What does ServiceNow success look like?
What it looks like, where some organizations fall short, and how your organization can do better.
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations are constantly seeking ways to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and deliver exceptional service to their customers. ServiceNow, a leading digital workflow platform, has emerged as a transformative solution for businesses looking to achieve these goals and drive success. But what exactly does ServiceNow success look like, and how can organizations harness its full potential?
In this article, we’ll explore what ServiceNow success looks like, including the promises the platform offers and where some organizations fall short. We’ll also share some recommendations on how to achieve the full potential of your ServiceNow investment.
By the time you finish this article, you’ll be ready to use our ServiceNow Transformation Skills Matrix to understand the ways your team is positioned to achieve ServiceNow success—and where you might have some gaps.
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ServiceNow success means alignment with enterprise strategy
Successful ServiceNow implementations start with a clear understanding of organizational goals and objectives. Aligning ServiceNow initiatives with broader business strategies ensures the platform serves as an enabler of key priorities, such as improving service delivery, increasing efficiency, and driving innovation.
Where some organizations fall short
One of the main challenges with a full digital transformation is that implementing ServiceNow requires a lot of “technical pre-work” that often doesn’t clearly align with corporate initiatives in the form of data and technical configuration.
For example, implementing a CMDB and mapping applications to Configuration Items is critical to many of ServiceNow’s capabilities but can be a hard “sell” to nontechnical leadership who don’t understand its value. To avoid this, we’ve seen orgs try to skip the critical data foundation and implement ITSM functionality first to fast track the org’s use of the tool, but this brought a myriad of limitations and challenges
What to do to reach strategic alignment
The most important thing you need to do is understand your organization’s strategic vision and be able tell the story of how you’re supporting it. Your ServiceNow roadmap should be scoped to prioritize areas most critical to your organization while also addressing the data and technology foundations that lie underneath.
By aligning to corporate initiatives, your team will not only bring the quickest value to the organization but will also build trust with organizational leaders and your broader stakeholder groups.
Check out our ServiceNow implementation best practices to learn more about how other organizations have aligned their deployments to corporate strategy.
ServiceNow success means optimized processes
ServiceNow offers powerful capabilities for automating and optimizing business processes across various functions, including IT service management, HR, customer service, and more. Organizations that leverage ServiceNow to streamline processes, reduce manual work, and improve collaboration experience significant gains in efficiency and productivity.
Where some organizations fall short
Many organizations assume that their ServiceNow Partner will help drive their overall business transformation. While ServiceNow Partners can provide recommendations on how to implement Out-of-the-Box (OOTB) functionality to meet business needs, they are often not staffed or equipped for a full business process redesign.
The other mistake many organizations make is focusing only on implementing ServiceNow functionality and not addressing challenges in their end-to-end processes. By putting Band-Aids on inefficient processes, these organizations fail to achieve real change and value from their investments.
What to do to optimize processes
It’s critical for companies to ensure their ServiceNow plans include real time to focus on end-to-end processes, both as-is and future state. This work should start before teams start drafting requirements or user stories and should inform the tool’s overall design.
Organizations should also be explicit in their RFPs (Requests for Proposal) and SOWs if they want their ServiceNow Partner to support this work. In general, Partners do not staff delivery teams for robust business analysis and assume the client will drive the effort, planning instead to develop specific workflows to meet the business requirements based on the client’s vision for future state.
ServiceNow success means integrating with critical systems
ServiceNow’s platform is designed to integrate seamlessly with other systems and applications, allowing organizations to create a unified ecosystem enhancing connectivity and data exchange. Successful implementations leverage integration capabilities to eliminate silos, improve data accuracy, and support scalability as business needs evolve.
Where some organizations fall short
When it comes to digital transformations, much of the work required to integrate successfully with other enterprise systems can become inertia—a long slog of critical data cleanup and system re-architecture to ensure it aligns with modern best practices.
Many organizations struggle to “land” this effort or don’t truly understand how this inertia impacts ServiceNow implementations. ServiceNow’s effectiveness is only as good as the data and systems it has access to, and leaders who don’t understand this can become frustrated with what seems like a lack of progress.
What to do to streamline integration
It’s critical to identify and track data cleanup and system integrations as program dependencies to keep them on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Re-engineering existing systems isn’t the “sexiest” of corporate initiatives but they’re critical to delivering true digital transformation across the map.
It’s also helpful to always start with the end in mind… knowing what data your ServiceNow roadmap will need in the future helps your team identify the data and technical work that needs to be done now to get ahead of it.
ServiceNow success means it's being used by the organization
One of the critical factors in ServiceNow success is user adoption. Providing comprehensive training and support to employees ensures they can effectively use the platform to perform their roles more efficiently. User-friendly interfaces, intuitive workflows, and ongoing education initiatives contribute to higher adoption rates and greater overall satisfaction.
Where some organizations fall short
Many organizations underestimate the effort it takes to change their employees’ behaviors. They may also assume their ServiceNow Partner will drive the organizational change management work required to get true usage of the solution across the org. This generally results in a lack of communication with key stakeholder groups throughout the engagement and leads to an organization that doesn’t fully adopt the solution, causing confusion and lowered satisfaction across the board.
What to do to get adoption
Focusing on adoption every step of the way is critical to achieving the full return on your digital investments. Download our ServiceNow Adoption Activity Planner to learn about the Adoption Focus Areas and how you can integrate adoption planning with the technical work of implementing ServiceNow from initiation through deployment and beyond.
ServiceNow success means measurable outcomes
Ultimately, ServiceNow success is measured by tangible outcomes and ROI. Whether it’s increased customer satisfaction, reduced resolution times, cost savings, or revenue growth, organizations must define key performance indicators and track progress over time to demonstrate the value of their ServiceNow investment.
Where some organizations fall short
Many ServiceNow teams jump into the work of deploying ServiceNow without first defining what success looks like for their organization. Without defining critical success criteria early on and determining how it will be measured against previous outcomes, it’s challenging for teams to show measurable success post-deployment.
What to do to get measurable outcomes
Clearly define success criteria and what matters to the organization before you deploy your new systems to Production. If you don’t have good data about performance from legacy systems (or it won’t map cleanly to the future state), then find other ways to “show” progress, perhaps in satisfaction surveys, general engagement, or benchmarked ticket resolution times.
ServiceNow success means continuous improvement
Achieving ServiceNow success is not a one-time event but an ongoing journey. Organizations must embrace a culture of continuous improvement, regularly assessing processes, soliciting feedback, and implementing enhancements to drive greater efficiency, innovation, and customer value.
Where some organizations fall short
Some organizations forget about “life after go-live.” The work that will be needed to maintain and grow your ServiceNow environment is generally different than the work needed to go live in the first place—and generally your ServiceNow Partner is no longer around to support it. This means there is a lack of onboarding information, enhancement request processes, and governance oversight to continue to grow and improve.
What to do to continuously improve
Define what will be needed to keep your system growing before you go live and incorporate plans for that future state into your deployment project plan. This includes communicating your continuous improvement plans with stakeholders throughout the engagement and establishing processes as soon as you go live.
Conclusion: Get ready to deliver ServiceNow success
ServiceNow success is multifaceted and by focusing on these key components and best practices, organizations can maximize the value of their ServiceNow investment and drive sustainable business success in today’s digital age.
To figure out if your team is prepared to deliver ServiceNow success (and where you may have some gaps to address), check out our free ServiceNow Transformation Skills Matrix tool.