Magic Quadrant for IT Service Support Management Tools - 2015

Magic Quadrant for IT Service Support Management Tools

25 August 2015 ID:G00270132

Analyst(s): Chris Matchett, Katherine Lord, Tapati Bandopadhyay

VIEW SUMMARY

IT service support management tools are vital for infrastructure and operations organizations to manage support and delivery of IT services. This Magic Quadrant research profiles key vendors of enterprise ITSSM tools to help I&O leaders make better selections.

Market Definition/Description

This document was revised on 26 August 2015. The document you are viewing is the corrected version. For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.

IT service support management (ITSSM) tools help infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations manage the consumption of IT services, the infrastructure that supports the IT services and the IT organization's responsibility in supporting these services. These are most heavily used by IT service desks and IT service delivery functions.

ITSSM tools are classified based on IT service management (ITSM) capabilities and integration with IT operations management (ITOM) solutions (see "ITSSM Tool Selections Require an ITSM and ITOM Tooling Strategy") and include:

• Basic ITSSM tools that have some ITSM capabilities and limited integration with ITOM solutions
• Intermediate ITSSM tools that have good ITSM capabilities, and provide some basic ITOM functions or integrate with intermediate third-party ITOM solutions
• Advanced ITSSM tools that have a full range of ITSM capabilities, and provide broad ITOM functionality natively or integrate with advanced third-party ITOM solutions

More than 400 vendors¹ offer ITSSM products, but the majority are basic or intermediate tools that focus on IT service desk and ticketing functions targeted at lower maturity I&O organizations. Some innovation occurs in advanced ITSSM tools, but these are aimed and priced to suit few organizations. Vendors are increasingly concentrating product development on non-I&O use cases as market saturation of basic and intermediate ITSSM tools continues. If this trend continues, the market for ITSSM tools will stagnate.

ITSSM tools are a component of the ITSM 2.0 IT operations management tools minisuite (see Note 1). The ITSM 2.0 minisuite focuses on improving the overall level of quality and efficiency with which the I&O organization supports business users. ITSSM tools may optionally integrate with other tools from the automation minisuite or the availability and performance minisuite for deeper overall ITOM capability (see "Choose IT Operations Management Tools Based on Your Requirements").

Magic Quadrant

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for IT Service Support Management Tools

Source: Gartner (August 2015)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Axios Systems

Axios Systems offers one ITSSM product called assyst that is targeted at high I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research.

Strengths

• Axios Systems concentrates exclusively on providing ITSSM solutions.
• Axios Systems has maintained good relationships with customers and offers channels such as focus groups, customer meet-ups and online forums, and incorporates significant client feedback into product development.
• Customers can benefit from a comprehensive implementation program, including customized training and guidance to ensure knowledge transfer.

Cautions

• Growth in customer numbers and revenue was positive yet minimal during 2014.
• Axios Systems has invested in a SaaS platform, but relatively few of its customers are using it.
• Technical support is only provided between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. in the customer's main time zone, unless extended coverage is purchased.

BMC Software

BMC Software offers four ITSSM products (Remedy ITSM Suite, Remedyforce, FootPrints and Track-It) that are targeted at high to low I&O maturity organizations, respectively. Remedy and Remedyforce are evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research, with the score for Remedy contributing to the "product or service" factor of Ability to Execute.

Strengths

• BMC Remedy's SmartIT user interface improves usability and flexibility, and demonstrates BMC's innovation in this market.
• BMC has a broad ITOM portfolio, making it a viable partner for mature I&O organizations.
• Remedy ITSM Suite is the top scorer in the critical capabilities for ITSSM tools for the advanced maturity use case.

Cautions

• There are too many midmarket ITSSM products in BMC's portfolio, so customers often struggle to determine which they are best suited for.
• Customers report BMC sales teams are slow to respond to potential opportunities and regularly drop off shortlists as a result.
• BMC Software's ITSSM market revenue share has consistently declined each year from 2010 to 2014.²

CA Technologies

CA Technologies offers two ITSSM products (CA Service Management and CA Cloud Service Management) that are targeted at high to medium I&O maturity organizations, respectively. Both are evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research, with the score for CA Service Management contributing to the "product or service" factor of Ability to Execute.

Strengths

• CA Technologies has a strong global reach supported by a good balance of selling directly and through partners that customers report good experiences with.
• CA Technologies have invested in research to study employee personas and behavior to better understand how it can improve their products' user experience.
• The ITSSM tools use mobile and social capabilities effectively for IT communication and collaboration.

Cautions

• Gartner's market share analysis concludes that CA Technologies' share of the ITSSM market revenue has consistently declined each year from 2010 to 2014.²
• Gartner's database reveals that CA Technologies' marketing efforts have failed to raise significant awareness of its CA Cloud Service Management tool within the market.
• Prospective customers perceive CA Service Management as too complex, because it fails to provide a unified view across all IT product consoles.

Cherwell Software

Cherwell Software offers one ITSSM product called Cherwell Service Management that is targeted at medium I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research.

Strengths

• Cherwell has continued to drive good customer engagement and attract a loyal following.
• ITSSM buyers are interested in Cherwell Service Management and see it as a viable competitor to expensive ITSSM tools.
• Cherwell's acquisition of Express Metrix strengthens its IT asset management capabilities for a broader ITSM 2.0 minisuite package.

Cautions

• Some customers have reported perceived performance issues with the SaaS offering from some (but not all) customer locations.
• Seventy percent of Cherwell's total software revenue comes directly from the vendor's own sales activity, which presents a risk in terms of sales scalability as it continues to grow.
• Cherwell's efforts to additionally develop and market its product as a platform for business activities outside of ITSSM may lead to a lack of focus on the ITSSM market in future.

EasyVista

EasyVista offers one ITSSM product called EasyVista IT Service Manager that is targeted at medium I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research.

Strengths

• EasyVista has seen its number of customers grow approximately 10% during 2014, demonstrating its ability to sell effectively.
• EasyVista's customers have reported success in configuring workflows and custom forms within the tool without needing to write code.
• EasyVista IT Service Manager can run on-premises and via SaaS, and the installed customer base is uncommonly well-balanced across both modes.

Cautions

• EasyVista provides a Level 1 service desk in North America, but Level 2 support is only available during Central European business hours, resulting in delayed responses for other regions.
• A limited global partner network has made it challenging for EasyVista to sell outside of Europe.
• EasyVista capabilities are focused on ITSSM and IT asset management within the ITSM 2.0 minisuite.

Heat Software

Heat Software offers one ITSSM product called Heat Service Management that is targeted at medium I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research.

Strengths

• Heat Software has refocused on medium maturity I&O organizations that are a good fit for its ITSSM tool, and as a result are appearing on more shortlists during the evaluation period of this research.³
• Heat Software is marketing effectively through channels that cater to low maturity to medium maturity I&O organizations.
• The acquisition of Lumension at the beginning of 2015 added endpoint operations management capabilities, and extended Heat Software's ability to integrate with broader ITOM tools.

Cautions

• Heat Software's marketing of its ITSSM product as "hybrid" (hybrid ITSM and hybrid service management) is confusing and distracts from its strengths.
• Despite the hybrid message and investment in a multitenancy SaaS platform, few of Heat's customers are using the tool via the cloud subscription offering.
• An appreciable number of customers that were using the legacy version of Heat chose to switch to competing products in 2014 rather than upgrade to Heat Service Management.

Hornbill

Hornbill offers an ITSSM product called Supportworks that is targeted at medium to high I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research. Hornbill did not provide supporting material for the 2015 Magic Quadrant for ITSSM tools, so evidence from the 2014 edition has been re-evaluated in addition to other credible and accepted public sources.

Strengths

• Hornbill has good brand recognition in Europe and close connections with European IT special interest groups, such as the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF) and the Service Desk Institute (SDI).

• Hornbill has a significant customer base in the U.K. public sector and local government, which makes up approximately 50% of its total customer base; the remaining 50% of customers are made up of private and public organizations across all market sectors.
• Hornbill developed a collaboration platform that enables Level 0 support channels such as self-service and peer-to-peer, although this is not yet available to Supportworks customers without purchasing extra software or migrating to a different tool.

Cautions

• Gartner has not seen Hornbill focus on the development of its Supportworks product in the past year as efforts seem to have concentrated on other products.
• Supportworks has been passively marketed during 2014 and 2015. Hornbill has instead promoted its other products in IT-service-support-related events and on social media.
• Growth in North America is anemic, and the vendor has a very limited international partner network.

HP

HP offers two ITSSM products (HP Service Manager and HP Service Anywhere) that are targeted at high to medium I&O maturity organizations, respectively. HP Service Manager is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research, with its score contributing to the "product or service" factor of Ability to Execute.

Strengths

• HP has a strong brand and global reach, with its professional services organization available in all major regions.
• HP offers a broad portfolio of ITOM tools that integrate directly with its ITSSM products.
• HP's big data capabilities enable its customers to leverage Autonomy and Vertica technologies to improve search and analytics in areas such as incident management, change management and knowledge management.

Cautions

• Gartner's market share analysis concludes that HP's share of the ITSSM market revenue has consistently declined each year from 2009 to 2014.²
• We have seen minimal interest in HP Service Anywhere (HP's SaaS offering for intermediate ITSSM) from ITSSM tool buyers. It appeared on just 2% of Gartner client shortlists during 2014.
• HP's ITSSM tools can integrate with its stand-alone service broker catalog tool (HP Propel), but this can overlap with the native service catalog capabilities included in its ITSSM products, resulting in an uncertain roadmap for ITSSM buyers.

Landesk

Landesk offers one ITSSM product called Landesk Service Desk that is targeted at intermediate and high I&O maturity organizations. This tool is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research.

Strengths

• The Total User Management packaging gives Landesk a solid portfolio of ITSSM tools backed by good automation for enterprise devices.
• Landesk Service Desk scores comparatively high in the critical capabilities for ITSSM tools for intermediate and advanced I&O maturity use cases.
• Landesk has brought innovative ideas to market (such as SnapIT that uses mobile devices and optical character recognition [OCR] to enable business users to solve their own IT issues).

Cautions

• Despite an increase in ITSSM marketing efforts, Landesk is still commonly recognized for endpoint management but not for its ITSSM portfolio.
• Landesk has invested in a dual-licensing model where the tool can be provided either on-premises or in the cloud, but relatively few of its customers are using the SaaS option.
• Customers have reported difficulties obtaining access to expert assistance from the vendor directly, as Landesk relies heavily on partners.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow offers two ITSSM products (ServiceNow Service Management Suite and ServiceNow Express) that are targeted at high to low I&O maturity organizations. ServiceNow Service Management Suite is evaluated in the Critical Capabilities companion research, with its score contributing to the "product or service" factor of Ability to Execute.

Strengths

• ServiceNow has very effective marketing and sales, which has led to widespread brand recognition and a strong customer following.
• ServiceNow has developed a strong partner network, which supports growth and global scalability in the key regions of North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand.
• The acquisition of Neebula in 2014 (for features found in the ServiceWatch complementary solution) bolsters its ITOM story with service dependency mapping for configuration management databases (CMDBs).

Cautions

• ServiceNow's strategy to develop and market its product for business activities outside of ITSSM demonstrates a lack of focus on the ITSSM market for future developments.
• ServiceNow's customers find it difficult to negotiate favorable contractual terms. Some customers that initially had deep discounts with ServiceNow are finding that those discounts are not honored for subsequent renewals.
• On-premises customers pay the same as SaaS customers, even though they cover the hosting directly and do not benefit from automatic upgrades.

Vendors Added and Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.

Added

None

Dropped

The following vendors, which were included in the 2014 research, were dropped from the 2015 Magic Quadrant for ITSSM.

• IBM
• ManageEngine
• SysAid Technologies
• TOPdesk

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

For inclusion in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for ITSSM tools, Gartner focuses on vendors that offer not only IT service support functions that focus on product usability and the ease of use of out-of-the box best practices, but also next-generation support capabilities specific to mobility and the use of social collaboration capabilities to increase effectiveness and efficiency levels.

To be included in the 2015 Magic Quadrant, vendors must:

• Sell and market an ITSSM product that includes functionality for IT incident management, problem management, change management, configuration management, release governance, IT user self-service (for knowledge and request management), IT knowledge management, IT service support analytics, reporting, and SLA management; with regard to incident and service requests. Also, a graphical process designer must be available to manage the above workflows.
• Offer the product optimized for use on a mobile device.
• Have at least 35% of customers using versions of software across the ITSSM product portfolio that are less than 18 months old (released after 1 September 2013).
• Have at least $15 million in annual revenue derived from ITSSM products.
• Have sales presence or a partner network that spans at least three of the following regions: North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australia/New Zealand.

Gartner also asks for seven qualifying customer references (with at least three on the version being evaluated and at least two being customers for at least two years); these references should meet the following criteria:

• They should involve ITSSM tool solutions for which the customer has paid and which are being used in production environments.
• The tools implemented should support and automate at least five of the following processes: incident management, problem management, change management, configuration management, release management, knowledge management or request management.
• They should have an organizational size of at least 5,000 business users of IT.
• The references should be located in at least three of the following regions: North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa or Australia/New Zealand.

Because Gartner bases its main evaluation on real-user experiences, rather than on future releases or recent releases that have been broadly tested, the product versions considered as part of this evaluation must have been generally available by 1 March 2015.

Evaluation Criteria

While a vendor may meet inclusion criteria for the "Magic Quadrant for IT Service Support Management Tools," placement on the Magic Quadrant depends on its score in several categories. The evaluation criteria are based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute.

Ability to Execute

Product or Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in these nine critical capabilities:

1. Incident and Problem Management — Incident ticketing and problem management is required by all IT organizations that license ITSSM tools. This enables them to manage the life cycles of IT incidents and problem records from recording to closing. These are core capabilities in which all ITSSM tools must be competent.

• The success of IT service support depends on effective communications and collaboration, which is aided by the ability of the ITSSM tool to integrate with communications and collaboration platforms, such as telephony systems and chat.
• These capabilities are evaluated on the support of the collection, analysis and communication of incident and problem management data and information. Features that support integration with telephony and unified communications and collaboration (UCC) systems to support core ticketing and incident management functions are also evaluated.

2. Change, Configuration and Release — Integrated change, configuration and release management processes are important for organizations focused on broader IT service support capabilities. These activities integrate responsibilities across a single ITSSM platform, rather than performing them in separate systems of record.

• A key feature for more-advanced use cases is the utilization of discovery tools that incorporate the federation, reconciliation and synchronization of configuration items (CIs) and their relationships.
• Integrated change, configuration and release management capabilities are evaluated on the ability to govern various aspects of the IT change management process, to create and maintain a complete and accurate picture of configuration across various infrastructure elements, and to enable release governance to ensure that approved changes are executed in the environment in accordance with the IT organization's defined and documented procedures.

3. Self-Service/Request Fulfillment — Service request fulfillment is important for IT organizations focused on providing business users with a convenient way to interact with the IT organization by presenting incident and request tracking services, technical IT components and IT services in the form of an orderable service catalog.

• Higher-maturity use cases rely on the automation of basic fulfillment activities to control the complexity of large and fast-moving environments.
• Service request fulfillment is evaluated on a product's ability to present an online portal to business end users who are requesting help from the IT service support organization in the form of incident reports, change requests, IT component ordering or administration. Capabilities that enable IT organizations to automate these processes to expedite common requests are also considered.

4. IT Knowledge Management — Knowledge management is a key area of differentiation for all use cases. The knowledge portal should enable end users to resolve simple incidents themselves. The tools should create knowledge bases for relevant, updateable content that is useful for IT and business users.

• This capability is evaluated on the product's ability to collect, store and access data about IT services to enable the I&O organization to manage IT service assets throughout their life cycles.

5. Reporting and SLA Management — Reporting and dashboards are key for all use cases, because they support, enhance and extend collaborative decision support (strategic and tactical) and communication with IT and business leaders.

• Reports, dashboards and other visualization capabilities must incorporate common critical success factors, key performance indicators (KPIs) and the ability to visualize multidimensional causal relationships between metrics. High-maturity use cases benefit from support for business value metrics and end-to-end service-level management across a line of service involving internal and external service providers.
• Reporting is also evaluated on the product's ability to provide out of the box or build trend reports that measure and predict operational performance using a variety of graphical models.

6. Processes and Workflow Design — IT organizations in all use cases need out-of-the-box, preconfigured forms, fields, workflows and reports that are compatible with industry best practices and standards for IT service support.

• IT organizations increasingly require the ability to configure these processes, create new workflows and link to other ITOM activities as I&O maturity improves. Complex environments need intuitive, graphical, interactive workflow design tools.
• Products are evaluated on the presence of out-of-the-box best practices, as well as the quality of preconfigured workflows in accordance with industry best practices and ease of use with respect to modifying and supplementing those workflows as needed.

7. Data Source/ITOM Tool Integration — The tools' ability to integrate with other tools and the ability of those tools to integrate with ITSSM tools is increasingly important, particularly for organizations that license best-of-breed ITOM products, as opposed to multiple products from a single vendor.

• Products are evaluated on the presence of out-of-the box integration capabilities (via APIs or connectors) that link to IT service asset and configuration management, IT service catalog, IT financial management, event correlation and analysis tools, application performance management, availability and performance management, and client management tools.

8. Total Cost of Ownership — License and subscription costs for ITSSM tools vary considerably, as do ongoing costs for support and administration. Many organizations overbuy when selecting an ITSSM tool.

• Low I&O maturity requires lighter solutions that do not rely on significant time and effort to administer the application. Higher TCO is less of an issue for IT organizations with high I&O maturity, because they are able to benefit from the extended capabilities typically offered with more-complex tools.
• Products are evaluated on their value for money at purchase and the ongoing TCO, plus the range of licensing and delivery models being offered.

9. User Experience and Flexibility — Product configuration flexibility is an important factor that distinguishes different ITSSM tools for different maturity levels. IT service desk users, in particular, benefit from a streamlined and intuitive UI.

• Lower-maturity use cases require ITSSM tools that are quick and simple to configure without coding. Higher-maturity IT organizations benefit from extended options for building on the ITSSM platform to support a wider range of applications of the tool within an ITSSM scenario.
• Products are evaluated on the complexity and flexibility of configuration. The suitability and intuitiveness of the UI for IT and business users are also evaluated here.

These are evaluated in the critical capabilities for IT service support management tools; see "Critical Capabilities for IT Service Support Management Tools." The critical capabilities score for the ITSSM product that is targeted at large enterprises with medium-to-high I&O maturity is used where multiple products from a vendor qualify for inclusion in that research.

Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This mind share can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership, word of mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so on.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Product or Service	High
Overall Viability	Medium
Sales Execution/Pricing	High
Market Responsiveness/Record	Medium
Marketing Execution	Medium
Customer Experience	Medium
Operations	Not Rated

Source: Gartner (August 2015)

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base.

Offering (Product Strategy): The vendor's approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as they map to current and future requirements.

Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition.

Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.

Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Market Understanding	High
Marketing Strategy	High
Sales Strategy	Medium
Offering (Product) Strategy	High
Business Model	Medium
Vertical/Industry Strategy	Not Rated
Innovation	High
Geographic Strategy	High

Source: Gartner (August 2015)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

BMC Software and ServiceNow are positioned in the Leaders quadrant. Both vendors have executed well, and own 26% and 29%, respectively, of the ITSSM market. Both vendors exhibit the levels of marketing and sales capabilities required to drive market acceptance.

Challengers

Cherwell Software is positioned in the Challengers quadrant. This vendor has also executed well, growing its market share and improving its ITSSM products and its overall viability levels enough to participate well in the general-purpose market with competitive products.

Visionaries

Landesk is positioned in the Visionaries quadrant. This vendor delivers innovative products that address operationally important I&O organizational challenges — namely, business-user engagement and IT collaboration — but have yet to gain significant market or mind share.

Niche Players

Axios Systems, CA Technologies, EasyVista, Heat Software, Hornbill and HP are positioned in the Niche Players quadrant. Niche Players have strengths in particular areas of ITSSM, but generally have not invested in satisfying all the requirements to demonstrate Completeness of Vision and the Ability to Execute. The vendors in this quadrant focus on a small segment, or are in the process of ramping up go-to-market efforts and have yet to develop the vision to break out.

Context

The Magic Quadrant for ITSSM tools assesses the viability of vendors and their competitive strength in the ITSSM marketplace. The vendors featured here produce ITSSM tools that are of interest to large I&O organizations that have an intermediate-to-high I&O maturity (Gartner ITScore for Infrastructure and Operations of 2.5 or higher).

It is not a direct evaluation of the ITSSM products that these vendors offer. This analysis complements the "Critical Capabilities for IT Service Support Management Tools," which applies nine critical capabilities that differentiate the most popular large-enterprise-focused products on the market, and three I&O-maturity-related use cases (plus one for digital workplace). The use cases filter and prioritize the capabilities that will have the greatest beneficial impact of ITSSM products offered by these vendors. Gartner strongly recommends that organizations use this research in conjunction with the Critical Capabilities, inquiries with analysts, and other Gartner research to define their requirements and select solutions that match their needs.

Organizations should not base vendor choices solely on their proximity to the Leaders quadrant. IT leaders must create a list of criteria that describes their needs, and select vendors that best meet those requirements (see "Redesign Your ITSSM Tool RFP Process for Better Results"). The best vendor will meet the organization's requirements and provide integration with broader IT operations management capabilities (see "ITSSM Tool Selections Require an ITSM and ITOM Tooling Strategy").

Capabilities for processing workflows such as HR, facilities, business asset management and others that are not activities associated with IT service support management are not evaluated in this research.

Plan for a vendor that can work with you for at least five years, and that invests in the ITSSM market. Prioritize skills, training, process and proper product implementation, because these factors will influence your experience with a product more than the specific functional capabilities. Finally, select a vendor that can truly help your I&O organization reach its maturation goals.

The predominance of low I&O maturity within this market will ensure that demand for basic tools remains significant. Gartner regularly advises clients to also consider ITSSM vendors not found in this Magic Quadrant.

Market Overview

The IT service support management (ITSSM) tools market consists of more than 400 products that claim to provide IT organizations with the ability to track and resolve issues that affect the IT production environment.¹ Although all ITSSM tools provide those core ticketing functions, the true value that IT organizations can gain from ITSSM tools comes from their ability to offer and support tightly integrated processes and functions that correlate with the activities of the broader IT organization. I&O organizations looking to increase IT process maturity have looked to ITSSM tools aligned and preconfigured to industry best-practice frameworks — to integrate responsibilities across technology silos with common processes, collaboration and the reinforcement of an organizational commitment to shared objectives.

ITSSM tools integrate processes and functions that correlate with the broader IT support organization. Features should include incident and problem management capabilities for the IT service desk function, and change, configuration and release management tools for process leaders, infrastructure engineers and domain administrators. They often include a CMDB that provides visibility into the production environment, and prioritizes and resolves or escalates issues and problems, and improves root cause isolation.

ITSSM tools are a component of the IT service management (ITSM) 2.0 IT operations management tools minisuite (see Note 1). The ITSM 2.0 minisuite focuses on improving the overall level of quality and efficiency with which the I&O organization supports end users. ITSSM tools may optionally integrate with other tools from the automation minisuite or the availability and performance minisuite for deeper overall ITOM capability (see "Choose IT Operations Management Tools Based on Your Requirements").

ITSSM tools are classified into three categories based on IT service management (ITSM) capabilities and integration with ITOM solutions:

• Basic ITSSM tools have some ITSM capabilities and limited integration with ITOM solutions.
• Intermediate ITSSM tools have good ITSM capabilities, and provide some basic ITOM functions or integrate with intermediate third-party ITOM solutions.
• Advanced ITSSM tools have a full range of ITSM capabilities, and provide broad ITOM functionality natively or integrate with advanced third-party ITOM solutions.

These three categories are more fully explained in "ITSSM Tool Selections Require an ITSM and ITOM Tooling Strategy."

Many I&O organizations don't adequately understand how to choose ITSSM tools that address current needs and requirements. This is due to a lack of I&O roadmaps, which establish the people, processes and technology resources needed to reach the desired state of I&O maturity. Without a roadmap, I&O often purchases ITSSM tools that have more functionality than it needs (incurring higher costs), or that lack the capabilities or integration abilities it will require as it grows (see "IT Service Support Management Tool Acquisitions Must Be Based on I&O Maturity"). ITSSM vendors are keenly aware of this and compete aggressively for new business and for partnerships for broader ITOM capabilities and integrations.