Employees expect consumer-grade support experiences. Leadership teams want greater efficiency and lower operational costs. At the same time, organisations are being encouraged to adopt AI, automation and self-service to improve productivity and service delivery.

Despite significant investment in IT Service Management (ITSM) tools, many organisations continue to face the same challenges, including high ticket volumes, slow resolution times, poor self-service adoption and limited visibility into service performance.

The challenge is not whether these problems can be solved. The challenge is having the right processes, knowledge and technology in place to solve them effectively.

Modern platforms such as Ivanti Neurons for ITSM have been designed to help organisations address these challenges through workflow automation, self-service, knowledge management and AI-powered capabilities.

Why Organisations Struggle to Realise Value from Their ITSM Platform

Before looking at individual challenges, it is worth considering why many ITSM initiatives fail to deliver their expected value.

In many cases, organisations implement an ITSM platform and assume the technology alone will improve service delivery.

However, common barriers often include:

• Immature service management processes
• Poor knowledge management practices
• Limited automation
• Lack of governance
• Low user adoption
• Treating ITSM as a ticketing tool rather than a service delivery platform

Technology can enable improvement, but successful service management still relies on strong foundations, clearly defined processes and a commitment to continual improvement.

Challenge 1: High Ticket Volumes Overwhelming the Service Desk

Many service desks spend a significant proportion of their time handling repetitive requests such as:

• Password resets
• Access requests
• Software installations
• VPN connectivity issues
• Device support

When every request requires analyst intervention, ticket queues grow and support teams struggle to focus on higher-value activities.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM provides self-service capabilities, virtual agents and workflow automation designed to reduce the volume of requests reaching the service desk.

By giving employees easier ways to find answers and request services independently, organisations can reduce demand on support teams whilst improving the overall employee experience.

Key Benefits

✅ Reduced ticket volumes

✅ Faster access to support

✅ Improved employee experience

✅ More time for analysts to focus on complex issues

Challenge 2: Slow Incident Resolution Times

Long resolution times remain a common frustration for both users and support teams.

Analysts often spend valuable time:

• Searching for information
• Reviewing ticket histories
• Identifying the correct support team
• Gathering missing information
• Manually triaging requests

Each delay affects productivity and user satisfaction.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Ivanti Neurons includes capabilities such as:

• Intelligent ticket classification
• Automated ticket routing
• AI-generated incident summaries
• Incident correlation

These capabilities help support teams identify issues more quickly and ensure requests reach the appropriate resolver groups without unnecessary delays.

Key Benefits

✅ Faster incident resolution

✅ Improved SLA performance

✅ Reduced manual effort

✅ Quicker escalation to the right teams

Challenge 3: Poor Knowledge Management

Knowledge management remains one of the most underutilised areas of ITSM.

Many organisations still rely on:

• Emails
• Teams conversations
• Shared drives
• Personal notes
• Tribal knowledge

As discussed in our recent article on Knowledge Management in ITSM, poor knowledge management can increase resolution times, reduce self-service adoption and limit the value organisations gain from AI initiatives.

When support teams repeatedly solve the same problems, valuable time and resources are wasted.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Knowledge management is integrated into Ivanti Neurons for ITSM and works alongside incident management, problem management and self-service.

This allows both analysts and end users to:

• Access relevant knowledge articles
• Find proven solutions faster
• Promote consistent support experiences
• Improve self-service success

The platform also supports AI-powered knowledge article generation from resolved incidents, helping organisations expand their knowledge base more efficiently.

Key Benefits

✅ Reduced reliance on tribal knowledge

✅ Improved self-service outcomes

✅ Faster issue resolution

✅ Better AI readiness

Challenge 4: Low Self-Service Adoption

Many organisations invest in self-service portals only to discover that employees continue to contact the service desk directly.

Common reasons include:

• Poor search functionality
• Outdated content
• Limited knowledge articles
• Lack of confidence in information
• Complex user experiences

If users cannot easily find answers, they will naturally revert to traditional support channels.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Ivanti Neurons combines self-service capabilities with integrated knowledge management and virtual agents.

This helps employees:

• Search for solutions quickly
• Resolve common issues independently
• Access support outside business hours
• Avoid unnecessary ticket submissions

Key Benefits

✅ Increased self-service adoption

✅ Lower support costs

✅ Better employee satisfaction

✅ Improved shift-left success

A Typical Self-Service Success Story

Let's take a common VPN connectivity issue as an example.

Traditional Approach

1. The user experiences a VPN issue.
2. A ticket is raised with the service desk.
3. The analyst investigates the problem.
4. The ticket is escalated.
5. The issue is eventually resolved.

Several weeks later, another employee experiences the same issue and the entire process starts again.

Modern Approach

1. The issue is documented as a knowledge article.
2. The article is published to the knowledge base.
3. Another employee encounters the same issue.
4. They search the self-service portal.
5. They follow the documented steps.
6. The issue is resolved within minutes.

The difference is not simply better technology. It is the combination of knowledge management, self-service and mature service management processes.

Challenge 5: Too Many Manual Processes

Many organisations continue to rely on manual processes for:

• Ticket routing
• Service fulfilment
• Approval workflows
• Escalations
• Status updates

Manual activities consume valuable time and introduce unnecessary delays.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Workflow automation is a core capability within Ivanti Neurons for ITSM.

Automating routine activities helps organisations:

• Improve consistency
• Reduce processing times
• Minimise human error
• Increase operational efficiency

Key Benefits

✅ Faster service delivery

✅ Reduced administrative effort

✅ Improved consistency

✅ Greater operational efficiency

Challenge 6: Difficulty Scaling IT Support

As organisations grow, support demand inevitably increases.

Without scalable processes, IT teams often experience:

• Growing ticket backlogs
• Increased support costs
• Resource constraints
• Lower employee satisfaction

Simply hiring more analysts is rarely the most cost-effective solution.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Automation, workflow management and self-service capabilities help organisations scale support operations without proportionally increasing headcount.

By automating routine requests and empowering users to resolve issues independently, service teams can support business growth more effectively.

Key Benefits

✅ Scalable service delivery

✅ Improved resource utilisation

✅ Reduced operational costs

✅ Better support experiences

Challenge 7: Limited Insight into Service Performance

Many IT leaders struggle to answer questions such as:

• Are we meeting our SLAs?
• Which services generate the most tickets?
• Is self-service delivering value?
• Where should we focus improvement efforts?

Without reliable reporting, service improvement becomes reactive rather than proactive.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Ivanti Neurons provides reporting, dashboards and analytics capabilities that help organisations gain greater visibility into service performance.

This allows leaders to:

• Monitor trends
• Track service levels
• Identify bottlenecks
• Prioritise improvement opportunities

Key Benefits

✅ Improved visibility

✅ Better decision-making

✅ Data-driven service improvement

✅ Enhanced reporting capabilities

Challenge 8: Preparing for AI-Powered Service Management

AI has become one of the biggest priorities within modern ITSM.

However, AI is not a silver bullet.

Many organisations expect AI to solve service management challenges without first addressing:

• Data quality
• Process maturity
• Knowledge management
• Governance
• Automation

As discussed in our Knowledge Management article, AI can only be as effective as the information it has access to.

How Ivanti Neurons Helps

Ivanti Neurons includes AI-powered capabilities such as:

• Ticket classification
• Incident summarisation
• Knowledge article generation
• Virtual agents
• Incident correlation
• AI-powered reporting

These capabilities can help improve productivity, reduce manual effort and enhance employee experiences.

However, organisations will achieve the greatest value when AI is supported by strong service management processes and a trusted knowledge foundation.

Key Benefits

✅ Faster triage and resolution

✅ Better analyst productivity

✅ Improved user experience

✅ Stronger AI outcomes

Moving Beyond IT with Enterprise Service Management

Modern service management is no longer limited to IT.

Many organisations are extending service management principles across:

• Human Resources
• Finance
• Facilities Management
• Procurement
• Employee Onboarding

This approach, commonly known as Enterprise Service Management (ESM), helps organisations standardise service delivery, streamline workflows and create consistent employee experiences across multiple departments.

Platforms such as Ivanti Neurons support this wider approach by enabling service management capabilities beyond traditional IT functions.

Conclusion

The most successful organisations are moving away from reactive service management and towards a more proactive, automated and user-centric approach.

Whilst technology alone will not solve every ITSM challenge, modern platforms can play a critical role in enabling transformation.

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM provides capabilities designed to help organisations address common challenges through automation, self-service, knowledge management and AI-powered service management.

By combining strong processes, effective knowledge management and intelligent automation, organisations can improve employee experiences, reduce operational costs and build a service management function that is ready for the future.

Ready to Modernise Your Service Management Approach?

Whether you're looking to improve self-service, reduce ticket volumes, strengthen knowledge management or prepare for AI-powered service delivery, establishing the right foundations is critical.

At Pathfinder Specialists, we help organisations maximise the value of their ITSM investments and create service management strategies that deliver measurable business outcomes.

Speak to our team to learn how we can help you get more from your ITSM platform.