A Dell KACE survey revealed 71% small and midsized organisations (SMBs) did not consider information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) support as a factor during the purchase of their service desk tool, even though half indicated having adopted ITIL in some form.

An overwhelming majority, 92%, indicated they have either not adopted ITIL at all or only use it as a guideline, according to the survey which surveyed almost 850 IT professionals on service desk trends.

The survey, Current Trends with Service Desk Tools: A Survey of IT Professionals, also showed almost all respondents reported integration of service desk with a desktop management tool as beneficial, though most SMBs reported that they did not have an integrated solution.

Dimensional Research senior research analyst and the study’s author Diane Hagglund said their survey revealed IT departments believe they can achieve increased efficiencies by integrating their service desks with other processes to rapidly provide complete information about the endpoints they service.

"Although most organisations see the value in integrating their service desk solutions with other systems, few SMBs have been able to implement this important integration," Hagglund said.

Although the majority of SMB organizations strive to optimize their service desk by integrating with desktop management, 71% feel cost factors or technical complexity have hampered their ability to make the integration.

Web-based interface was the highest ranked service desk feature; while 71% of survey respondents reported the reputation of corporate IT is significantly impacted by service desk interactions.

Benefit in integrating service desk to desktop management tools is indicated by 92% respondents with 71% stating the integration enables faster time-to-resolution; while 87% of SMBs reported they have not completed this integration due to cost or technical factors.