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Unhappy with your ITSM solution? Here are your options
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Unhappy with your ITSM solution? Here are your options
Diogo
Published on 24 September 2025
9 min read
Diogo
Published on 24 September 2025
9 min read
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Why ITSM tool dissatisfaction will continue into 2026
So, what are your options?
Final thoughts
Many organisations are still wrestling with the question: Is our ITSM solution keeping up, or holding us back? According to the latest ITSM.tool poll, while there are signs of improvement, 40% of respondents are either planning to replace their ITSM tool, already replacing it, or re-implementing their existing one.
The pace of change—new work models, cloud shifts, AI/automation, and tighter compliance requirements—has raised user expectations. If your current ITSM tool feels misaligned with strategy, costs are rising, or features are missing, you’re not alone. The good news: there are multiple paths forward depending on your readiness, budget, and long-term goals.
Why ITSM tool dissatisfaction will continue into 2026
Shifting expectations and hybrid work: Employees expect fast, seamless service, whether in the office, remote, or hybrid. Legacy tools often struggle with usability, responsiveness, or mobile-friendly support.
AI and automation becoming baseline features: In the 'State of AI in ITSM 2025' report by Atomicwork, many organisations report that AI is already being used for data analysis (55%), end-user assistants (48%), knowledge management (43%), and incident management (39%).
Cost pressures and SaaS subscription creep: Maintenance, licensing, and upgrade fees are rising; many organisations feel they are paying more without seeing proportional gains.
Security, privacy, and governance concerns: With AI, cloud, and distributed teams, issues of data protection, AI governance, regulatory compliance, and vendor risk are more critical than ever.
Tool fatigue, feature sprawl, and integration gaps: Many IT teams have ended up with multiple tools, overlapping functions, manual workarounds, and systems that don’t talk to each other. The friction this creates translates into user dissatisfaction, which results in poor tool adoption.
Enterprise strategy is changing: Forrester and other analysts argue teams should rethink legacy ITSM processes and consider proactive, AI-enabled workflows and knowledge graphs to move from reactive support to proactive service management.
So, what are your options?
If your organisation is one of those struggling—your ITSM tool no longer aligns with your IT requirements and the wider organisations strategy then this blog is for you—we discuss some of the key options you have concerning where you are right now, with tips on improving your chances of success.
Optimise
If you, your users, and customers are satisfied with your ITSM tool, but you require more advanced support to meet new demands by the business or even customers, then optimisation might be the right choice. Maximising what you get from your tool could save you a lot of time and money, compared to changing solutions, by boosting ITSM efficiency and speeding up productivity.
A couple of fundamentals to consider for optimisation:
Processes and practices
Optimisation shouldn’t be limited to the tool. It should start by optimising your processes or include new processes (e.g. asset management or problem management). Optimising is about questioning the current process and identifying where it should be done differently or where gaps prevent efficiency. Each action of a process should be justified to exist. It can be justified by the value to the customer, the operational efficiency, or compliance requirements. No matter what, the very famous “we have always done it this way” is not a justification. In order to ensure your ITSM solution is delivering the best value, implementing a continuous improvement approach will ensure the optimisation of your services is a priority.
Prioritise your people
As part of your optimisation strategy, don’t forget to 'optimise' the key factor of your ITSM solution, the people. Providing your IT service teams with continuous user training, especially after adopting more sophisticated technology, can go a long way in helping users get the most out of your investment. Training will help demonstrate the useful features of the tool and how their use will impact daily work and boost productivity—from setting up dashboards to understanding reports and available shortcuts.
Integration
A part of an optimisation strategy can be integrations to acquire features unavailable from the stand-alone tool. For instance, integrating Lansweeper’s sophisticated asset discovery tool to gain visibility and understanding of your IT landscape—to ensure there are no duplicates in tool functionalities.
You may also opt to link together different ITSM processes across different tools to enhance the overall efficiency of process management and slash manual efforts. An example of this is integrating Jira Service Management and Jira Software to allow end-to-end visibility across IT development and operation teams to resolve issues quickly. Or, integrating Confluence to power knowledge bases to ensure adequate documentation of IT policies and processes.
Migrate
In the context of this blog, an ITSM solution migration is when all or some of an organisation's products, apps, processes, etc., are moved from one ITSM tool to another—using the new tool to build the solution.
But how do you know if migrating is the right option for you? Well, the drive for change usually comes down to one or more of the following factors:
- Your current tool may be too rudimentary and doesn’t offer enough versatility to deliver the level of service your end-users expect. For instance, the lack of a self-service portal or comprehensive knowledge base, which in turn is increasing the drain on IT resources and distracting them from more strategic tasks.
- Your current solution doesn’t provide enough scalability to keep up with developments in the tech and service management industry. For instance, you want a more complete platform that incorporates all of the elements of ESM (Enterprise Service Management) and aligns with modern best practices.
- Your existing solution is heavy on admin requirements or requires highly technical resources for maintenance—leading to exorbitant overhead costs and planned budget overshoot.
Start fresh
Last but not least, starting fresh or rebuilding everything from scratch. This is an underrated option but, in some cases, definitely worth it. Especially if you want to change the tool (e.g. moving from ServiceNow to Jira Service Management). This can be done with your existing ITSM tool or a new tool.
Nowadays, tools are not only tools; they all come with a certain philosophy: the vendor expects you to use the tool in a certain way and relies on strong concepts you must understand. For instance, let's take ServiceNow, which hinges on the concepts of forms, categories, and subcategories. On the other hand, Jira Service Management operates with request types, issue types, and, occasionally, forms. While these may seem somewhat alike on the surface, they represent two distinct frameworks for conceptualising your IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. It's important to recognise that each tool comes with its own unique set of principles and structures, and understanding these distinctions is crucial for effectively utilising them and avoiding wasting time and money trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Final thoughts
A note to finish on is, it's important not to consider these as siloed options. For example, if you are a large enterprise with a well-established ITSM and potentially ESM solution. You may consider a phased approach by integrating the new solution you’ve identified with your existing one, migrating your data over some time, until you’ve achieved a complete migration, if necessary.
If you’re curious about migrating solutions and would like to know more, be sure to register for our upcoming webinar ‘Things I wish I knew before changing ITSM solutions’ to hear from experts at Adaptavist on dealing with real-life customer challenges and how to overcome them.
Written by
Teles