Hitachi Energy uses ServiceNow Impact to reimagine enterprise-wide IT

Accelerating the drive to a carbon-neutral future 

Hitachi Energy is pioneering innovative thinking, new ways of working, and breakthrough digital technologies to enable the transition to a new global energy system, one that’s more sustainable, flexible, and secure.

Created in 2020 by the acquisition of ABB Power Grids by Hitachi, the company’s 42,000 skilled employees are supporting customers working in energy generation, transmission, and distribution in 140 countries.

Hitachi Energy’s consulting services, advanced automation systems, and open digital platforms are delivering economic, societal, and environmental value, by accelerating the drive towards a carbon neutral future and supporting our purpose of advancing a sustainable energy future for all.

Reimagining a new, enterprise-wide IT environment

With the continuing after-effects of COVID-19 and the destabilization of energy markets caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many energy businesses have been responding by accelerating their digital transformation programs. This in turn has boosted demand for Hitachi Energy’s market leading strategic consultancy, innovation, and technological expertise.

The partnership with ServiceNow had been long-term, from the time with ABB. However, over the years solutions had been built incrementally based on regional and local requirements which led to a heavily customized set up.

Hitachi knew that this would create difficulties with maintenance, scalability, and integration with other core systems, so was something it wanted to avoid with any new implementation.

“The creation of Hitachi Energy presented us with a blank canvas,” explains Oliver de Wilde, Global Head of Service Integration. “To be given the opportunity to design a new IT environment from scratch, at an enterprise level, is very unusual, exciting—and a little daunting too!

“We needed to reimagine our IT landscape, apply best practice, and move to out-of-the-box functionality. From day one we positioned ServiceNow as our core IT platform, the engine driving everything we want to do to deliver the speed, agility, responsiveness, and scalability that the business requires.

“Committing to ServiceNow enables us to standardize and simplify our IT landscape, increase process automation across our business units and geographies, and improve the user experience for our people. Ultimately, we want ServiceNow to be the single entry point for all employees to access IT services, the one easy-to-use system of action for everyone, with all the necessary integrations taken care of behind the scenes.”

Making the simple things quick and easy

Oliver and colleagues were tasked to design, procure, and deliver the new IT environment within three years, exiting all legacy systems while ensuring business as usual for 42,000 employees, with the challenges of a global pandemic thrown in for good measure.

ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) has been successfully deployed across the business. Once onboarding has been completed, all 42,000 employees will be using a bespoke portal to access a rich mix of self-service opportunities, knowledge articles, and live support.

“Our users have a much better experience this time around, with more clarity on how to get help and how to place orders,” says Oliver de Wilde. “Catalog items are more structured and dynamic and ServiceNow automation and integration has opened up a wider range of services and functionality. New user devices are now registered and visible in ServiceNow within minutes, saving us a lot of set up time.

“By using ServiceNow to automate everyday workflows, we’re making things quicker and easier, and when you multiply small time savings out across 42,000 people, the cumulative value is substantial. And the user experience will only get better as we gradually transition to a single employee service center model.”

Robust governance and security provisions

On the same platform as ITSM is ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM), delivering a complete, up-to-date, and accurate record of all Hitachi Energy’s IT assets in its Configuration Management Database (CMDB), aligned with its Common Service Data Model (CSDM) framework.

Integrated Risk Management was implemented in tandem with ITSM and has supported Hitachi Energy’s successful achievement of ISO 27000 accreditation, demonstrating its robust IT data protection provisions.

Completing the company’s security stance is ServiceNow Security Operations which is providing cyber resilience against the latest threats and vulnerabilities, as well as ensuring the business remains SOX compliant. 

ServiceNow Impact provides roadmap to platform maturity

To achieve optimal performance, increase the use of its capabilities, and maximize value, Hitachi Energy’s partnership with ServiceNow has become increasingly strategic.

The company was one of the first users of ServiceNow Impact, a first-of-its-kind value-acceleration solution designed to meet customers where they are in their unique ServiceNow digital transformation journey. Built on the ServiceNow Platform, it combines expert coaching, personalized insights and recommendations, peer benchmarking, premium technical support, role-based training, and curated content, all delivered in a personalized digital experience.

Using the recommendations from Impact, Hitachi Energy has been able to put the focus on the things that matter most in its journey to platform maturity: prioritize business value-adding activities with strong governance, monitor the mutually agreed value measurements, and increase the skillset of its internal team and stakeholders.

Platform of platforms

Oliver believes that building a brand-new environment requires sound decisions from the outset. “Our partnership with ServiceNow, and particularly the contribution of Impact, ensures that we stayed faithful to our core principles and goals. 

“Moving to Impact was a natural transition from the customer success offering and the team has been helping us to further define our ServiceNow roadmap, to complete a successful upgrade to the Tokyo Release, and to make some important technical refinements.

“Impact has helped us to restrict configuration to less than 5%, which was our target. In other words, we’ve customized only when it was absolutely essential. Otherwise, we have stayed faithful to the core platform’s out-of-the-box capabilities. This will allow us to upgrade faster and adopt new innovations more rapidly as they are released.

“ServiceNow is the platform of platforms, the single window into our whole operation. Its power is its ability to transform business by providing people with a single system of action.”

“With ServiceNow’s support, alongside key implementation partners Infosys and New Rocket, we’ve exited our legacy infrastructure systems largely on time, built a new IT environment from scratch, and provided a new business with the tools to continue its transformation journey.”

Hitachi Energy’s work is far from done. “There’s still huge potential to do lots more with ServiceNow and Impact—for example deploying Strategic Portfolio Management is one of our priorities for 2023,” concludes Oliver. “We know that over the long-term Impact will ensure that we optimize the use and value of the platform.”