So you're thinking about whether to build a custom business application on ServiceNow? 1/6

[Robert Maxwell]

Every organisation has countless internal business processes but these days most won't have enough people or resources to improve, let alone or digitise them. Enter ServiceNow, with this powerful no/low code platform, you can empower every employee as citizen developers to set about improving their own business processes, or engage a ServiceNow partner to deliver something more complex, ServiceNow is the perfect platform to transform your internal processes.

If you do need something quick and have limited access to professional developers, ServiceNow can facilitate rapid application development with a range of no/low code options - from an already in-use spreadsheet to define new tables in ServiceNow, to a user-friendly process automation designer and a full-featured reporting and dashboard capability. And if you won't take my word for it, based on the 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms scorecards, ServiceNow was among the very few listed and yielded a score of 88% 'would recommend'. If the problem you're trying to solve is complicated, or the process behind it is convoluted, seeking out a ServiceNow partner to assist should also be a consideration. Either way, the questions you might have, depending on your role or responsibility in the organisation could be:

• What can ServiceNow actually do, and just as importantly, what are its limitations?
• Where do we even start? And how hard is it to thrive?
• If I do use ServiceNow, what is the possibility of unintended consequences, such as impacts to other apps in use?
• How do I avoid sprawl and what would effectively amount to shadow IT if I stay in-house?

These are some of the questions I'll try to answer in this series, from observation and experience, while also illuminating the potential for unanticipated benefits and hopefully, calling out some opportunities to gain additional and meaningful insight into your data. I'll address concepts and considerations from different perspectives too, from the business area that wants - or needs a modern workflow toolset, through to those that are responsible for the management and governance of ServiceNow within an organisation.

So let's look at that business area, and consider tasking, or queues. ServiceNow is absolutely suitable for moving a process away from 'running an inbox'. I've seen innumerable business units, often areas like corporate services in organisations that rely heavily on emails being flagged or left unread to indicate the task load. I'm sure you could imagine the torture if some poor soul clicked Mark all as read.

Before I dive into the ServiceNow development specifics in the next article, I want to begin to address change management. Introducing technology and/or process change inside your business area might be celebrated, or it could be met with anxiety or apprehension. Making clear your reasons and communicating the benefits that you envision will come from it will go some way to alleviating any resistance that you encounter. Getting buy-in early from the people who will operate in the new way will pay dividends in this sort of exercise - and you might even get some better ideas out of it. I'll keep coming back to this throughout the series.