I'm not sure what your work from home set up looks like, but mine includes an ironing board behind me. There's a set of golf clubs in the corner, and a pile of old clothes on the floor. My late grandmother's bookshelf tries desperately to bring some order to the room, but even it is filled with a hodgepodge of stuff. The problem is, I never intended to work from home. My "home office" can be best described as a storage room mixed with a little bit of the chaos.

Many organizations are prioritizing the health and well being of their workforce in the wake of the current global pandemic. Many threat actors are also taking advantage of this opportunity. I’ve seen recent examples of social engineering—with calculated phishing campaigns preying on those who seek information on the COVID-19. As noted by Security Researcher Brian Krebs, one hacker group even used a copy of a legitimate map of the impact of the virus to infect machines with malware.

As federal, state, and local government agencies scramble to create emergency response processes and procedures, be advised that IT service management (ITSM) can play a critical role in supporting emergency response plans and associated processes. Government and commercial business emergency response plans define how agencies and commercial organizations respond to catastrophic events in the environment.

It starts with one call. Then another user opens a ticket reporting sluggish laptop performance. One more call comes in, then a few more similar incidents and service requests. By the time the Help Desk Agent can see the bottom of that first cup of coffee, a bigger problem is evident, but not quite yet visible.

In the past, IT asset management and IT service management processes have been separate disciplines with different objectives and goals. Given this reality, Ivanti recently surveyed over 1600 IT professionals to better understand the alignment of asset and service management processes. Some results weren’t surprising. Laptop and desktop computers are the most common managed assets, while niche industry-specific devices are the least managed. Our key finding, however, is clear.

With the current focus on social distancing and other health precautions, service management leaders are probably already thinking about short-term implications of these rapidly incoming changes. The large-scale increased use of remote work is one implication. This might be a new option or an immediate mandatory requirement for all employees. Regardless, many IT organizations may not be ready.

Routine manual tasks consume IT and service desk resources and limit your team members’ ability to move ahead with higher-impact strategic projects. Every minute saved is 60 seconds freed to reassign people to innovation, strategic projects, and critical business challenges. Automation streamlines the management of complex hybrid environments by automating infrastructure, cloud, and workspace- automation processes required to support the business.

Earlier this year, I predicted that Artificial intelligence (AI) would move from innovation labs to mainstream workflow projects this year. In IT organizations, I believe service management teams will lead this trend. Here’s why.

I’ve always been a huge fan of mystery novels and true crime stories. It seems true crime is having an especially big moment right now, from serial killer documentaries to podcasts. Like so many people, I find myself drawn in as I read, watch, or listen to the criminal investigation. It’s fascinating how detectives work, diving into the smallest of details to solve massive crimes.

A friend of mine recently shared an experience with me that he had while working as a manager for a software manufacturer. The experience was about an employee he had to terminate. He told me that after meeting with the employee and HR, he completed the paperwork that was required and sent it back to the HR department. Six months later, he received an email from finance giving him an overview of the expenses for his department.