There are many reasons why organizations change their Service Management system. Sometimes it’s as simple as scale/performance issues or a lack of available support for the current system. However, the majority of the time it is driven by the need for more value by getting a better return on investment.
Whatever the reason, one phrase you might hear when discussing a Service Management migration project is “Fresh Start”. Most often when someone says this what they mean is starting your new Service Management system with little or no data.
There was a time when you could forgive a migration project that did not move data to the new Service Management platform since it had to be done manually and was highly prone to error. This meant you would either have inaccurate data or pay for a lot of manual work, but not anymore!
In this article, we discuss why it’s best practice to take your data with you to your new Service Management system and how to do it faster and save money at the same time.
Why Migrate Data to a New System?
Let’s start with the reasons some people may try to use to justify not moving your data:
● “It’s not important”: In the past, historical data was not seen as important and certainly in no way nearly as important as data associated with live processes that are underway. However, as we know now, historical data is a powerful asset, especially with AI and data analytics.
● “We don’t need trend reporting”: However, data analytics and trending are how modern organizations report now and how they can see into the future to address potential issues before they become major problems.
● “We can rebuild our knowledge base and workflows from scratch”: Much of modern service management practices are predicated on the knowledge acquired by an organization as the basis for service and efficiency improvements. With modern migration techniques, you can carry all your knowledge over including attachments, formatting, embedded links and images.
● “All that old data will hurt system performance”: This could be an argument for leaving some data behind–perhaps if you have a lot of very old data that may be less useful, but not all of it. Bring enough historical data to maintain continuity for the IT staff and their customers. And if you are really not going to take it over to the new system then make sure you archive it somewhere where it can be accessed if needed.
Irrespective of the above, there are three important reasons to make sure you take your data with you:
● Knowing your customer: All those historical tickets and knowledge-base articles represent a wealth of information specific to your customers, whether they are internal or external.
● Leveraging modern tools: Modern ITSM systems can leverage modern technologies such as machine learning to suggest solutions and relevant knowledge base articles based on historical data. These tools won’t be helpful to you for years if your historical data is inaccessible.
● Regulation and Internal Policies: Applications such as CRM and HR require information to be stored and immediately available and as such must be migrated.
ITSM Data Migration Made Simple
In the past, many organizations with significant and often complex data used to fear a Service Management data migration, which would have been a highly manual, error-prone, and costly process. Even when they tried to automate some of the processes with scripting or coding things would go wrong. Sometimes very wrong!
And based on manual migration approaches they would not have been wrong. Gartner reported that 83% of all data migration projects either fail or exceed their budgets and schedules, and a Bloor Group study found that more than 90% of data migration projects run over time, over budget, or both. With Precision Bridge, you can overcome these obstacles and provide a smooth transition for your IT staff and customers
But there is a better way. Solutions like the Precision Bridge Data Migration Automation tool can deliver a fast and efficient migration from one Service Management system to another. By providing templates, automatic data mappings/transformations and data validation, Precision Bridge makes the errors, frustration, and high costs of data migrations a thing of the past.
For more information about the Precision Bridge suite of ITSM data migration tools or to schedule a demo, contact Precision Bridge today.