributed.

99.9% 6 to 8weeks

Semiannually Yes

SunViewSoftware

ChangeGearCloud

Hosted by AmazonEC2

99.95% 1 week to3 months

Quarterly Yes

TOPdesk TOPdesk asa Service

The on-premiseso�ering optimized forSaaS delivery. Hostedby TOPdesk Netherlands in theNetherlands.

99.7% 1 weekupward

Annually Yes

$100 pernamed userand $250 perconcurrentlicense permonthrespectively

$99 per userper month

$995 pernamed userper annum or$1,995 perconcurrentuser perannum

Pricing isdependent onthe number ofmodules,version, andnumber ofend users.





Lower Midmarket ITSM Tools

Vendors in the lower midmarket SaaS ITSM segment have an average customer seat size of fewer than 25 subscriptions. However, many lower midmarket SaaS vendors have individual customers that meet the upper midmarket criteria. Based on relative success to date, I&O professionals should evaluate the following lower midmarket SaaS ITSM vendors and solutions (see Figure 6-1 and see Figure 6-2):

■ ManageEngine. ManageEngine’s ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand was released in October 2010 and is targeted at small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) globally. The solution comes with an integrated customer chat module; an upcoming enhancement will be the ability to create incidents or service requests from the chat window. For mobility support, there are separate browser interfaces for PCs, smartphones, and tablets, plus an iOS app for iPhone. While a remote control capability was recently added, configuration management (and CMDB) and service catalog capabilities are not presently available. Key differentiators include maturity-inspired solution levels, value pricing, IT and non-IT asset management capabilities from procurement to retirement, and integration with parent company (Zoho) offerings. The rack rate is $14 per user per month for the standard edition, $24 for professional edition, and $54 for enterprise edition. Asset management is an extra $9 per month for every 50 assets.

■ SAManage. SAManage IT Service Management was launched in 2010 aimed at SMBs and “emerging enterprises” — which SAManage defines as 100 to 7,000 employees — and service providers. Key differentiators include: integrated IT asset management; discovery and inventory capabilities (e.g., Windows, Macs, Unix); rapid deployment and implementation; and weekly releases that deliver new features. However, a CMDB is not currently available, but it is on the product road map. An application programming interface is available for integration with third-party systems (e.g., receiving events in the service desk); social is supported via integration with salesforce.com’s Chatter, including chat and new request for services submissions. A mobile interface supports any mobile device using HTML5 for key service desk and ITAM capabilities.

■ Sunrise Software. The SaaS version of Sunrise’s Sostenuto ITSM was launched in September 2011 aimed at UK organizations of all sizes. Sostenuto ITSM has a social media business module within the platform framework that allows users to monitor specific keywords on Twitter, and Sostenuto Mobile supports mobile access across all mobile OSes. Key differentiators include platform capabilities for the creation of new services and Sostenuto ITSM Order Management. The underlying technology remains the same for SaaS and on-premises, with exception of the deployment methodology of the integrations. The rack rate for a one- to five-user pack is about $600 per month, with additional server-based monthly costs.




■ SysAid Technologies. SysAid - Cloud edition is aimed at IT departments in organizations of all sizes. From a social perspective, SysAid has a thriving IT community integrated into the product; its community IT Benchmark module takes anonymous customer operational data (if agreed to) to provide crowdsourced key performance indicators for comparison to other SysAiders worldwide. Mobility capabilities include native SysAid apps for admin for the four major platforms, including remote control from the mobile device to end users’ workstations. End users can access a designated mobile portal. Key differentiators include: IT asset management capabilities; native remote control and password reset; a socially based SysAid customer online community; and a community-based IT Benchmark module. The solution is priced based on use case rather than by user, and SysAid states that pricing ranges from a few hundred dollars per year for a basic package to a few thousand dollars per year for a full enterprise package. SysAid has more than 1,000 SaaS customers.

■ Vivantio. Vivantio Service Desk has been available as an SaaS offering since 2004 and is aimed at organizations of all sizes in Europe, the US, and Australia. Standard subscription includes all features except asset discovery and remote control, but prices are not made publicly available. Figure 6-1 details process capabilities. Mobility is supported, but Vivantio does not offer social capabilities. Key differentiators include native asset discovery and remote control. In terms of technology, the solution has a multitenant architecture with both SaaS and on-premises offerings sharing a common code base —the on-premises version is a local installation of the SaaS product. An enterprise version of Vivantio Service Desk is slated for late Q1 2013.




Figure 6 Lower Midmarket Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Tools


Lower midmarket ITSM tools — core and dierentiating capabilities6-1


OthercapabilitiesVe

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Man

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x x x x x A x x Asset, contract,and purchasemanagementprovided in theprofessionaledition; integrationwith parentcompany(Zoho)o�erings

SAM

anag

e SAManageIT ServiceManagement

x x x x x x x xx A x

Sunr

ise

Soft

war

e SostenutoITSM

x x x xx x x x x x x x

A

x x Platformcapabilities forthe creation ofnew servicesand SostenutoITSM OrderManagement

SysA

idTe

chno

logi

es SysAid —Cloudedition

x x x x xx x x x x Native remotecontrol andpassword reset,as well as acommunity-based ITbenchmarksmodule

Viva

ntio Vivantio

Service Deskx x x x xx x x x x x Service

portfoliomanagement,as well as native asset discovery and remote control

Integrationwith popularweb apps




Figure 6 Lower Midmarket Software-As-A-Service IT Service Management Tools (Cont.)


Lower midmarket ITSM tools — additional evaluation criteria6-2


d

availabilit

y

Average

implementa

tion

Release

schedule

On-pre

mises

version

List priceManageEngine ManageEngine

ServiceDeskPlusOn-Demand

Multitenantsolution hosted inManageEngine’sown (Zoho’s)US data centers —two West Coast andone East Coast

Nostandard

2 weeks Quarterly Yes $14 to $54 fordi�erenteditions per user per month

SAManage SAManageIT ServiceManagement

Multitenantplatform hostedwith Terramark inthe US

Nostandard

Notprovided

Weekly No $800 peruser per year

SunriseSoftware

SostenutoITSM

NaviSite provides all SunriseSostenuto SaaShosting in Woking,UK. Other locationsare available.

99% 2 to 4months

Semiannually Yes About $600per monthfor a one- to �ve-user pack

SysAidTechnologies

SysAid —Cloud edition

Hosted in the USand Europe(by Datapipe,Liquid Web,and Amazon)

Notprovided

1 to 3 weeks

Monthly Yes Ranges froma few hundreddollars peryear for abasic packageto a fewthousanddollars for afull enterprisepackage

Vivantio VivantioService Desk

Hosted in the UK,the US, andAustralia. Multitenant andsingle options.

99.9% 1 to 2 weeks

Monthly Yes Unavailable

There Are Alternatives

There are many alternatives to the ITSM vendors and tools outlined in this market overview. For example, there are the ITSM tools that are mainly focused on small organizations with sub-five-person IT teams. Likewise, there are free ITSM tools, such as the open source OTRS, and the advertising-sponsored version of Spiceworks.12 Forrester focused on the paid-for solutions serving the midmarket and above.




With that in mind, the final vendor included in this market overview is Zendesk, which, along with Desk.com, offers an alternative to the more traditional ITIL-based ITSM suites for organizations wanting a lighter SaaS-for-ITSM option and a greater focus on the IT end user/customer and customer service.13 Founded in 2007, Zendesk now provides SaaS-delivered customer-service-enabling capabilities to more than 25,000 organizations, from SMBs to large enterprises, in more than 140 countries. Zendesk for IT is Zendesk’s offering targeted at IT use — featuring ticket management, mobile apps, and self-service — and is used by roughly 25% of its customers. It provides incident and problem management out of the box and supports simple service request and change management; there are also integrations with third-party tools such as SAManage and Citrix GoToManage for asset and configuration management, but this is not a CMDB integration. Partnerships also offer capabilities for service portfolio, demand, availability, service catalog, and event management, among others.

Key Zendesk differentiators include a strong focus on IT end user/customer service, social and mobility support, more than 100 integrations (including with salesforce.com and SugarCRM), and analytics capabilities. Zendesk has also been a contact center market leader for social and mobility: the company launched integration with Twitter, chat capabilities, and apps for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry in 2010; a help desk app for the iPad and Zendesk for Facebook in 2011; and apps for Windows phones and the Kindle Fire in 2012. Zendesk pricing ranges from: a Starter plan ($20 per year for up to three agents); Regular ($24 per agent per month); Plus ($49 per agent per month); and Enterprise ($99 per agent per month).

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S

LET YOUR LEVEL OF ITSM MATURITY DETERMINE YOUR TOOL NEEDS

While your business might be at the enterprise level in terms of revenues or employees, it does not necessarily mean you will automatically need an enterprise-level ITSM tool. A key factor to consider is your level of ITSM maturity based not just on your technology needs, but those of your people and processes.14 IT infrastructure and operations leaders should ask themselves: What ITSM processes do you need to be supported by a new ITSM tool, SaaS or otherwise? If it is just the core processes — such as incident, problem, and change management — then why limit your organization to just enterprise tools? Expanding your tool selection horizon has many potential benefits, from improved capabilities to cost savings and support.




SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Methodology

Forrester partnered with the USA chapter of the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) to field the Forrester/itSMF Q4 2012 US ITSM Online Survey to 261 service management professionals — a critical subset of the broader IT I&O role most commonly tasked with planning and implementing SMA initiatives.

Respondents were primarily itSMF members or ITSM professionals, and as a result, the study results are biased toward those already heavily involved with IT service management. The findings do not reflect the general IT community, as representation outside the target ITSM community was statistically insignificant. The targeting was intentional to form a perspective of how ITSM has proven itself in the real world. We wanted to portray actual results, not simply desires. In doing so, this study effectively illustrates best practices. The results convey what is proven to be attainable.

Companies Interviewed For This Document

Absolute Software

Axios Systems

BMC Software

CA Technologies

Cherwell Software

EasyVista

helpLine

Hornbill

HP

IBM

LANDesk Software

ManageEngine

SAManage

Serena Software

ServiceNow

Sunrise Software

SunView Software

SysAid Technologies

TOPdesk

Vivantio

Zendesk




ENDNOTES1 To understand the adoption and business value of IT service management, Forrester partnered with the

USA chapter of the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) to survey 491 ITSM professionals — a critical subset of the broader IT I&O role. I&O leaders and their teams should use this report to adjust strategy plans and the subsequent investments in their people, process, and technology. See the May 16, 2012,

“Drive Service Management Adjustments With Peer Comparisons” report.

2 Cloud applications, also known as software-as-a-service, are taking the software market by storm. Buyers gravitate to these solutions because of their low upfront costs and fast speed of deployment. Many SaaS solutions also offer a more user-friendly user interface (UI) than their on-premises competitors due to their more recent introduction or the providers’ ability to rapidly update the UI through automatic, seamless upgrades. For example, salesforce.com has evolved its original eBay-like look and feel to today’s more modern Facebook-like design. See the June 23, 2011, “The ROI Of Cloud Apps” report.

3 Source: Forrsights Business Decision-Makers Survey, Q4 2011.

4 Source: ITIL Glossaries (http://www.itil-officialsite.com/InternationalActivities/ITILGlossaries_2.aspx).

5 Forester recommends that organizations reinvent the obsolete but necessary CMDB. See the December 6, 2011, “Reinvent The Obsolete But Necessary CMDB” report.



8 For more details, see the October 5, 2011, “Updated Q4 2011: Cover Your Assets; Use IT Asset Life-Cycle Management To Control IT Costs” report.

9 We include two products from both BMC and CA Technologies, so there are 21 vendors and 23 tools. Zendesk is not positioned against a particular market.

For fairness, where vendors with a new solution have a minimal number of customers to date but an average seat number meeting these criteria, they have been defaulted to upper midmarket. Also, note that Zendesk is listed separately as an alternative to the more traditional ITIL-based ITSM suites for organizations wanting a lighter SaaS for ITSM option and a greater focus on the customer and customer service.

10 CA Nimsoft is a wholly owned CA Technologies company; the acquisition was completed in March 2010.

11 EasyVista rebranded from Staff&Line; EasyVista used to be the product rather than the company name.

12 OTRS was invited to participate in this market overview.

13 Desk.com was invited to participate in this market overview.

14 Use the Forrester SMA Maturity Model to assess your level of ITSM maturity. See the June 5, 2012, “Assess Your Service Management And Automation Maturity” report.

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 17 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, customer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 29 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com. 81743

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