Mercari is a dynamic consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace that connects 20 million buyers and sellers in Japan and beyond. Using a smartphone app, users can sell items they no longer want and shop for other second-hand items. In addition to its main C2C marketplace, Mercari also provides a range of other services, including Melpay for payment settlement and Melwork for short-term job opportunities.

As a fast-moving online consumer business, Mercari relies heavily on digital technology to deliver great customer experiences and power its internal processes. The company is constantly expanding and reinventing this technology to drive innovation and create business agility. However, Mercari had a problem. While it had automated aspects of its processes with a workflow tool, the tool didn’t automate end-to-end operations. This left Mercari with disorganized, siloed operations with barriers between departments. As a result, its processes were inefficient and delivered a poor digital experience for its employees.

Breaking down silos and bolstering employee productivity

That’s why Mercari decided to adopt ServiceNow to increase efficiency and drive employee engagement. Starting with ServiceNow IT Service Management, Mercari has gone on to deploy a broad range of ServiceNow products, including IT Asset Management, Strategic Portfolio Management, and Customer Service Management. This has delivered significant benefits, such as a 50% reduction in asset management workloads and automated resolution of 70% of IT tickets.

Accelerating innovation with in-house ServiceNow development

But Mercari still faced a significant issue. According to Hiroyuki Tanaka, Senior Manager, Digital Center of Excellence, at Mercari, “We saw so many opportunities to accelerate our business with ServiceNow, but our implementation partner was slowing us down. Mercari’s business is incredibly fast-paced, and we need to respond right away to market opportunities. We can’t afford to wait. So, we decided to bring ServiceNow development in-house to give us the speed and flexibility we needed. App Engine was the perfect tool for this. By using low-code/no-code development, we could deliver new applications quickly and consistently. Given that our priority is to accelerate transformation and create outstanding digital experiences, it’s exactly the right choice.”

Building critical development skills with ServiceNow training

To unlock the benefits of in-house ServiceNow development, Mercari needed to rapidly build its App Engine skills. The solution? ServiceNow training. Hiroyuki explains, “We didn’t have in-house ServiceNow development skills, and we needed to get them right away. So, we turned to ServiceNow training, and it was everything we hoped for. The App Engine training worked out incredibly well. We were able to get our people up to speed very quickly, and the hands-on lab exercises gave them practical development experience. The feedback from our people was very positive. And we’ve been able to leverage what we learned to create and implement consistent development guidelines that we’ve embedded into our Digital Center of Excellence.”

Hitting the ground running with ServiceNow app development

That training has turned into tangible results. Hiroyuki says, “As soon they were trained, our people were effective right away. They’ve created apps for supplier contracts, employee onboarding and offboarding, travel approvals, human resources, security, and more. We’re really building momentum and increasing employee productivity and engagement across Mercari. We’ve been able to bring 50% of our development in-house—and when we do work with a partner, our ServiceNow development knowledge lets us engage much more effectively with them.”

What’s next for Mercari?

In addition to further expanding ServiceNow development, Mercari is also piloting a ServiceNow citizen development program to further accelerate digital transformation. The company is also looking at implementing new ServiceNow products in-house and plans to use ServiceNow Learning for implementation training. And ServiceNow certifications are also a top priority, with Hiroyuki explaining, “Certifications are more than just proof you have ServiceNow skills. They also help us to build credibility with our business stakeholders, which creates trust and allows us to move even faster.”

The bottom line

Hiroyuki says, “If you have a platform owner mindset and want to use ServiceNow to drive productivity and innovation across your business, ServiceNow training is essential. Not only do you get the latest technical information and insights, but you also learn best practices and practical approaches that let you get the most out of the platform.”