Enterprise City, Continued: At MetroPCS, Custom ServiceNow Apps Deliver Shared Benefits to Shared Services

[MichaelDortch]

Another element common to well-run cities and well-run enterprises: they both rely upon effective, efficiently delivered shared services. In cities, these include things such as power, water, and roads and streets. In enterprises, shared services include departments and functions such as human resources, legal, finance, and engineering (for technology-centric businesses).

Enterprise shared services often represent a significant early opportunity to leverage and demonstrate the business value of custom applications built upon the ServiceNow Service Automation Platform. Moreover, shared services decision makers are often the initiators and instigators of the pursuit of such opportunities.

Frequently, IT rolls out ServiceNow for IT service management (ITSM) and service automation. IT then hosts a demo of ServiceNow and invites decision makers from across the enterprise. And then someone in, say, HR or Finance sees the functionality and customization ServiceNow has made possible for IT, and quickly decides that similar features could deliver significant benefits for their shared service as well.

This is when the power of the ServiceNow platform takes center stage. IT and the shared service decision maker collaborate on what a good first pass at a solution for that shared service should look like. Then, they just build it. No programming-intensive heavy lifting or IT resource diversion required. And within days or weeks, there's a new application running on the ServiceNow platform, improving accessibility and delivery of a business-critical shared service.

That's precisely what happened at MetroPCS, the market-leading provider of wireless communications services that are free of burdensome, long-term contracts. At that worthy company, IT rolled out ServiceNow for ITSM. Then, manager of application delivery and support Nicole Tate responded to interest from her HR department by rolling out a new custom application to replace manual processes and deluges of e-mail. In just four weeks. She then delivered a custom application to her company's Engineering department, to bring order to a chaotic project management environment. In about 12 weeks.

Today, MetroPCS is running multiple custom business applications atop the ServiceNow platform, delivering multiple anticipated and unanticipated benefits to the company. And MetroPCS has developed and refined a consistent, effective, and rapid set of processes for rolling out new applications. This typically includes a 90-day "take-and-bake" process, to ensure the application does what the internal business customer at wants and needs. But Nicole and her team are also like Burger King used to be, at least in its ads — special orders don't upset them. They were able to respond to a sudden, urgent need to track a major corporate initiative by rolling out a new custom timekeeping app in four hours.

You can read about what Nicole and her colleagues have done and are accomplishing in a way-cool, publicly consumable case study. If you registered for Knowledge13, you can also download the stellar presentation she gave there by entering your registered user name and password at the Knowledge13 Web site. And you can also learn how Ms. Tate and her team plan for success with custom ServiceNow applications by viewing and listening to an on-demand Webinar on that very subject.

Then, of course, you should check out the introductory video and demo of the ServiceNow App Creator, the newly announced "front end" for the application creation features of the ServiceNow platform. Then, start looking at and thinking about opportunities to enhance shared services with custom ServiceNow applications at your "enterprise city."