Topic starter
11/06/2026 11:32 pm
TL;DR: IT service management is presented here as the operating layer for access requests, incident handling, change control, and service delivery metrics, with Zluri arguing that automation improves speed and consistency across those workflows. The real governance issue is that ITSM can accelerate approvals without fixing entitlement sprawl, stale access, or weak lifecycle controls.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Zluri: “IT Service Management (ITSM): 101 Guide”.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when ITSM approvals are used as a substitute for identity governance?
A: Approvals become a routing exercise rather than an entitlement decision.
Q: Why do access request workflows often fail to improve governance?
A: They fail when organisations treat approval speed as the objective.
Q: What are the signs that ITSM access governance is failing?
A: Look for missing approval histories, inconsistent changelogs, weak searchability, manual reconstruction of request decisions, and reporting that cannot tie requests to actual provisioning outcomes.
Practitioner guidance
- Tie access requests to authoritative role data Require request workflows to validate the employee’s current role, department, or designation before approval.
- Make revocation part of every move process When a user changes role, trigger a paired review that removes no-longer-needed application access at the same time new access is granted.
- Measure entitlement quality, not only ticket speed Add governance metrics for approval validity, revocation timeliness, and access-to-role alignment alongside resolution time and SLA measures.
Bottom line: ITSM can speed up access handling, but ticket workflow alone does not prove that access is appropriate or current.
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This topic was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
12/06/2026 8:14 am
ITSM is often mistaken for identity governance because it operationalises approvals, not because it proves entitlement. Ticket routing, prioritisation, and workflow automation reduce friction, but they do not determine whether access is justified, current, or properly removed. The governance risk is that organisations confuse process efficiency with access correctness, which leaves the identity model untouched. Practitioners should treat ITSM as an orchestration surface and nothing more.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Gartner predicts that AI systems will initiate 50% of all service requests by 2030, driven largely by agentic AI.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should IAM teams do with ITSM after adding access governance?
A: Keep ITSM for service requests, incidents, and change workflows, but stop using it as the system that decides entitlement scope. IAM teams should route access through a policy engine, preserve the audit trail, and reserve manual review for high-risk or exception cases.
👉 Read our full editorial: ITSM access requests expose the identity gaps behind service delivery
This post was modified 4 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group