One of the most revolutionary step-changes of the SaaS innovation has been release upgrades. Veterans of the gargantuan ERP upgrade projects of the nineties and early 2000s will tell you stories to make you cringe! But with SaaS solutions like ServiceNow, new releases are there for the taking – within the value of your subscription!
But that isn’t to say it's a routine process. Even with SaaS, release upgrades can entail risk, take time and eat into productivity if not managed correctly, and can be a huge disincentive tempting you towards a "better the devil you know" mentality. The cost of delaying upgrades is missing out on the value of innovation -- the powerful new functionality and efficiency improvements new release upgrades bring. This can even mean losing a competitive advantage. In a fiercely competitive marketplace, no one can afford that.
More to the point, keeping current on releases makes each upgrade path so much easier. A fascinating recent study by Forrester found that keeping current on releases saved 81% in time and effort on each new upgrade. Getting left behind not only means missing out on all the great features and benefits - but it also makes the process of eventually upgrading that much harder.
That is why we have developed a new upgrade methodology with step-by-step leading practice guidance to set our customers up for upgrade success, remove risk and seamlessly deliver valuable innovations without impacting productivity. This will give our customers the confidence to upgrade quickly to benefit from new products and capabilities as soon as they are available and derive as much value from their ServiceNow investment as they can - with as little pain as possible!
This upgrade methodology and resources, available in our intuitive Now Create application, are a distillation of the upgrade experience and insights we’ve sourced from across our customer base. You don't have to do the guesswork and can instead benefit from the experience of those who’ve been there before you. These proven practices based on thousands of upgrades amount to a reliably successful upgrade and total peace of mind. So, how does it work?
Right from initial strategy definition through scoping and testing to final go-live, these highly intuitive resources provide a step-by-step guide to a successful, best practice release upgrade. We provide a prescriptive, structured approach to critical elements such as strategy definition workshops, role allocation, upgrade previews, regression and user acceptance testing. The methodology provides a prescriptive step-by-step process and all the leading practice assets to get your ServiceNow instance upgraded and ready to realize additional value. It helps you decide which aspects of your installation to tackle first.
How do you get started? Available to all our customers and professional services partners - for every ServiceNow implementation or upgrade across ServiceNow products - simply visit Now Create to begin. Select the Upgrade Success Pack and start using the resources we provide to plan your journey.
All the hard work has been done so you can save yourself the time and expense of re-inventing the wheel!
If you have time, please provide feedback below or ask any questions you may have on this new Now Create upgrade methodology.
