ITSM was supposed to make service delivery more efficient. So why do some organisations now find themselves spending more and more simply to maintain the environment they already have?
The answer is rarely just licence cost.
Over time, an ITSM platform can accumulate layers of configuration, customisation, integrations, modules and specialist support. Each addition may have made sense individually. Collectively, they can create an environment that is increasingly expensive to operate — and increasingly difficult to change.
The visible cost isn't always the real cost
Licence and subscription fees are easy to identify. The wider cost of the platform can be much harder to see.
Internal administration, external consultants, development resources, upgrades, integrations, testing and change management all contribute to the true cost of ownership.
A useful question is therefore not simply:
What are we paying for our ITSM licences?
but:
What does it cost us to operate and change our service management environment?
The difference can be significant.
Complexity accumulates
Few organisations deliberately set out to build a complex ITSM environment.
It happens gradually.
A new workflow is added. Another business function comes onto the platform. An integration is developed. A requirement needs some customisation. A new module is introduced.
Over several years, the organisation can end up supporting an environment considerably more complex than the one it originally implemented.
And complexity has a cost.
It increases the expertise required to administer the platform, makes changes harder to implement and can turn upgrades or improvements into substantial projects.
When simple changes stop being simple
One of the most revealing measures of ITSM complexity is surprisingly straightforward:
How easy is it to make a simple change?
If changing a workflow, adding a service or modifying a form requires specialist development, external resources or a lengthy change process, the issue may no longer be the individual change.
It may be the operating model around the platform.
This is where technology and process become inseparable. An organisation can have a technically capable platform while still having a service management environment that is expensive and difficult to operate.
Dependency has a price
Specialist expertise is valuable. But there is a difference between using expertise for genuinely complex work and needing it for routine platform changes.
As ITSM environments become more sophisticated, organisations can become increasingly dependent on specialist internal teams, implementation partners or external consultants.
That dependency can gradually become part of the cost structure.
The question is not whether external expertise should be used. It is whether the level of dependency remains proportionate to the value being delivered.
More capability doesn't necessarily mean more value
Modern ITSM platforms are extraordinarily capable.
But capability and value are not the same thing.
An organisation may be paying for a platform capable of supporting an enormous range of use cases while using only a relatively small proportion of them.
That leads to another useful question:
Is the technology still proportionate to what we actually need it to do?
For some organisations, the answer will unquestionably be yes. For others, it may be worth looking again.
The operating model matters
Cost and complexity are not purely technology problems.
Processes, governance, integrations, organisational structures and support arrangements all influence how efficiently an ITSM environment operates.
Changing the platform without addressing these issues can simply move the complexity somewhere else.
The better question is therefore not:
Do we need a different ITSM tool?
It is:
Could our service management environment be simpler, more agile and more cost-effective?
That is a much more interesting place to start.
Sounding familiar?
Conversant and Mozaic's ITSM Operating Model Review takes a structured look at the cost, complexity and effectiveness of your service management environment — across technology, processes, integration, governance and operating model.
The objective isn't to assume that anything needs replacing.
It's to understand whether what you have today is still proportionate to what you need it to do.
