Plotting a ServiceNow Roadmap for 2018 and Beyond

[sremerson]

As a Solution Consultant with ServiceNow, my primary role is to meet with customers and prospects to understand their unique goals, the challenges that prevent them from reaching those goals, and then ultimately identify ServiceNow solutions that will achieve value for their organization. Since joining ServiceNow in the second half of 2017, I’ve had a lot of great conversations and throughout those discussions I keep hearing the same topics over and over again. As I'm a very analytical person, I view these common themes as leading indicators of the ServiceNow solutions that will be most adopted in the coming year.

If you're struggling with putting together your ServiceNow roadmap for 2018 and beyond, I strongly recommend considering these five areas where you can begin to realize value quickly while achieving those outstanding goals you've had on your list that keep getting pushed to the back burner.

Software Asset Management - With increasing demands on IT amid reduced budgets, the need to optimize software spend is a necessity. In order to do this, a mature Software Asset Management program is needed and requires a platform that provides consolidated visibility of license compliance across the enterprise and the ability to automate re-harvesting of unused licenses. ServiceNow’s Software Asset Management (SAM) solution provides these key features and enables companies to gain unique value by integrating SAM with core the platform solutions of CMDB, ITSM, Workflow, Orchestration, Analytics and much more. Once you begin using SAM on ServiceNow, you will receive an immediate benefit of a clean CMDB through built-in normalization which improves usability across all areas of the platform (ITSM, ITOM, Security, etc.). By having software license and hardware costs in the same platform where services are managed, IT will be able to easily understand total cost of ownership at the service level and more easily identify chargeback costs.

Security Operations - With the breadth and depth of security breaches continuously on the rise, being able to respond and take action quickly is critical. ServiceNow’s Security Operations solution enables companies to gain a definitive view of their overall security posture, automate the response to the tidal wave of security incidents and vulnerabilities, and integrate Security and IT teams onto a single platform. Security tools such as SIEMs and Vulnerability scanners do a great job of detection and prevention, but are lacking when it comes to response. ServiceNow’s Security Operations solution helps you respond faster by correlating all of the alert noise from your security tools to actual business impact, and sets priority based on the criticality of those services to your organization. ServiceNow’s workflow and orchestration engines are then used to automate deployment of fixes, create Incidents, Changes Requests, etc. and at the end you will have a documented post incident review ready for discussion.

HR Service Delivery - Today’s incoming workforce expects their work experience to be just like the experience they have in the consumer world. Companies like Amazon, Uber, Netflix and OpenTable are prime examples of great user experiences – easy to use with fast results. Why shouldn’t the services we use at work be the same way? ServiceNow’s HR Service Delivery solution fills a huge gap that exists today by vastly improving the experience between employees and HR through Case & Knowledge Management, and provides an awesome Onboarding solution which benefits all departments involved in the process, including the new hire! From a personal perspective, I’ve gone through onboarding processes at many large companies in the past and always had issues being productive by day 1. My recent onboarding experience at ServiceNow leveraged our HR Onboarding solution and I found it to be the best experience I ever had by a huge margin. I completed all of my preboarding activities electronically and had everything I needed to be productive on day 1.

Performance Analytics - When investing in a transformative platform such as ServiceNow, analytics are key to driving continuous improvement. ServiceNow’s Performance Analytics solution enables in-platform analytics that allow customers to measure progress against Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and make data-driven decisions to improve poor performance before it impacts the business. Just like baseball managers, as a leader you will no longer need to make a seat-of-the pants decision on next steps for improvement. If analytics helped the Houston Astros win the World Series, imagine what it can do for your business!

Agent Intelligence - An overall recurring need across most organizations I’ve spoken with is freeing up support agents from mundane tasks in order to focus on more strategic work. A recent study by Accenture has shown that the steps of categorization, assignment and prioritization can take up 12% of an agent’s work week. With the launch of the Kingston Release, ServiceNow introduced Agent Intelligence which uses Supervised Machine Learning to automate categorization, assignment, and prioritization based off the short description field. By automating these three steps, support agents will now have more time to focus on resolution which will result in increased customer satisfaction.

The five areas above are just a small subset of the solutions that ServiceNow offers. To learn more about how ServiceNow can transform your entire business, visit our solution pages below.

• Modernize IT Service Management
• Eliminate Service Outages
• Resolve Security Incidents and Vulnerabilities Fast
• Increase Customer Satisfaction by Resolving Issues Faster
• Consumerize the Employee Service Experience
• Run IT Like a Business
• Digitize Your Business with Intelligent Apps

What does your ServiceNow roadmap look like for 2018 and beyond?