Changing the model
Lowe's Companies is a Fortune 500 home improvement company, serving approximately 18 million customers a week through a workforce of approximately 300,000 associates.
Originally, the company maintained the technology infrastructure of stores through a traditional break-fix model. But Lowe’s IT leadership quickly recognized that the model kept store technology from performing as well as it could.
To solve the issue, Lowe’s created an entirely new organization called IT Field Services, with dedicated regional field service managers and a senior manager to oversee the program from a strategic level. The team manages field service technicians in each of Lowe’s 14 regions. Each technician is assigned a group of stores that they visit on an ongoing basis.
To help its IT Field Services fulfill its mission, Lowe’s implemented ServiceNow Field Service Management (FSM) in 2013—which took a total of just three days to design, develop, and implement. Lowe’s was one of the early customers of FSM, and a significant portion of the solution’s functionality was developed with Lowe’s in mind. Mobile check-in for field service technicians is just one example.
Clearing the path toward greater innovation
In 2018, Lowe’s decided to revert to the baseline version of Field Service Management. With its previous modified version, the company struggled to stay current with upgrades as it dealt with increased demand from its IT Field Services team and ongoing requests for process changes—ultimately leaving the company several releases behind the most recent version of Field Service Management.
This decision was a pivotal one. The company could immediately take advantage of a faster upgrade cycle and newer product releases. Within a year of the baseline effort, Lowe’s upgraded to an early release version of Madrid, which turned out to be a game changer with the Now Mobile app.
Shortly after the upgrade, Lowe’s worked with its executive account team to include Lowe’s in the design partnership for the Now Mobile app, which allowed the company to configure the mobile app to better align with Lowe’s internal processes—including the addition of a field service knowledge space, a service catalog experience, and a host of other improvements. The number of teams using ServiceNow at Lowe’s continues to grow.
The technical team at Lowe’s has been able to sustain good overall platform health which is critical not only for performance, but also to streamline upgrades. They put in place a formal change management structure, which includes global impact assessments, regular updates, and mitigation processes. As a result, the company was able to upgrade to New York and Orlando within a week of their general releases.
Lowe’s also successfully deployed the Now Agent app to its IT Field Services department in the summer of 2019. Since then, the company continued to make improvements and boosted its one-month retention from 8.3% to 35%.
Navigating a new reality with Now Mobile
With the impact of COVID-19, Lowe’s HR team wanted to ensure that all of the company’s employees could access core HR catalog items and information. The team also wanted its area HR business partners to be able to review and document any at-risk COVID-19 cases within its stores. In collaboration with ServiceNow, the Lowe's team was able to configure and deploy the Now Mobile app to approximately 300,000 associates in just 96 hours.
As for its best practice recommendations, the Lowe’s team suggests ongoing reassessments of system functionality and business processes. While ServiceNow continues to provide additional capabilities with major releases, it’s up to the customer to take advantage of those enhancements. Lowe’s thoroughly evaluates all new features and documents those it plans to use, with a business-driven rationale on the reason it forgoes others.
Lowe’s also suggests creating a sponsor roadmap to stay focused on key initiatives and their order of execution. The technology roadmap shows which technologies are available today and highlights improvements that are scheduled in the future. It also takes into account when technology may be scheduled for end of life. The roadmap process should be sponsored at the appropriate level, with adequate funding for each initiative.
And finally, Lowe’s suggests establishing a communication channel with the ServiceNow account executive team and building a design partnership with various product owners. The account team helps champion the customer’s success, so Lowe’s recommends taking full advantage of the opportunities to strengthen the relationship with the ServiceNow community.
Now catch the on-demand replay of Lowe’s Knowledge 2020 session and activate the plugin to get started if you are a current ServiceNow customer!
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