The Enterprise Digital Podcast

Barclay and Ian are joined by Alistair Reid-Pearson, Chief Digital Information Officer at Greater Manchester Mental Health and author of Bit Bob: Artificial Earth. The conversation focuses on storytelling in a business context, and the missing "so what" behind the dashboards, charts and ticket volumes that dominate ITSM reporting. Alistair makes the case that data needs a story alongside...

Barclay and Ian are back from the Service Desk and IT Support Show with their first reflections on SITS26. The industry looks healthy, the MSP side felt bigger and more established, and AI was on every stand, sometimes at the expense of the conversation about value. They unpack the survey result from their keynote, where 55% of respondents said AI capabilities had improved their service, and ask w...

Barclay and Ian are back with a preview of what's happening at SITS26 next week, and the pulse check they're putting out in the run-up. The Enterprise Digital Podcast has its keynote on day two, and rather than walk on with a fixed view, Barclay and Ian are using the survey to shape what they cover. They run through the questions in this episode, from the practical (how would you describe...

Sami Kallio, CEO and co-founder of HappySignals, joins Barclay and Ian to reflect on 12 years of measuring employee experience in IT — and what the data tells us about how the industry has and hasn't changed. The conversation covers why happiness scores alone don't tell the full story, and why lost time has become one of the more honest indicators of whether IT is genuinely helping people...

Rob Akershoek joins Barclay and Ian this week for a conversation that will feel uncomfortably familiar to anyone who's ever tried to get a straight answer out of their organisation about what IT services it actually delivers. Most organisations can't produce a reliable, consolidated list of their applications and digital products, and that gap has direct implications for managing cost, ris...

Barclay and Ian are back this week, and after a brief detour into the world of AI-powered smell (yes, really), they settle in for a reflective look at the SDI SPARK26 show in Birmingham. What made it feel fresh? Which sessions stood out? And what separates a presentation that lands from one that doesn't? Ian shares highlights from four sessions, including Mark Boyer's case for why great se...

Stephen Mann from ITSM.tools joins Barclay and Ian for a wide-ranging conversation about innovation, adoption, and why the industry keeps going round in circles. The discussion covers the gap between what emerging technology promises and what organisations are actually set up to receive. Why do organisations keep churning through ITSM tools rather than improving what they already have? Stephen mak...

Episode 128 of the Enterprise Digital Podcast features Sarah-Jane Bulley, Service Delivery Manager, talking through what it looks like to build a service desk and ITSM operation from the ground up. Sarah-Jane is currently doing exactly that, designing and implementing everything from incident management and service request processes through to team structure, stakeholder engagement, and feedback m...

Episode 127 of the Enterprise Digital Podcast is on the topic everyone in service management is talking about. Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison are joined by Vicky Hunter, Portfolio Director at PeopleCert, to talk through the newly announced ITIL (Version 5). What has changed, what has stayed, and how it all came together. The big shift is a shared management lifecycle for digital products and servic...

Episode 126 features Faith Thomas, Lead IT Service Management Practitioner at the University of Birmingham, discussing neurodiversity in the workplace and how agile practices can create environments where neurodiverse teams thrive. Faith shares her personal journey through ADHD diagnosis, the relief and validation that came with it, and how understanding neurodiversity has changed her perspective...

Barclay and Ian are joined by Dr Ewelina Kurtys, advisor at FinalSpark, to explore biocomputing, using living human neurons as the physical basis for computing. Elina explains why modern AI is costly, how neurons process information differently from silicon, and why working with spikes in time and space creates both opportunity and challenge. The conversation covers what FinalSpark is building tod...

Barclay and Ian reflect on a wide-ranging set of observations from across the service management landscape. The conversation covers why the ITSM tooling market continues to evolve, why organisations replace tools so frequently, and how different sizes and ambitions drive very different needs. They discuss the limits of process-led thinking, the importance of governance and understanding requiremen...

In this episode, Barclay and Ian are joined by consultant, author, and STEM ambassador Sophie Hussy for a focused conversation on leadership, authenticity, values, and confidence in IT service management. Sophie shares her journey through tech, the inspiration behind her book, and why being true to your values is central to effective leadership at any level. They explore what authenticity actually...

In this episode, Barclay and Ian are joined by for Gartner analyst, Keith Andes from EasyVista. The conversation explores findings from Keith’s recent global survey into how SMB organisations are approaching ITSM, endpoint and asset management, integration, and AI readiness. Keith talks through the realities of SMB IT operations, including fragmented tooling, manual processes, skills shortages, bu...

In this episode, Barclay and Ian are joined by long-time industry figure Martin McKenna to reflect on four decades of service management. From the early days of handwritten call logs to today’s AI-powered tools, Martin shares how the industry has changed and what has stayed the same. The conversation covers his journey from building help desks to founding conferences, the impact of the pandemic on...

As conference season kicks off across Europe, Barclay and Ian share stories from recent events in Utrecht and Copenhagen, and discuss what’s coming up on the calendar: from Service North and itSMF UK to Service Management World in the US, reflecting on the trends shaping the conversations this year, from AI risk to human-centered IT. Plus, in true Enterprise Digital fashion, the episode also start...

In this episode, Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison are joined by Roman Jouravlev and Kaimar Karu to discuss the brand-new ITIL publication How to Implement – or, more accurately, how to make transformation work. They explore what’s behind the new book, why “implementation” isn’t about installing ITIL, and how its flexible model helps organisations choose the right approach for their own environment. F...

Barclay Rae and Ian Aitchison take a closer look at Gartner’s new Magic Quadrant for AI in ITSM: what it really measures, which vendors stand out, and why adoption matters more than flashy features. They discuss virtual agents, guided triage, and the move toward agentic AI that fixes problems instead of just chatting about them. And in this week’s trivia, we head to Telford Exotic Zoo, where eight...

Ian and Barclay discuss the big announcement that Salesforce is moving into ITSM, bringing serious capability and its huge Slack customer base. How will they gain credibility and position themselves? And what does this mean for the rest of the market? They dig into risks, costs, architecture, culture, and organizational change, showing why this is more than just a financial option. Disruption is a...

Barclay and Ian pick up the conversation on Vibe Coding, exploring new insights and opinions that have surfaced. They review a recent MIT report on AI failure and what lessons can be drawn from it. The discussion also touches on the Enterprise Digital app game at  enterprisedigitalmousevibe.replit.app , where mice, cockroaches, and drinks make an appearance. The real value here is showing how quic...

This week we dive into VIBE Coding – what it is, why it matters, and where it could take us. Barclay confuses it with the Bee Gees, while Ian explains the concept with real examples and possibilities. Imagine completing an entire set of activities simply through AI... the potential is huge. Of course, there are challenges too. Barclay raises practical concerns about security, governance, and the r...

What do we really mean by ‘end to end’ processes and value streams – and why do they matter? Ian and Barclay break this down at a practical level, exploring what’s needed to ensure people work together rather than as disconnected, self-serving units. They highlight the importance of transparency, communication, and visualisation – particularly for engagement, service catalogues, and TOM. There’s a...

In this short but packed episode, Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae start with a surprising bit of orthodontic trivia (grow your own teeth!?) before diving into the serious business of how organizations gather, manage, and act on feedback and improvement ideas. They explore the overlaps between experience management, product management, and service management, discussing what it takes to turn good int...

In this episode, Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae delve into significant themes, particularly those surrounding risk and the relentless pursuit of rapid success with AI. They explore the palpable divide between cautious, regulated approaches and a less regulated, higher-risk mindset focused on rapid reward and return. Many corporate mechanisms, often with good intentions, find themselves in the middl...

This episode IA and BR review some news about a firm re-hiring its staff after thinking that they could replace them with AI… This leads to a discussion around the value of the new and shiny and why we shouldn’t also just throw away the good stuff when some new shiny stuff comes along. This also relates for ITSM to some recent industry criticism, but is this actually a category mistake..? As usual...