Enterprise Strategy Group | Getting to the bigger truth.

ESG Economic Value Validation

Analyzing the Economic Benefits of

Atlassian’s Jira Service Desk
By Brian Garrett, VP Validation Services; Edwin Yuen, Analyst
April 2018

Executive Summary
Evaluating the effectiveness of service desk software can be challenging because of the overwhelming collection of
features and capabilities offered in service desk management products. While the idea of an extensive tool set may be
appealing initially, many organizations discover that having too many features gets in the way of their primary tasks:
helping employees and customers predict and resolve problems. Atlassian’s Jira Service Desk delivers a combination of
popular features, ease of use, and low cost. Jira Service Desk customers report consistently meeting service level
agreements (SLAs) for service and support, enabling their users and customers to get back to work faster than with
competitive offerings.
ESG analyzed Jira Service Desk’s economic benefits using interviews with customers who had experience with multiple
IT service management (ITSM) platforms, and with partners who had experience selling and deploying different ITSM
offerings. ESG also reviewed existing Jira Service Desk case studies
focused on ITSM performance and effectiveness.
These customers and partners expressed genuine satisfaction with Jira
Service Desk. The combination of low cost, ease of use, and extensibility
to include features that directly matched their needs allowed Jira Service
Desk customers to reduce ticket volume by 25%, increase employee self-
service by 45%, reduce overall ticket resolution time by 40%, and reduce
costs by up to 80%. ESG found that the value of adopting Jira Service
Desk went far beyond the initial low cost.

© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This ESG Economic Validation was commissioned by Atlassian and is distributed under license from ESG.
 Economic Value Validation: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Atlassian Jira Service Desk 2

Introduction
This ESG Economic Value Validation focused on the quantitative and qualitative benefits organizations can expect from
deploying Atlassian’s Jira Service Desk. ESG used customer and partner interviews along with an extensive review of
available studies evaluating service desk products. The analysis considered key metrics including ease of deployment, ease
of use, overall effectiveness, and cost.

Challenges
Supporting today’s mobile and technologically diverse workforce requires a combination of products, processes, and
procedures that deliver fast, accurate, and complete answers. While numerous service desk management systems are
available, many offer such a vast collection of features and capabilities that they become overwhelming to deploy and
maintain. The complexity and frustration of dealing with some of these products leads some organizations to change their
workflows to match the structure of their chosen service solution—instead of customizing the service solution to match
their business needs. According to recent ESG research, 68% of respondents report that complexity inside their IT
environment has increased over the last two years (see Figure 1).1 This often results in higher costs, busier IT staff, and
frustration with IT support services.

Figure 1. Changes in Level of IT Complexity

In general, how complex is your organization’s IT environment relative to two years ago?
(Percent of respondents, N=651)
47%

27%
21%

4%
1%

Significantly more More complex than two Equally complex as two Less complex than two Significantly less complex
complex than two years years ago years ago years ago than two years ago
ago

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group

ESG has spoken with many customers over the years about the business requirements of their support platform. These
professionals are charged with servicing an increasingly complex infrastructure, for a growing variety of clients, while
trimming budgets. Many find this to be an unsolvable equation.

The Solution: Jira Service Desk

Publicly available pricing indicates that Jira Service Desk is one of the most cost-efficient ITSM platforms; however, that is
only one of the impressive selling points for Jira Service Desk customers. Built on Jira, Jira Service Desk allows IT and
development teams to collaborate on the same platform, so they can understand and address incidents faster than if they
were using other ITSM products. The extensibility of Jira Service Desk allows a lean approach to managing service requests,

1 Source: ESG Research Report, 2018 IT Spending Intentions Survey, February 2018.
© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 Economic Value Validation: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Atlassian Jira Service Desk 3

incidents, and changes, with the ability to customize the platform to match organizational workflows using the same Jira
software that development teams are already familiar with.

Figure 2. Jira Service Desk

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group

ESG Economic Value Validation

ESG completed a qualitative and quantitative study of Jira Service Desk with a focus on the impact to both the service staff
and end-users in Jira Service Desk and competitive environments.

ESG’s Economic Validation process is a proven method for understanding, validating, quantifying, and modeling the
economic value propositions of a product or solution. The process leverages ESG’s core competencies in market and
industry analysis, forward-looking research, and technical/economic validation. ESG conducted in-depth interviews with
end-users and industry partners to better understand and quantify how Jira Service Desk has impacted their organizations,
particularly in comparison with previously deployed and/or experienced solutions.

Jira Service Desk Economic Value Overview

ESG’s economic analysis revealed that customers who adopt Jira Service Desk realize substantial benefits in ITSM cost,
reduced complexity, and better collaboration between development and IT teams when compared with competitive
offerings.

• ITSM and operational costs—The initial low cost of Jira Service Desk combined with the lack of hidden ongoing costs
make Jira Service Desk a leader in cost-efficient ITSM platforms.

• Reduced complexity—Complexity increases cost and effort needed to fix problems. Jira Service Desk provides the
features that organizations need most, without bogging down support staff and users with unneeded complexity.

• Integration with DevOps—Jira Service Desk and the Jira software environment share the same software architecture
and have similar user interfaces and APIs. This allows support teams to collaborate with development teams to fix
problems faster on the first try by easily linking tickets to developers in Jira Software so the root cause of incidents
can be quickly found.

© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 Economic Value Validation: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Atlassian Jira Service Desk 4

Lower ITSM and Operational Costs

Service desk managers are tasked with supporting an increasing variety of devices and user scenarios, often with
stagnant or decreasing budgets. Customers report that by adopting Jira Service Desk, they can:

• Reduce ITSM costs by up to 80%—Jira Service Desk pricing is more cost-efficient than other full-service ITSM
platforms. When compared with alternative solutions, customers not only report initial cost savings of up to 80%,
but also find significant value in the transparency of Jira
Service Desk’s pricing model that doesn’t rely on discounts
that eventually expire. The simplicity of the pricing model
“Jira Service Desk doesn’t have all
allows companies to focus on solving business problems, not of the bells and whistles out of the
negotiating contracts. box. This means we are not being
• Provide ongoing value—While many customers initially focus
charged for things we just don’t
on the low cost of Jira Service Desk, they soon find out that use. It allows organizations to use
the ability of support desk staff and end-users to quickly Jira Service Desk the way that
resolve problems, and even prevent tickets from being meets our company’s needs.”
opened, has a bigger financial impact than the cost of the
product.

Reduced Complexity

Reduced complexity and lower operational costs go hand in hand. Jira Service Desk reduces complexity by
“shifting trouble tickets left” on the cost tracker, only providing the features that matter to the business, and
dramatically reducing the time needed to deploy.

• Shifting support tickets left—Opening a level 1 support ticket, and working that ticket to resolution, costs
companies an average of $24. If that ticket is escalated to level 2 or level 3 support, the cost rises dramatically.
Companies report that solving a problem using a self-help portal costs an average of only $2.

“Shifting left,” as seen in Figure 3, is the idea that organizations can save money by creating processes that move
issues to the left on the support cost continuum. ESG found that customers using Jira Service Desk were able to
shift 45% of their level 1 tickets to the self-help level (at a savings of $22 per ticket), and shift a total of 25% of the
overall tickets at least one category to the left. The end result is an overall reduction in ticket resolution time of
40%.

Figure 3. “Shift Left” with Jira Service Desk

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group

© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 Economic Value Validation: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Atlassian Jira Service Desk 5

• Providing the features that matter—In our interviews with customers, ESG learned how much customers
appreciate the initial simplicity of Jira Service Desk. It enables customers to concentrate on the few key features
that truly drive their processes. Alternative solutions have so many tools and capabilities that the features actually
driving ticket resolution are obscured. One customer shared, “So many of the extra tools that we had with other
solutions were not very valuable to us. They would take so
“We have a motto…If you make long to configure, and take so much work to get them to
processes easy, people will use them. If the point of being useful.” After migrating to Jira Service
you make them hard, people won’t. Desk, customers reported a decrease in walkups—grabbing
an IT person in the lunchroom—equal to the overall
Jira Service Desk makes it easy for reduction of service tickets; this appears to be a direct
people to find answers to their result of the ease of use of Jira Service Desk self-service
problems and eliminate tickets.” portals.

• Ease of deployment—Publicly available case studies indicate that, in similar customer environments, it took only
1.2 months to deploy ITSM using Jira Service Desk, while alternative solutions took 4.5 months. In addition to the
time savings, the ease of use allowed IT staff and end-users
to gain value from the installation. Customers reported 70% “We used to build our workflows
faster Jira Service Desk deployment compared with the more
around our old service solution. With
complex alternatives.
Jira Service Desk we can now build
Better Dev and IT Collaboration our solution around our workflow.
Jira Service Desk is built on the Jira platform using the same The interface for Jira Service Desk is
tools that Jira software developers are familiar with and use far superior. We used to run 90% of
every day. This flexible base allows extensive customization
our tickets over the phone. With
of the Service Desk environment.
Service Desk we can shift those
• Scalability—The extensibility of Jira Service Desk allows the phone requests to self-service.”
platform to scale to fit the growing needs of a business. The
familiarity and ability to change a Jira environment allows companies to focus on current needs instead of
needing to purchase and deploy for demands that may be years away. One customer reported, “The beauty of
Jira Service Desk is that it can work for a small company of 10 people or scale to an enterprise of 30,000. Jira
Service Desk matures as you grow and evolve.”

• Familiarity—The value of the Jira programming environment is substantial. Customers reported, “We already have
a team of people comfortable with Jira who can extend Service Desk to give us exactly what we need. We also
benefit from our support team and development team being on
“We already have a team of
the same platform and speaking the same language. Tickets are
people comfortable with Jira who resolved faster with Jira Service Desk.”
can extend Jira Service Desk to
give us exactly what we need.”

© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 Economic Value Validation: Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Atlassian Jira Service Desk 6

The Bigger Truth

When choosing a platform for service and support, companies are faced with a daunting task—not only because of the
myriad features they must evaluate, but also because that choice will impact users and IT on a daily basis. Legacy ITSM
systems can be expensive and difficult to upgrade. Organizations should ask themselves: Does my company need all these
features that add complexity and drive up the cost, or should we focus on the features we use regularly? Does my business
want the service solution to drive our workflow, or the other way around? Can the appropriate teams get up and running
fast to start helping users?

ESG evaluated the impact of adopting the Jira Service Desk platform and had the opportunity to interview customers who
had experience with multiple ITSM platforms and could discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each. We found that
companies gained substantial benefits from adopting Jira Service Desk, while very few needed functionality that was not
available in a Jira environment. ESG also found that the majority of the customers interviewed agreed with the statement,
“If all ITSM products in the marketplace were priced the same we would still pick Jira Service Desk because it helps us solve
our problems faster and easier than with the other products we have used.”

Our interviews uncovered several key benefits. Jira Service Desk is built on the popular Jira platform, simplifying operations
and speeding time to value for customers already familiar with Jira Software. For many customers, Jira Service Desk initially
captured their attention for its affordability, but they quickly discovered that its functionality enabled them to achieve
service level objectives they could not have achieved with other products. The ease of use of Jira Service Desk reduced the
need to generate a support ticket, and empowered employees to concentrate on generating value in their roles instead of
waiting for problems to be resolved. The flexibility of Jira Service Desk allowed customization to provide an exact fit to
existing workflows, while the nimbleness of the product enabled IT support staff and end-users to avoid being bogged
down with unnecessary complexity.

Figure 3. The Economic Value of Jira Service Desk

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group

ESG found that companies that migrated from a legacy ITSM solution to Jira Service Desk recognized an average of 25%
reduction in overall service tickets, 40% reduction in open ticket time, 45% increase in self-resolved issues, and up to 80%
lower costs. These results stem from the ability to shift left, eliminating the creation of many support tickets, minimizing
the impact of those that are created by enabling faster resolution and a lower cost tier of support. These improvements
have a direct correlation to bottom line profitability by reducing costs and increasing end-user productivity. If these types
of results would make a difference in your organization, ESG recommends that you consider Jira Service Desk from
Atlassian for ITSM.
All trademark names are property of their respective companies. Information contained in this publication has been obtained by sources The
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) considers to be reliable but is not warranted by ESG. This publication may contain opinions of ESG, which are subject
to change from time to time. This publication is copyrighted by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. Any reproduction or redistribution of this
publication, in whole or in part, whether in hard-copy format, electronically, or otherwise to persons not authorized to receive it, without the express
consent of The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., is in violation of U.S. copyright law and will be subject to an action for civil damages and, if applicable,
criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions, please contact ESG Client Relations at 508.482.0188.

© 2018 by The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

www.esg-global.com © 2018 by The Enterprise contact@esg-global.com

Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. P.508.482.0188