During the ServiceNow Q2 2013 earnings call, CEO Frank Slootman spoke of the continued use of the ServiceNow service automation platform for service domains outside of enterprise IT, i.e. for lines of business such as Human Resources (HR), Finance, Facilities, Legal, etc.
While many call this a "shared services" approach to service delivery, we need to be thinking about the management of service relationships, not just the services themselves, to better meet business needs for technology-enablement of service delivery across the enterprise.
The use of ITSM tools and best practice outside of IT
The growing use of IT service management (ITSM) and ITIL, the ITSM best practice framework, outside of IT was covered in a previous ServiceNow community blog: "The growing use of ITSM and ITIL outside of the IT organization and other statistics." It's definitely a great opportunity to get greater business value from corporate investment in ITSM tools and best practice processes.
Some examples of customers using ServiceNow in non-IT scenarios include:
- Service Stream, the Australian utility and networking provider, which selected ServiceNow as a business automation platform that they could also leverage for ITSM.
- MetroPCS, an operator of one of the largest telecommunication networks in the United States, implemented 15 custom applications to improve governance and to automate workflows across HR, Engineering, Network Operations, Legal, and other service domains.
The specific applicability of service management to HR
HR is a popular service model in this context. In many instances, the IT service model is refocused and adapted for HR. For example, a large Global 2000 investment bank rebuilt its global HR request systems in ServiceNow. The platform enabled "HR case management" which displaced existing line of business systems and provided self-service case management, workforce administration, recruiting, employee "off-boarding," legal management, management of employee relations, and records management.
This type of adoption is commonly a "follow-on" to ITSM deployments but we now also see customers tackling the HR service model first. For example Envision Healthcare, a leading provider of emergency medical services in the U.S, decided to go with ServiceNow only to support their 17,000 employees with HR case management.
The opportunity for IT organizations — automating business service relationships never captured in systems before.
ServiceNow calls this "service relationship management" (SRM) — the ability to automate and manage service relationships across the enterprise.
Usually, service relationships involve requesters of a service and providers of those services. These services include a defined request for a product, service, information, a change, or assistance with issues. In enterprise IT, the service model is relatively mature but it can be lacking in other service domains.
But service relationships often need to be managed — this is evident in the realm of outsourcing where there are contracts, SOEs, and compliance requirements that need to be managed, with providers held to account as necessary. While having defined, structured service relationships with outsourcers is an operational necessity, it might be equally relevant to your internally-sourced services such as Procurement, Legal, HR, Travel, Facilities, etc.
Recognizing and managing internal service relationships
Service relationships exist throughout the enterprise — between IT and lines of business, HR and Sales, Legal and Marketing, Facilities and Operations, and even between internal and external service providers. They connect requesters of a service and providers of those services. These services include a defined request for a product, a service, information, a change, or assistance with an issue.
While service relationships are often well defined and automated within enterprise IT, they can be inefficient, unstructured, or non-existent in other enterprise service domains — something that has been missed within existing line-of-business-specific software. One could view SRM as overlapping existing ERP and CRM solutions.
So for example, the use cases of service management and the relationships in IT …
… Are similar to those in other lines of business such as Facilities:
So is Service Relationship Management a new software "category"?
No. Or at least we think not. It's just a term that ServiceNow is using to help customers think beyond ITSM and, in many ways, beyond traditional shared service operations to emphasize the need to consider service relationships plus the opportunity to extend "ITSM automation" to "service automation across the enterprise."
Look out for more information on SRM soon.
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