Process Mining in IT services

Customer expectations have risen in recent years, particularly in IT service management. Outages and disruptions can have an existential impact on companies, as every minute of downtime means a direct loss of revenue. Companies therefore expect a smooth 24/7 service, immediate solutions to problems and maximum system availability. For IT service providers, these high expectations in terms of response times and service quality pose a challenge, and there is usually a lack of the necessary database for optimization. As a result, inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the service processes often remain hidden.

Process Mining offers an innovative solution in the field of IT services. The technology enables service providers to reconstruct, analyze and optimize business processes using digital traces in IT systems. The method gives users an insight into the actual process flows and thus creates an objective basis for process optimization. Process Mining uncovers inefficient workflows, shortens throughput times and supports compliance with service level agreements (SLAs). As Process Mining brings together data from different sources, it enables significant increases in efficiency, particularly in the context of complex process landscapes.

IT service providers are confronted with challenges in their day-to-day work that vary in nature and severity depending on the size and focus of the company. Large IT service providers often struggle with complicated, cross-departmental support processes in which tickets are forwarded multiple times and important information is lost. Medium-sized IT service providers often have difficulties in efficiently allocating resources and prioritizing customer requests. At software development companies, inefficiencies are particularly evident in delayed development cycles and unclear responsibilities in project management.

Using Process Mining for IT services, companies can systematically tackle these challenges. The process uncovers the actual processes in IT service delivery and improves them based on the data collected from the event logs. Data from various source systems such as ticketing tools, project management software and development environments is brought together and examined holistically. For example, typical bottlenecks become visible in incident management, such as when certain tickets remain in individual departments for an above-average amount of time or are frequently moved back and forth between teams. Process analysis using Process Mining tools is also valuable in software development. By systematically evaluating event logs from versioning systems and project management tools, companies can optimize their development cycles and identify delays at an early stage. The technology recognizes best practices and transfers them to related projects, which contributes significantly to resource optimization in IT companies.