Tackling global IT service complexity

When your company grows across 72 countries and goes through multiple mergers, delivering IT services and responding to financial queries, such as Order to Cash (O2C) and Record-to-Report (R2R), to your employees can get complicated. Fragmented systems, poor visibility, and frustrated users can impact productivity and business performance. But to improve service performance, you’ve got to be able to measure it.

Specialist chemical distributor Brenntag quickly recognized this. With ServiceNow, the company has unified its IT and financial services on a single, global platform that integrates seamlessly with Brenntag’s wider ecosystem for comprehensive visibility. Now, employees know exactly where to go for help, which is vital to ensuring Brenntag’s chemicals reach the manufacturing companies that use them—from pharmaceutical and food to construction and water treatment.

Disconnected systems and inconsistent processes impact efficiency

With disconnected systems and inconsistent processes across 72 countries, capturing and comparing service performance data was a struggle for Brenntag. Some regions used advanced tools, while others relied on Excel sheets or SharePoint to manage IT services. There was no single source of truth, no way to measure performance, and no consistent experience for users or support teams.

To deliver better service and keep users productive, Brenntag adopted a global shared service model for both finance operations and IT service delivery. The goals were simple:

1.    Make life easier for employees

2.    Make life easier for IT teams

One platform, global impact

Today, ServiceNow is Brenntag’s standard global platform for IT and financial services. “We chose ServiceNow for its ability to do much more than just tickets,” explains Katarina Kurcabova, Global Senior Director for Cloud, Platforms, ITSM, and IT Governance at Brenntag. “ServiceNow’s modular capabilities mean we can expand its use across the organization step-by-step. It supports complex integrations with our IT ecosystem and business-wide workflows, as well as providing strong AI capabilities.”

All 18,500 employees now use ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) to request IT services, find information, and get support, while IT agents and managers have a single, secure environment to manage work and track performance. Meanwhile, finance requests are dealt with via ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM) for financial operations. The ServiceNow AI Platform supports today’s IT organization to become more productive and user-centric, while also supporting users to receive a better experience and quality when getting help. ServiceNow’s built-in privacy and compliance controls will also help Brenntag achieve ISO 27001 certification.

Self-service and automation to cut ticket volumes 5%

Brenntag’s program of transformation with ServiceNow puts employees first, giving them multiple ways to get help quickly—whether via self-service, AI guidance, or direct support from IT agents. Employees can now see their request status, expected resolution times, and paths for escalation, eliminating the need for follow-up calls to check on progress.

The company has also automated routine IT requests like firewall access approvals. These requests are now completed via ServiceNow’s integration with Brenntag’s IT management systems, with minimal human involvement and delivering immediate results once approved by the relevant person. “Self-service and automated processes in ServiceNow are set to reduce overall service desk ticket volumes by 5%,” says Katarina. “And with the time freed up, our IT agents can focus on streamlining and automating more processes, creating a cycle of continuous improvement, where every efficiency gain fuels further innovation.”

AI will reduce user search and submission time by one third

With Brenntag’s vast IT service catalog, employees struggled to find what they needed quickly. Now, the company is introducing AI navigation with Now Assist for ITSM. Plus, by integrating with its custom large language models (LLMs) in Brenntag’s public clouds, employees can get instant translations of the ticket conversation, making it even easier to access information in their own language. “Users can interact with ServiceNow in their own language, with AI guiding them directly to the right item,” explains Katarina. “This is expected to reduce search and submission time by one third.”

Brenntag has introduced this capability so employees can get help and submit a ticket to Microsoft Teams. This enables them to make requests, get answers, and complete tasks without switching applications—all from their familiar work environment.

Global knowledge sharing will cut resolution time in half

With everything running on ServiceNow, Brenntag has a single source of truth for all IT and financial services. Leaders can see real-time performance data on service quality, response times, and potential issues. This visibility helps teams make better decisions and improve processes based on what’s actually happening, not guesswork.

For instance, when an IT agent resolves a case, the solution will help colleagues worldwide. Once rolled out globally, when an agent in Asia solves a complex issue, teams in Europe and America will be able to immediately apply that same fix, thanks to AI. “We expect that our approach to global knowledge sharing with ServiceNow will reduce Level 2 and Level 3 ticket resolution times by up to 30%, enabling faster outcomes as well as more consistent global service,” confirms Katarina.

Looking ahead: becoming a performance-driven IT organization, powered by agentic AI

With ServiceNow as its foundation, Brenntag now has the data, visibility, and simplified processes needed to measure and improve performance. “Using ServiceNow and AI workflows, we’ve reduced manual tasks for our IT teams, freeing them up for more interesting work,” confirms Michelle Wu, Chief Digital Data and Technology Officer at Brenntag. “As well as boosting efficiency, this has helped to improve experiences and increase satisfaction for both employees and IT staff, in line with our original goals.”

After the global rollout, Brenntag plans to use AI agents to handle basic user queries. These AI tools will serve as first-line support, reducing tickets and freeing up service desk agents for complex issues. “We have a full AI roadmap for the next year, and ServiceNow will play a key role in supporting it, providing the guardrails we need to align with our company-wide AI governance framework and policies,” comments Katarina.

To manage this AI expansion responsibly, the Brenntag AI Governance team is exploring ServiceNow AI Control Tower as an option to help oversee and govern its AI models and assets. With ServiceNow, Brenntag is creating an intelligent operations approach that puts users, data, and performance at the center of its business decisions.