Inspired to innovate for you
This is a collection of thinkers, practitioners, and industry voices we find genuinely useful.
Not because we agree with everything they say — but because they challenge assumptions around ITSM complexity, SaaS business models, operational simplicity, customer experience, enterprise workflows, and service management beyond IT.
Many of these conversations reflect issues we increasingly see across organisations today: rising platform complexity, escalating operational overhead, workflow friction, SaaS cost expansion, and diminishing value from high-friction ITSM environments.
At Conversant ESM, we believe modern enterprise service management should simplify operations, improve visibility, and reduce complexity over time — not continuously add to it.
This page shares perspectives, ideas, and industry commentary that help shape our thinking around practical ITSM, operational modernisation, HaloITSM, workflow simplification, and long-term service management strategy.
Adding Technology Is Easy. Reducing Friction Is Hard.
One of the recurring patterns in service management is the assumption that the next platform, module or AI capability will somehow resolve deeper operational problems.
In reality, many organisations are carrying complexity, unclear ownership, poor workflows or simply too much process friction — and a new tool often just automates the problem.
A thoughtful piece from Stephen Mann and Barclay Rae on why “new” doesn’t automatically mean “better”, and why clarity of operating model matters far more than feature lists.
Worth a read.
Built around customers, not growth targets
Particularly interesting here is the emphasis on operational experience, product expertise, partner capability, and long-term customer outcomes rather than pure growth mechanics. His observations reflect a model that is clearly resonating with organisations looking for a more focused and sustainable approach to service management.
The post also reinforces the idea that some of the strongest momentum in the market is now being driven by customer advocacy, implementation quality, and practical operational value.
Beyond the service desk mindset
Here Adam Godfrey looks at how ESM creates the most value when it is treated as an operational strategy rather than simply a better service desk.
The real opportunity is not just improving ticketing or reporting, but simplifying how work flows across the organisation and questioning why service delivery has become so complex in the first place.
SIAM Matters More as Service Ecosystems Become More Complex
One of the more interesting shifts in service management over recent years has been the growing recognition that organisations rarely operate through a single supplier, platform or support model anymore.
SIAM remains highly relevant wherever services, providers and internal teams need to operate as part of a coherent whole — particularly in complex enterprise and public sector environments.
This updated Scopism SIAM Body of Knowledge Compendium is a useful reminder that standards are not just about governance or compliance. Used properly, they can provide clarity, consistency and operational confidence across increasingly fragmented service ecosystems.
Rethinking the economics of SaaS
This raises an interesting challenge to one of the most accepted assumptions in enterprise software: that SaaS pricing should continually increase over time.
Particularly interesting is the argument that modern cloud infrastructure, platform efficiency, and product-led growth models should in many cases be reducing delivery costs rather than increasing them. The post also highlights a broader shift towards simpler pricing, lower operational overhead, and a closer alignment between customer value and long-term platform economics.
Why future-ready ITSM is about more than features
This post from GSS highlights an important challenge now facing many organisations: despite significant investment in ITSM platforms and tooling, operational inefficiencies, fragmented workflows, and underused capabilities remain surprisingly common.
Particularly interesting is the focus on the hidden gaps between what organisations expect from service management platforms and what they actually achieve in practice. In many cases, the issue is not a lack of functionality, but increasing operational complexity, disconnected processes, and the difficulty of turning tooling into genuine organisational flow.