Author: Malwina

Navigating Digital Transformation: A Roadmap for Your ServiceNow Journey

Posted on by Malwina

Do you know what’s better than climbing a mountain? Reaching the top of a digital transformation peak! And if you’re using ServiceNow, you can do it faster and cheaper than with any other alternative, according to Forrester Research. ServiceNow facilitates the rapid construction of cloud solutions, automating a large number of intricate compliance workflows in just half the time and at a third of the cost of the competitors. But here’s the catch – the stats don’t reveal the real secret to success…

Source: ServiceNow

How a ServiceNow Roadmap can help you climb the digital mountain?

When embarking on a journey, it’s crucial to have a plan in place to ensure that you reach your destination. This is especially true when it comes to digital transformation and the implementation of a ServiceNow platform. Building a roadmap for your ServiceNow journey is like planning a trip to climb a mountain. You are a traveller, and just like with a mountain climb, you need to know everything about what’s going on to plan ahead.

What does it involve? You should consider the weather conditions, the itinerary, the team members, and the ultimate goal. Similarly, when building a roadmap for your platform, you need to take into account all the necessary details. What are the stops on the way? What are strategic goals, the needs, and what is required to reach your goal?

Source: ServiceNow

Many companies may not be fully prepared to leverage ServiceNow’s features and capabilities. With a roadmap, your organization can gain a clear understanding of its readiness for this transition, assess the availability of necessary resources, and track its progress in the process. This is how you can avoid wandering aimlessly without a clear destination. I believe that every company should prioritize this essential step for moving forward.

Adam Bernaś, Chief Technology Officer

It’s important to remember that just like climbing a mountain, you may not always be able to see your end destination clearly. For example, the ROI for your ServiceNow may be obscured by clouds. This is why having a strategic overview and a roadmap is so crucial. It helps you navigate the journey and ensures you don’t get lost along the way.

Source: ServiceNow

ServiceNow digital transformation

So, what exactly is a Roadmap? It is a strategic plan that outlines the steps required to achieve your business goals. As a visual representation of your organization’s journey toward a desired outcome, it helps you identify the key milestones, resources, and timelines required to reach that goal. 

A well-prepared roadmap should consist of a clear vision, business justification, and a plan for execution. This way, you can get a valuable tool to help other stakeholders in the company see the usefulness and point of the ServiceNow implementation. 

We have mapped 8 steps to follow when building a ServiceNow roadmap:

Assess your current state

Conduct a Digital Maturity Assessment to evaluate your organization and business strategy’s current state and identify the gaps and challenges to understand where you stand in terms of digital maturity and what steps you need to take to move forward.

>> Read more about DMA here <<

Identify the roadmap components

Based on the assessment results, identify the components, such as process improvements, technology updates, product ideas, resource requirements, and organizational changes.

Prioritize the components

To effectively prioritize the components of your roadmap, consider their importance, urgency, and impact on achieving your goals. This approach ensures you allocate the necessary resources and effort to focus on the most critical components of the overall strategy.

Define the roadmap phases

Divide the components into phases based on their dependencies and timeline. Each phase of the development roadmap should have clear objectives, timelines, and success metrics.

Identify the stakeholders

Identify who will be involved in the roadmap, development process, and implementation, including the executive sponsor, project manager, functional leads, technical leads, and end-users.

Build the roadmap

Document the objectives, components, phases, timelines, success metrics, and stakeholders. Use a visual format, such as a Gantt chart, roadmap view or timeline, to make it easier to understand and communicate.

Communicate

Tell about the project roadmap to all stakeholders and spread it across the organization to buy-in and support from all parties involved.

Update and monitor the roadmap

Regularly review strategy roadmap and revise the roadmap based on feedback, shifting priorities, and emerging challenges. Keep a close eye on the progress of the roadmap and measure success metrics to ensure that you remain on course towards achieving your objectives.

Source: ServiceNow

With the above steps, you can create a customized ServiceNow roadmap that aligns with your organization’s unique objectives and requirements. This roadmap will pave a distinct way for the entire company to reach success, providing clarity and direction toward the intended destination.

Preparing for the digital future with the right product strategy

Simply purchasing the most expensive ITSM system on the market isn’t enough to ensure success. It takes careful, strategic planning, and preparation to be truly ready for the climb ahead. A roadmap allows you to assess your organization’s readiness for change, determine whether you have the necessary resources, and identify where you currently stand in the process.

With a well-designed roadmap, you can navigate the terrain of digital transformation, integrate new systems, automate workflows, and achieve a positive return on investment. 

Building a roadmap is like embarking on a thrilling adventure where you discover new terrains and new peaks. With a clear plan in hand, you will feel ready for the future and be able to tackle any challenge that comes your way. Remember, a roadmap is not a magic solution but rather a reliable way to achieve success and reach your ultimate goals.

Adam Bernaś, Chief Technology Officer

So, building a roadmap after DMA for your ServiceNow is crucial to achieving your organization’s goals. It provides a clear direction and shared understanding of the platform, enhances transparency and communication between stakeholders, facilitates better and well-informed decision-making, and helps you stay focused. With a roadmap, you will be able to achieve your digital transformation goals, maximize your ServiceNow investment, enhance your overall organizational performance and stay competitive. 

Source: ServiceNow

A high-level strategy roadmap is essential to unlocking the full potential of your ServiceNow investment. A well-crafted roadmap outlines future initiatives, aligns with your business strategy, and defines a clear strategic vision. The road mapping process provides the big picture, ensuring that each step towards achieving the project’s goals is purposeful and intentional.

Adam Bernas, Chief Product Officer, CMA

Climb with us

Can you imagine climbing Mount Everest without the help of experienced Sherpas? We certainly can’t! That’s why we’re here to help you build a roadmap for your platform and enjoy the journey toward your ultimate goal. Our team can help you with product vision, measure your strengths and intentions and find the perfect climbing trail for you, and complete it with the right stops and support. Contact us today. Let us guide you to success with your ServiceNow and create a roadmap with us.

ServiceNow Digital Maturity Assessment – what’s next? Get ready to build a Roadmap!

Posted on by Malwina

So you have completed your Digital Maturity Assessment for your ServiceNow platform. That is great! However, did you know that 7 in 10 clients (based on our observations) stop at this stage? Perhaps it’s because they don’t know what to do next or don’t have the necessary resources to take action. To fully benefit from your DMA and achieve better ROI, the next crucial step in your digital transformation journey is building a Roadmap. But why is it necessary, and what exactly does it entail? Let’s dive into it.

Source: SPOC

Digital Maturity Assessment as a starting point for a ServiceNow platform ROI

You’ve evaluated your company’s proficiency in utilizing digital technologies to support its business objectives. Now you understand how your company is currently using the ServiceNow platform. Thanks to DMA, you identified opportunities for improvement that will enable you to leverage your solutions to drive business value in a better way. 

Source: Gartner „CFO Perspective on the 2022 CEO Survey”

Building a ServiceNow roadmap is about more than just implementing technology – it’s about creating a strategic plan that aligns ITSM processes with business objectives. By weaving together the threads of systems, departments, processes and strategies, a ServiceNow roadmap becomes the roadmap for success.

Adam Bernaś, Chief Technology Officer, CMA
Source: ServiceNow

The creation of a Roadmap ensures that your organization focuses on the key areas that require improvement, specifically in ITSM systems, and enables a strategic approach to technology implementation. By aligning business objectives with digital capabilities, the Roadmap becomes an essential tool for achieving success in digital transformation. It provides a clear vision of the steps needed to close gaps and seize opportunities, allowing for streamlined and efficient implementation of technology solutions. In essence, the Roadmap is the crucial link between the DMA’s insights and the realization of your organization’s digital goals.

Source: ServiceNow

Roadmapping in ServiceNow enables businesses to design and plan productive digital IT workflows that align with their overall objectives. With the latest Now Platform release and support for next-generation technologies, ServiceNow provides professional planning and design capabilities to help businesses stay ahead of the curve.

Adam Bernas, Chief Product Officer, CMA

What is a Roadmap, and what is not?

Simply put, a Roadmap is a strategic plan that outlines the path to achieving your goals within ITSM implementation. In the context of your ServiceNow platform strategy, a Roadmap will help you prioritize your initiatives, identify dependencies, and allocate resources effectively. It will also provide a clear and concise view of your organization’s digital transformation journey and help you communicate it to stakeholders.

Source: SPOC

Roadmaps are surely not solution-oriented. It is not giving you answers on how to do it, but rather what are your general goals, destinations, and phases to achieve that ultimate goal which would be a successful ServiceNow implementation and high ROI. 

Without a Roadmap, your company risks stagnating and falling behind in the ever-evolving digital landscape. You may continue facing the same inefficiencies, limitations, and challenges the DMA highlighted. By not taking action and building a Roadmap, you miss out on the opportunities for growth, optimization, and innovation that the ServiceNow platform provides to businesses.

How to build ServiceNow Roadmaps?

Building Roadmaps involves several key steps. First, you need to define your vision and objectives. What are your long-term goals, and how will your ServiceNow platform help you achieve them? Next, you’ll need to assess your current state and identify gaps. What areas of your platform are functioning well, and what needs improvement? Based on this assessment, you can prioritize your initiatives and develop roadmaps with a timeline for implementation.

Remember that it is not a stiff set of rules but a living document that should be updated regularly to reflect changes in your organization’s priorities and capabilities. By continually assessing your progress and adjusting your Roadmap as needed, you’ll be able to stay on track and ensure that your digital transformation journey is a success. 

During the Roadmap building stage, your company will identify the high-level initiatives necessary to achieve its digital transformation goals. These initiatives may include process improvements, technology enhancements, and organizational changes. The Roadmap outlines each initiative’s timeline, resources, capabilities, and dependencies, allowing your organization to prioritize the efforts and allocate resources effectively.

Highway to Hell or Roadmap to ROI?

We have seen far too many companies that invested significant money in implementing the most expensive ITSM system on the market, treating it as the goal itself. It opened a “highway to hell” for these companies as they did not analyze, prepare or implement the platform in a systemic and well-thought-out way.

Adam Bernas, Chief Product Officer, CMA

The truth is that by following a Roadmap, companies can systematically address their digital transformation goals and track their progress. They can identify and mitigate risks, adjust their priorities as needed, and ensure alignment with their customers and overall business objectives.

Source: SPOC

Build Roadmap with us

As we previously discussed the importance of DMA here, we believe that taking the step afterwards is as crucial to the successful implementation. Your company needs to build a Roadmap to implement your DMA findings and achieve digital transformation goals.

Without a Roadmap, you risk losing out on the opportunities and benefits the ServiceNow platform can provide your business. As we constantly help our clients build such Roadmaps, do not hesitate to contact our specialists at SPOC.

Service Portal with an Instagram Feel? Design cues in the social media era

Posted on by Malwina

In today’s digital age, user experience is the key. A well-designed portal can drive user engagement and satisfaction, leading to higher adoption and a more successful platform. One way to create a satisfying user experience is to incorporate elements of popular social media platforms, like Instagram, into the design. At the end of the day, most of the Service Portal users are social media users, aren’t they?

Common user complaints about ServiceNow user experience

Service Portals are an essential part of organizations using ServiceNow, but from a user perspective, they can often present challenges and feel simply unpleasant. The most common issue is connected to poor navigation, with not-appropriate labelling and categorization making it hard to find the right information or complete tasks efficiently. Since Service Portal is slowly being withdrawn by ServiceNow it’s worth considering to Employee Center – here you can find out three reasons why you should start the migration.


Image: Out of the box Service Portal


Image: Example of well structured Employee Center

According to a survey by Adobe, 38% of users will disengage with a webpage if they find the content or layout unattractive. Unfortunately, many Service Portals suffer from unappealing visuals, a lack of visual hierarchy, and ineffective use of colour, typography, and graphics. These issues can cause the portal to feel outdated, lowering user confidence in its purpose and functionality. Applying proper user experience knowledge, however, can draw users back in and create an enjoyable, easy-to-follow design.

Discover 7 ways to improve your Servicenow Platform User Experience in >>EBOOK<<

Losing user’s trust

Keep in mind that first impressions matter and most users form an opinion about your webpage or portal in under a second, influencing their decision to stay or leave. If they leave due to a negative user experience, statistics show that 88% are unlikely to return to the site. While users may need to return when the portal is part of their workspace, a poor user experience can compound negative feelings towards your Service Portal.

Many of our clients come to us frustrated by the low usage of their Service Portal, and we see firsthand how this can be directly attributed to poor design choices. A non-intuitive and unhelpful design can make it difficult for users to find the necessary information. If the design is unattractive, users accustomed to more visually appealing sites such as social media platforms may quickly dismiss the portal and its intended purpose.

– Jacek Witek, UX designer at SPOC

Low rate of engagement

While the visual aspect is essential, it’s not the only factor contributing to a successful Service Portal. Unintuitive design and illogical user paths can lead to frustration, poor user experience, and, ultimately, low adoption rates. Conducting thorough user research to understand user needs and tailor the design to their specific requirements is essential to avoid these issues. By prioritizing user-centred design, you can increase adoption rates and set your Service Portal up for success.


Image: User-centered subcategorization

Giving up on the service portal

What’s the worst that can happen? Service Portal users in your company who are accustomed to the visual, usability, and accessibility standards of social media may give up on using a platform that doesn’t meet their expectations.

We all experience the same frustration when we enter e-commerce or any other websites that seem unintuitive. We don’t like feeling confused or lost. A tool designed to solve our problems should avoid creating more drama. How many times have you abandoned a cart of products because you couldn’t find the right button to make a payment? The same thing happens when using the Service Portal if it is not designed with UX in mind.

“We have a great tool – people just don’t use it”. Sounds familiar? Watch 3 ways to improve your ServiceNow usability and user experience in our >>VOD<<

Taking design cues from Instagram: best practices for UX in the Social Media era

Instagram is known for its simple, clean, and visually-appealing design. Users love its bright colours, bold typography, and user-friendly interface. Is there any way to translate that successful way of designing and experiencing a digital place into something as serious as a Service Portal? 

The importance of UX design in ServiceNow ServicePortal lies in the power of the tools and features developed to recognize and support users’ needs dealing with complex processes. By providing a user-based approach to building and measuring steps and options, ServicePortal enables organizations to provide seamless, efficient, and effective solutions for their customers.

Jacek Witek, UX designer at SPOC


Image: Simple Service Portal login page designed for visual appeal

Visuals & Colours

There are a few design elements to consider to create an Instagram-like feel in the Service Now Portal. First, let’s focus on the colours. Instagram is famous for its bright and cheerful colour palette, which is a departure from the traditional corporate blue and grey colour schemes. A portal with an Instagram feel would go for bright, bold, and vibrant colours that are consistent throughout the design.


Image: Onboarding portal utilizing vibrant brand colours

Discover how to attract users to your ServiceNow and what questions should you ask yourself

Typography

Next, the typography should be clean and easy to read. Instagram’s typography is simple and uses a sans-serif font, making it easy to read on any device. Using clear, easily-readable and visually appealing fonts could be another hint.


Image: Helpdesk portal before a redesign


Image: Typography and visual improvements on the helpdesk portal

Simplicity 

Instagram’s design emphasises clarity, visual impact, and instant information decoding for users. One way to achieve the same effect is to simplify the design and layout of the portal, allowing users to scan and find the information they need quickly. As Da Vinci once said: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Especially when it comes to design! That is why by following the Insta-logic, you could minimise clutter, ensuring that key features and functions are easily accessible.


Image: Instagram’s post in a modal window

Categorization

What about the effective categorisation of content? Instagram’s design makes it easy to navigate through different content categories, such as posts, stories, and reels. You can apply a similar categorisation approach to your Service Portal by grouping related content and creating intuitive navigation to help users quickly find what they need. An easy way to do it is to use clear and concise category labels and utilise icons and other visual cues to differentiate categories. As a consequence,  portal navigation and finding the information becomes a breeze. This can enhance the user experience and improve the company’s engagement and adoption of the Service Portal.


Image: Example categorization in an Employee Center portal


Image: Example of how categorization looks on Instagram

Service Portal for millennials

The Instagram platform has become an undisputed visual design and user experience leader. With millions of users and a highly engaged community, it is no wonder that Service Now designers are looking to incorporate the same “Insta-feeling” into their designs.

By taking a cue from Instagram’s design clarity, easy way of scanning and instant information decoding, Service Portal can become a user-friendly platform that is focused on visual impact. The benefits of an “Insta-style” ServicePortal design are clear: users engage with the portal more happily, and the portal can become a more integral part of their daily routine, especially if your target group is millennials or generation Z.  This increased engagement can lead to higher usage, better ROI, and a more satisfied user base.

At SPOC, we have seen first-hand how an “Insta-style” Service Portal design can make a difference. By incorporating Instagram’s design elements and user experience into our Service Now portals, we have noted a significant increase in user engagement and adoption. So, if you are wondering if an “Insta-feeling” is possible on your Service Now platform, our answer is: yes, it is, and it can become very profitable for your organization. Let’s do it together.


How to implement ServiceNow Service Management (ITSM) with minimal effort? FastTrack approach.

Posted on by Malwina

Are you struggling to implement ITSM within your organization? The SPOC FastTrack method acknowledged by ServiceNow offers a faster and better way to activate a service management solution with minimal effort. Not only does it provide a strong foundation for future growth and scalability, but it also allows you to see the benefits of ITSM right away. 

Why is ITSM implementation so hard?

ITSM implementation brings headaches to many companies due to a lack of resources. With limited staff, budgets, and knowledge, you may need to outsource most of the process to a service provider. The complexity of IT systems and processes can make them difficult to implement.

To face these problems, you need to take a proactive approach. This involves defining your goals, evaluating potential solutions, and preparing a comprehensive strategy before beginning the implementation. Having a team of knowledgeable professionals is also beneficial to help guide the process. It is worth remembering that ITSM implementations involve more than just software installation – they include policies, processes, and organizational change. 

Think of implementing ITSM as climbing Mount Everest. Taking a step-by-step approach may be the best option if your team is not well-experienced or lacks the necessary equipment. There are multiple ways to reach the summit, such as starting at base camp one and taking your time to acclimate (FastTrack) or attempting to reach the top in one go without stopping at the base (full ITSM implementation with customizations). Sounds scary? Don’t worry; keep reading to learn more about your options.

Read about 8 common ITSM implementation pitfalls and how to avoid them

All you need is an out-of-the-box ITSM solution

Implementing ITSM can be a long and challenging process, especially if you have to fulfil many different needs of your users and don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to it. That’s why many companies are turning to out-of-the-box solutions, such as SPOC FastTrack, to improve their IT service management.

An out-of-the-box ITSM solution is a fast, cost-effective, and easy way to get your IT service management up and running quickly. One of the biggest advantages of an out-of-the-box solution is that it does not require a heavy budget investment right away. This makes it an excellent option for companies on a tight budget who want to improve their IT service management.

Another advantage of out-of-the-box solutions is that they are less complex and less complicated to start, making it easy for you to get up and running quickly. This is especially true for companies that don’t have the know-how about coding, as out-of-the-box solutions usually come with a drag-and-drop feature for easy implementation. You don’t have to spend time and resources on customization. This can save your company time and money and allow you to focus on more critical tasks.

Last but not least, the user experience is significantly enhanced, visible through the new Employee Service Center Portal and Csat increases.

What is SPOC FastTrack?

The SPOC FastTrack ITSM solution streamlines IT service management by utilizing best practices recommended by  ServiceNow, saving time, money, and resources while minimizing project risks. It offers complete control, reporting, automation, self-service capabilities, and integrations. Additionally, it comes with added features such as mobile applications for end-users and fulfillers, a knowledge base, out-of-the-box reporting and dashboards for each process, and an agent workspace. The solution is user-friendly and easy to manage, requiring minimal technical knowledge. Training is included in the service, allowing mid-level administrators to take charge of it with ease.

The FastTrack method per ServiceNow recommendation is perfect if your company:

  • Is just starting its digital maturity journey and has a limited budget for ITSM implementation.
  • Is not yet advanced in SaaS usage or Cloud maturity and still relies on siloed systems and excel spreadsheets for company data.
  • Doesn’t need complex solutions and has a reasonable adoption rate for solutions not tailored to specific needs.
  • Is a small to medium-sized business, with employee counts ranging from 50 to 1000.

By investing in the FastTrack solution, you’ll get the foundations of ITSM in place, enabling you to improve and scale your capabilities as your company’s digital maturity journey progresses. With this solution, you’ll be able to manage your IT services more efficiently and effectively and return your investment in ServiceNow right away. Keep in mind that the FastTrack solution may not be suitable for organizations that require more complex solutions or have a very high level of customization needs. 

Read more about SPOC ServiceNow implementation here

ServiceNow ITSM FastTrack is a faster method for companies looking to streamline their IT service management processes out-of-the-box in no time for a minimum budget. It provides a comprehensive set of features that can help small and medium organizations improve their users experience and service delivery efficiency after only 14 weeks of deployment. SPOC as Elite partner of ServiceNow has many projects  references within the European Institutions with high Csat score. No surprise as SPOC is working on a Fix Fee SOW basis. 

Adam Bernaś, Chief Technology Officer, CMA

FAQ for out-of-the-box ITSM implementation

How does out-of-the-box ITSM implementation work? 

Answer: Out-of-the-box ITSM implementations are typically based on predefined processes and use templates or configuration wizards to help set up and roll out the solution quickly and easily. The goal is to provide an ITSM solution that is ready to use and can be up and running in less time than it would take to customize a solution from scratch.

What challenges do businesses face when implementing out-of-the-box ITSM implementations? 

Answer: The main challenge businesses face when implementing out-of-the-box ITSM implementations is that the solution may not meet the company’s specific needs. This could result in either the business having to customize the solution or having to look for alternative solutions. Additionally, the implementation process may require more time and resources than expected.

What are the minimum requirements for an out-of-the-box ITSM solution? 

Answer: The minimum requirements for an out-of-the-box ITSM solution typically include having a basic understanding of IT service management and the ability to access and use the solution’s interface. Additionally, you need a budget to buy the subscription or licence to use the solution. It is also important to have a team of people responsible for implementing, maintaining, and administrating the solution.

How to implement ITSM in the shortest time?

Implementing ITSM in the shortest time is possible using an out-of-the-box solution like SPOC FastTrack.

Here are some steps you can take to implement ITSM in the shortest time:

  1. Research and evaluate different ITSM solutions to fit your company’s needs and budget best.
  2. Choose an out-of-the-box solution like SPOC FastTrack, which is pre-configured and ready to use.
  3. Get your team trained to use the solution to make the implementation process go smoothly.
  4. Implement the solution in stages, starting with the most critical and high-priority areas of your IT service management.
  5. Use the solution’s drag-and-drop feature to make the implementation process as straightforward as possible.
  6. Monitor the implementation process closely and adjust as needed to ensure that the solution works as expected.
  7. Continuously measure and evaluate the solution’s performance and make changes to optimize the results.

Effective ITSM implementation explained in 7 steps

ServiceNow FastTrack implementation and ITSM implementations, in general, require a deep understanding of key topics such as meeting business requirements, system architecture, and configuration management to deliver detailed results and meet the needs of ServiceNow customers. Essential knowledge of problem management, major incident management, basic and advanced operations, and key performance indicators are prerequisites for a successful candidate in ITSM implementation. Maintainability and the ability to configure appropriate features are critical to delivering implementation solutions that meet the needs of the business. With the current release functionality and the registration process, ServiceNow FastTrack offers a solid foundation for ITSM implementation success, providing basic features for optimal configuration and support.

Philippe Bruls , Client Director

Get your ITSM in 3 months

By following these steps, you can quickly implement ITSM, allowing you to start managing your IT services more efficiently and effectively immediately. A great advantage of FastTrack is its speed – with a knowledgeable and experienced SPOC team, you will be able to go up and running in just three months. You will get the support needed from the specialists to make sure that the implementation is successful. Remember, you are not alone, you can always get help in evaluating your situation – we’re here to help. Contact us here.

Transforming your  business with digital maturity: From chaos to success

Posted on by Malwina

What are we talking about?

As a business leader, you’re likely too familiar with the challenges that come with digitalization. Investing in digital technologies is crucial to staying competitive in today’s fast-paced business environment. To make sure that your organization is making the most of the digital investment, you need to look into your organization’s digital maturity.

When managing the ITSM landscape, it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations and lose sight of the bigger picture. But as a leader, it’s essential to take a step back and evaluate your organization’s overall digital maturity. While you may have some strong areas in your ITSM, there may also be parts where you need certain implementations or solutions. The key to identifying these areas is conducting a comprehensive and integrated assessment of digital capabilities.

Overcoming digital technology challenges in the digitalization process

Digital maturity measures an organization’s proficiency and sophistication in utilizing digital technologies to support its business objectives. Assessment of digital maturity provides a clear understanding of your organization’s current digital state and identifies improvement opportunities. With this knowledge, you can make informed decisions about where to invest and how to achieve the most significant business impact.

But why is it so important to have a good understanding of your organization’s digital maturity? For one, it’s vital for making progress. Without a clear understanding of where your organization stands in terms of digital maturity, it’s difficult to set goals and measure progress. To identify areas for business improvement and stay competitive in the digital future, companies must assess their digital maturity and implement a broad range of new technologies in their digital strategy. An assessment provides a benchmark for tracking that progress and measuring the success of digitalization initiatives. There are several primary challenges that you may face when trying to implement digitalization across your company. Some of these include: 

  • Silos within the organization: It is hard to break down silos within the organization, which can impede the flow of information and hinder the implementation of digitalization initiatives. 
  • Costs: You may struggle with the costs associated with digitalization, such as new technology, training, and hiring specialized personnel. 
  • Problems with information sharing: You can see a lack of standardization and data silos, which can make it challenging to implement digitalization initiatives. 
  • Lack of equal level of digitalization across the organization: You may need help ensuring that all parts of the organization are at the same level of digitalization. 
  • Focusing on resolving current problems rather than on long-term goals: You may need help with resolving current issues rather than on long-term goals. 
  • Chaos: You can face challenges in navigating chaos within the organization, making it difficult to push forward. 
  • Difficulties with planning a budget when there are differences in digitalization: You may need help with planning a budget when there are differences in digitalization across the organization, which can make it difficult to allocate resources. 
  • Low or no engagement from the employees: You may struggle to get engagement from employees, which is another obstacle in implementing digitalization initiatives.
Resource: ServiceNow

Digital transformation and digital maturity assessment

The first step is to understand your organization’s digital maturity and how to achieve it. You can use the insights from such an assessment to make informed decisions and drive real change within your organization. The ability to navigate chaos is admirable, but it’s not necessary. You can take control and lead the organization towards true digital transformation with the right approach and evaluation.

Being part of a company can make it more difficult to ensure that a digital maturity assessment is objective. This is because employees may have a vested interest in the outcome and may be less likely to identify and address areas of weakness or inefficiency. Additionally, employees may be less likely to speak out or raise concerns if they feel that doing so could negatively impact their job or their relationships with their colleagues or superiors.

An external digital maturity assessment can provide valuable benefits such as objectivity, expertise, experience, and fresh perspective. It can help your organization to make sure that the assessment is unbiased and that the results are reliable and actionable.


Adam Bernas, Chief Product Officer with the highest ServiceNow certificate (Master Architect), is experienced in guiding organizations through complex digital transformations. 

One way to mitigate these risks is to hire an external consultant or company to conduct the digital maturity assessment. A third-party assessor is less likely to be influenced by internal politics or biases and can provide an objective perspective on the organization’s digital maturity. Additionally, it can bring expertise and experience from other companies and industries, providing valuable insights and best practices to your organization.

How to address the digitalization challenges

To really make sure that you have the right picture of what is needed to be done, you still need a digital maturity assessment, and that is where you should start. After mapping your organization’s challenges, you can take the following actions:

  1. Break down silos: Encourage cross-functional collaboration by setting up cross-functional teams, promoting open communication, and breaking down physical and organizational barriers.
  2. Control costs: Develop a detailed digitalization initiatives budget and closely monitor expenses. Prioritise projects based on their potential business value, and be prepared to adjust plans and cut costs if necessary.
  3. Achieve digital maturity across the organization: Develop a digital maturity model that can be used to benchmark different parts of the organization. This helps identify areas that need improvement and prioritize resources accordingly.
  4. Long-term vision: Develop a long-term vision for digitalization and align digital initiatives with overall business objectives to ensure that all parts of the organization are on the same page and working towards the same goals.
  5. Navigate chaos: Implement a project management framework to help keep digital initiatives on track and manage priorities.
  6. Plan budgets: Develop a flexible budgeting process that allows for adjustments as digitalization initiatives evolve. This will help to ensure that resources are allocated to the most critical projects.
  7. Engage employees: Involve them in digitalization by providing training, promoting open communication, and recognizing and rewarding their contributions.
  8. Communicate progress and success: Communicate the progress and success of digital initiatives to employees, stakeholders and the board to keep them informed and engaged.

Addressing the digitalization challenges may require a combination of different approaches and continuous adaptation. Also, it’s essential to remember that digitalization is an ongoing process, and it’s vital to evaluate and adapt the plan as the digital landscape and the organization’s needs are changing. 

Light-keeper or business influencer? Become digital transformation!

In today’s fast-paced business environment, the decision-makers must choose whether to be an orchestrator of chaos and a light-keeper or a business influencer. By investing in a digital maturity assessment, you have the power to become a business influencer, make informed decisions and drive real change within your organization. 

Resource: SPOC

When all parts of a company are digitalized at the same level, it enables the organization to work more efficiently, collaborate more effectively, be more agile, make better decisions, improve governance and compliance and be more scalable. All of which are key factors for organizations to achieve their business goals and stay competitive in today’s digital landscape. By taking a holistic approach to digitalization, you can ensure that all aspects of the organization are aligned with the overall business objectives and that digital transformation is driven by your organization’s needs. 

READ MORE ABOUT Holistic approach here: Digitalization done right – how to enable a holistic approach for your organization.

Remember, you are not alone, you can always get help in evaluating your situation – we’re here to help. Contact us or join us during our webinar about digital maturity. We will discuss how you can measure your organization’s digital maturity and why it is important. The webinar will be held by:

Leaders should regularly check their company’s digital maturity to ensure that they have a holistic view of their organization’s digital capabilities. Through digital assessment, they can identify areas of strength and weakness and ensure that all parts of the company are on the same page regarding digitalization. Thanks to such a deep understanding, aligning digital initiatives with overall business objectives and achieving true digital transformation is easier.’

Adam Bernas – Chief Product Officer with the highest ServiceNow certificate (Master Architect), experienced in guiding organizations through complex digital transformations. 

Digital maturity assessment provides a bird’s-eye view of the company, enabling stakeholders to identify areas of adequate digitization and those with great potential for development. It allows decision-makers to prioritize future investments based on clear evidence and expert recommendations for processes with the biggest business impact

Piotr Górnikiewicz – Senior Account Executive

From fragmented to integrated – how to facilitate a holistic approach to digitalization

Posted on by Malwina

How to start?

Are you struggling to fully leverage the capabilities of your ITSM platform despite its wide range of possibilities? If so, you’re not alone. Many organizations find themselves in the same boat, facing challenges in effectively utilizing the platform to support their business objectives. The root cause of this can often be traced back to a lack of understanding of their current state of digital maturity. But how can you overcome this challenge and achieve better results while improving your ROI? 

The answer lies in adopting a holistic approach to digitalization. You can do it by conducting a digital maturity assessment to comprehensively understand your organization’s digital maturity and identify areas for improvement in your systems landscape. We will guide you on how to effectively leverage the ServiceNow platform to drive business value and achieve your organization’s goals.

Digitalization with a holistic approach

It means taking a comprehensive and integrated approach to digital transformation. A holistic approach involves considering all aspects of the organization, including its culture, processes, and technologies, and aligning them with its overall business objectives. It recognizes that digital transformation is not just about technology but also about people and how they work.

You want your organization to improve constantly, at the same pace, ensuring that all parts of the company are on the same page. When each part is digitalized at the same level, it allows for a more efficient flow of information and resources across the organization. This can improve service delivery, cost savings, and customer experience. It also influences positive way collaboration across departments and teams.

When all parts of a company are digitalized holistically, it enables employees to share information and resources more efficiently, leading to improved teamwork and increased productivity. The same level of digitalization allows for greater scalability, enabling the organization to expand into new markets or services more easily.

How to check your digital maturity?

Digital maturity assessment is becoming increasingly important for organizations looking to stay competitive in today’s digital landscape. You can use different tools, e.g., ServiceNow DMA, to evaluate your company’s proficiency in utilizing digital technologies to support its business objectives.

A digital maturity assessment can help you understand how your company is currently using the ITSM platform and identify opportunities for improvement that will enable you to leverage your solutions to drive business value in a better way. The assessment covers service management, automation, integrations, governance, and analytics.

What does it mean in practice? The assessment might reveal that the organization effectively uses ITSM to manage incidents but is far from fully leveraging the automation capabilities. In this case, the organization could develop a roadmap with the help of an experienced ServiceNow partner. The goal: enhancing the use of your systems landscape to automate more processes, which would ultimately lead to more efficient service delivery and cost savings.

The great value of such an assessment lies in understanding how the digital landscape is being used by employees, which may be different from the intended use. This can help your organization optimize the tool and make it more user-friendly, increasing employee engagement and productivity.

Business advantages of using DMA

Conducting a Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) with a holistic approach can provide many business advantages. By identifying areas for improvement, you can develop a roadmap for enhancing its use of digital technologies to drive greater business value. This can lead to more efficient service delivery, cost savings, and improved customer experience.

“Being aware of your organization’s digital maturity level is vital for leaders who want to make informed investment and optimization decisions that align with their organization’s strategy. Maturity level awareness helps leaders with making decisions on which areas to focus first so that they best suit their organization’s current needs.”

Krzysztof Patyk – ServiceNow Solution Consultant

A DMA helps you identify new opportunities for digital transformation that lead to gaining a competitive advantage. For example, you can improve your ability to innovate and respond to changing market conditions by automating manual processes or integrating new technologies. You may count on improved performance. DMA ensures that you focus on the right initiatives and invest in the right areas. It can lead to enhanced performance and a better return on investment.

Other advantages are better governance and risk management by identifying compliance and security risks, and improved employee engagement and decision-making. DMA provides a benchmark of your digital maturity, which you can use to track the company’s progress over time and compare the performance to that of other organizations in your industry. 

How to digitalize equally

To ensure that all the different parts of the company are digitalized with Digital Maturity Assessment equally, there are a few key steps you can take:

– Involve key stakeholders – to get comprehensive and accurate results, involve key stakeholders from across the organization. This might include representatives from IT, operations, finance, marketing, and other departments.

– Define clear goals and objectives – before conducting the DMA, define clear goals and objectives for the assessment. This will help to focus on the areas that are most important to the organization and will enable your organization to measure the success of the assessment.

– Use a standardized framework – ensure that all areas of the organization are assessed in the same way and that the results of the assessment can be compared across different departments.

– Focus on the business processes – all areas of the organization should be assessed in terms of their digital capabilities, and the assessment results can be used to develop a roadmap for improvement.

– Communicate and share the results – after conducting the DMA, communicate and share the results with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that everyone in the organization understands the current state of digital maturity and that the assessment results are used to develop a roadmap for improvement.

– Create an action plan with specific tasks and owners –  once the DMA is completed, create an action plan that includes specific tasks and owners to ensure that the recommendations from the DMA are implemented in a timely manner and that progress is tracked.

– Regularly review progress – conduct regular reviews of progress to help identify any areas where your organization is falling behind, allowing you to make adjustments as necessary.

Get support to check your digital maturity

Conducting a digital maturity assessment allows organizations to comprehensively understand their digital maturity, identify areas for improvement, and develop a roadmap for enhancing their use of digital technologies to drive greater business value.

With maturity assessment, you can optimise the tool’s use and get more out of the platform investment, as well as accelerate the transformation process and save time in making strategic decisions in the future. Strategic investment plans should be based on “well-informed decisions” rather than solely focused on “risk and uncertainty management.

To apply such an analysis and make sure that it is done from top to bottom,  allowing you to follow the holistic approach – you might want to use a knowledgeable ServiceNow partner. 

At SPOC, we have over ten years of experience as a ServiceNow partner. We’re focused on helping organizations get the most out of their ServiceNow platform at competitive prices. We follow a holistic approach with a solid and ambitious goal to help companies reach equal digitalization internally. 

Our strategic consulting services focus on the overall system landscape and architecture. As a framework, we utilize the ServiceNow DMA in conjunction with other tools to evaluate your organisation’s digital maturity. With a clear and comprehensive assessment, we can create a roadmap for digitalizing the entire organization and track the progress regularly to ensure all the company divisions are moving in the same direction.

If you want to know more, reach out to us or join us during our . We will discuss how you can measure your organization’s digital maturity and why it is important. The webinar will be held by:

Digital maturity assessment provides a bird’s-eye view of the company, enabling stakeholders to identify areas of adequate digitization and those with great potential for development. It allows decision-makers to prioritize future investments based on clear evidence and expert recommendations for processes with the biggest business impact.

Piotr Górnikiewicz – Senior Account Executive

Leaders should regularly check their company’s digital maturity to ensure that they have a holistic view of their organization’s digital capabilities. Through digital assessment, they can identify areas of strength and weakness and ensure that all parts of the company are on the same page regarding digitalization. Thanks to such a deep understanding, aligning digital initiatives with overall business objectives and achieving true digital transformation is easier.’

Adam Bernas – Chief Product Officer with the highest ServiceNow certificate (Master Architect), experienced in guiding organizations through complex digital transformations. 

3 reasons you should migrate from Service Portal to Employee Center

Posted on by Malwina

A new employee service centre

Here comes the new – Employee Center ServiceNow feature you should get familiar with immediately. It is supposed to replace Service Portal, which seems to be slowly pushed back by ServiceNow. Although the exact date of withdrawal is unknown yet, the sooner you decide to upgrade to ServiceNow Employee Center, the sooner you will take advantage of its countless business benefits and start developing your platform on a supported and secure solution. ESC means a lot of new, fascinating opportunities. It enables companies of all sizes and industries to achieve their business goals much faster. It is also a response to employee needs, rapidly changing in the era of workplace transformation.

What is Employee Center? ServiceNow presents its newest feature

Employee Center is a single, unified and modern portal for all employees. It is one place where they can find all the information and get all the help they need from HR, IT and other departments. Moreover, it’s a free feature for all ServiceNow users. It can already be said that it is a great product that will certainly be developed, promoted and improved in the future – this is one of the reasons why you should start using it immediately.

A solution for the changing workplaces and employee service

ServiceNow’s Employee Center is an excellent answer to the transformation of the employee experience. In the changing world of work where remote and hybrid work model is becoming more and more common in many companies, it is a must to digitize employee experience. In a world where digital processes enable flexibility, Employee Center comes in handy. This out-of-the-box ServiceNow solution was created for employees’ information, communication, and engagement and to ensure exceptional HR service delivery and customer experience. 

Read how to improve the work from home experience thanks to ServiceNow platform here.

source: SPOC

Employee Now vs. Service Portal – main differences

Service Portal is already considered to be an easy-to-use and modern tool that helps you quickly reach your employees. Employee Center is an even better employee service center as it has many new features that solved previous challenges and limitations that Service Portal made hard to address. ServiceNow advertises Employee Center as a great way to keep every employee engaged, productive, and informed, and I couldn’t agree more.

Read why you should upgrade to Employee Center now and let your employees make use of the ServiceNow platform to the fullest.

I created a lot of Service Portals and there was always one challenge – content management and its architecture. Luckily for us, ServiceNow introduced the Employee Center.

Mateusz Grześkowiak, Senior ServiceNow Developer

Easier Content Management ensures user freedom, self-service and data security

Before Employee Center, all organizational knowledge was placed in many portals – therefore, it was difficult to find the desired information. Employee Center enables to gather of all necessary data in one place. Thanks to this, it is no longer scattered among catalogues and knowledge bases and, as a result, it is much easier to use. All users can quickly find what they are searching for and get HR service delivery in one place.

Unified taxonomy makes all information in the Employee Center organized in a clear and transparent way. Content management becomes easier and tailored to the user’s needs. Users get much more freedom in the process of creating and adjusting the portal’s look. They can define names, categories, subcategories, and topics ourselves, thus gaining independence from the fixed ServiceNow structure and getting more self-service. Each user can not only display the content they need but also easily manage it. Now it is the company itself that builds the organization of its information, which enables greater control over all content.

All information available in one place not only saves users time and energy. The multitude of portals also meant high maintenance costs. Information scattered in various places was associated with a high risk of data leakage. Employee Center, a modern ServiceNow solution in the changing world of work, solves these problems. It lowers maintenance costs and ensures greater information security.

source: SPOC

Topic personalization results in great Return On Investment

Topic personalization is another feature that all employees will be happy to use. Each team wanted a place for themselves, and now this desire is fulfilled. This wasn’t easy to do on the Service Portal – if a team wanted its own brand, a separate portal had to be created. Now, not only are all teams in one place, but they have topic pages that can be personalized according to their preferences. IT team can have its own home page, as well as HR and other departments, and each of them can adapt and design it to their needs. They can have their own banners, icons and colours as pages don’t have to look the same anymore.

This is a significant change that also offers a greater Return On Investment. Topic personalization makes teams use the portal more willingly. What is more, it is easier now to convince employees to use it, as they can get a better service experience, tailored to their needs. Each team thus gains greater independence. 

source: SPOC

Targeted audiences facilitate information flow

Another great advantage of the Employee Center is that while everything is in one place, some information can only be displayed to specific audiences. As a result, thanks to targeted content, they only see banners, messages and changes they are interested in – not all of them. Thanks to this, the amount of information is no longer overwhelming. Teams become more independent, and it becomes much easier for them to use the portal.

This feature gives Employee Center one more significant benefit. It facilitates information flow, which improves communication, facilitates collaboration and accelerates decision-making processes. This has a powerful impact on the entire company.

Read how to attract more users to your platform thanks to a great User Experience

Employee Center – strategic approach of global consulting company [Case Study]

Before ESC, our client with its team of more than 1000 employees used 6 different portals on a daily basis. It generated many problems – knowledge was scattered in other places, therefore it was challenging to find the required data. The maintenance and development costs were also really high.

The client decided it was necessary to create a single employee service portal that would fulfil the functions of all 6 previous ones. We recommended Employee Center ServiceNow and the implementation turned out to be a strategic decision for the company’s operations.

Employee Center is not only easier to configure and requires less development, but it is also an out of box ServiceNow solution. Since that. Its implementation was also several times faster than Service Portals.

Ready for your Employee Center experience?

If you are still using the Service Portal, do not wait and get ready for the upgrade – the clock is ticking and the Service Portal will slowly become the legacy application. There is no point in waiting – thanks to the Employee Center, you will not only save time and costs but also create an incredible employee experience and make everyone’s work easier and more productive. We are here for you to talk and guide you through the endless possibilities of Employee Center.

CMDB as a crucial base for cybersecurity

Posted on by Malwina

Cybersecurity is a continuously growing topic, as cyberattacks on big and medium organizations are a constant and serious threat. Since the start of the coronavirus, cyberattacks have increased by 300%, and as reported by Accenture, 68% of business leaders foresee the rising tendency. There are numerous cybersecurity tools and technologies to stop the threats. But to keep your organization’s safety on a good level, you need to look into your configuration management quality. Asset management is critical to improved security on the web in companies that require tracking, updating and mapping the hardware and software assets that have access to the organization’s data.  

CMDB
Source: ServiceNow

Why configuration management database is necessary for security 

Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a valuable tool if it can be trusted. It allows you to log devices in the organization’s IT infrastructure together with relations to other CIs, facilitating better targeting and resolving any security breaches or devices that can put your company at risk. Therefore, CMDB is a sort of foundation for your ServiceNow platform, a single source of truth for IT asset configuration data. It can improve your cybersecurity and help you with critical operations and compliance audits if it is complete, accurate, and up-to-date.   

Keeping your data secure is challenging. Unfortunately, most companies know its importance, but many do not prioritize it. Knowing and doing it in the right way are two different things. Investing in CMDB is the right step, as you can only gain by minimizing the impact of outages, improving network security, accelerating issues resolutions and simplifying compliance. A well-established CMDB will answer questions about the number of:  

  • a particular type of hardware in the organization;  
  • installations of specific software;   
  • users affected by an email service outage in a given time frame;  
  • software licenses to be purchased. 

Business value from CMDB implementation 

Service, operations & asset management, cybersecurity, cloud operations and organizational compliance. They all rely on accurate information coming from CMDB. If configuration items (CIs) are kept accurate, the IT (and/or SecOps) team’s reaction time to risky situations is fast, which translates into reducing financial losses.

Well-functioning CMDB helps keep your ServiceNow instance healthy, improves the services lifecycle management and processes effectiveness. By having a total overview and control of your organization’s IT infrastructure, you can model your services and digital products and accelerate time-to-market, which as a consequence, improves the pace of innovation. Your organization can move more fluidly at the pace of its network, customers, markets and competitors. Your IT team gets the right technology to track and lower the risk.

Discover 4 things you need to do for successful implementation

How we helped our client establish a well-functioning CMDB 

One of our clients asked for a simple Configuration Management Database audit. We checked their CMDB and all the processes connected to it as well as assets that are using the CMDB in the organization (as well as corresponding assets). The scope of the audit was to find errors and score the quality of the data. We were supposed to discover if everything is reported and certified in the organization’s CMDB environment. During the audit, we analyzed company infrastructure, including hardware, computers and other connected devices, and the relations between hardware and software. We also focused on the business aspect, the CMDB structure and the KPIs of the processes. 

Audit results 

We discovered the lack of integrations, manual and uncontrolled processes connected to assets. There was no configuration management process or system control whatsoever. We found many duplicates, assets that were not used or imported for a long time and technical errors. The audit became a trigger to apply changes in asset management and promoted best practices through the business services oriented approach. The business was willing to look into configuration and asset management not only because of cybersecurity but also from a holistic point of view. It created a higher sensibility to CMDB processes across the digital services and how good quality data can improve the whole system.   

CMDB challenges 

As a big corporation, our client highly customized the ServiceNow instance. That implied some difficulties in rebuilding the CMDB. Some of the custom solutions were not perfectly fitted for ServiceNow but were somewhat adjusted to the internal needs. It created a few limitations.   

Main challenges:  

  • Duplicated CIs with empty serial numbers or with no name. 
  • High customization of the ServiceNow instance. 
  • Asset synchronization.  
  • Manual processes.  
  • Irregular updates. 

Our solutions for a better asset management

We prepared a separate dashboard for assets and CMDB. We synchronized the assets with CMDB and designed a set of technical reports highlighting data management inconsistencies that need extra attention. During our audit, we found out that there is an urgent need for a channel service data model to monitor the security across the organization.

As a result of our findings we:  

  • tracked errors and fixed them;  
  • proposed automatic insert process; 
  • came up with an automatic way to keep the CMDB up to date by doing regular scanning; 
  • applied ServiceNow Discovery for improved cybersecurity; 
  • developeddefined configuration management process and asset management process with controlled updates etc. 

Follow CMDB security best practices

Establishing a CMDB and maintaining a healthy digital environment for your customers or users are two different stories. A good CMDB should be up-to-date, and you should have good practices to get the best out of it. You need to allow the system to do the deep scanning of the network. This way, you can track and identify all the connected devices and, if required, disconnect them. You should also ensure that the IT asset database is up-to-date and complete for better system visibility.

Download EBOOK: 6 stories of implementing CMDB in ServiceNow

It is vital to carry out automated asset discoveries to stay on top of assets’ patches and updates, as it enables a smooth detection process and lets your IT team find the right assets to upgrade them in the system. Keeping an accurate asset inventory will help you better understand all the data maintained in your CMDB to know what kind of assets you need to protect and how. Remember that an accurate CMDB will be a foundation for different functions contributing to critical business performance.   

CMDB
Source: ServiceNow

How does Virtual Agent help organizations in achieving better results in CSM?

Posted on by Malwina

Virtual Agent has been available since many releases on ServiceNow and is now a mature tool. It frees up time for service desk agents and offers a better service to your users, who are either internal, as in the case of ITSM processes, or external, as in the case of Customer Service Management (ServiceNow CSM). How can Virtual Agent leverage our reactivity to the needs of your users?

What is Virtual Agent?

Virtual Agent provides user assistance through conversations within a messaging interface.  The interface is not available only on ServiceNow Service Portal but also on various messaging systems, like Microsoft Teams, Slack or your existing corporate website.

ServiceNow Virtual Agent is proven to help organizations in achieving better results in several areas, including ITSM, HR, and CSM, while constantly improving user experience and satisfaction.

Axel Starosta, ServiceNow Developer at SPOC

Virtual Agent allows you to create tickets, manage them, respond to questions, and fulfil user requests. If it is needed, it transfers the user to the live agent. Thanks to the natural language processing engine, the tool analyzes the keywords and considers the context of a conversation. It has a significant impact on customer experience, and agents’ work, and it enables customers to resolve their issues in real-time.

Virtual Agent
Sources: SPOC

Virtual Agent’s top 3 additional features

Virtual Agent is not just a chatbot – there is so much more to it! It has many solutions to provide the best customer experience. Based on our extensive ServiceNow knowledge and clients’ cases, we believe the following features are the most essential and effective for the ServiceNow instance: NLU engine, pre-built conversational topics and Virtual Agent Analytics.

NLU engine

Natural language understanding allows your Virtual Agent to understand, process and respond optimally to the customers’ needs. Currently, ServiceNow provides an NLU engine with 17 languages supported in the Tokyo release.

You do not have to use ServiceNow NLU. If you opt for Microsoft LUIS or IBM Watson, it is possible to implement it with your Virtual Agent. By applying NLU, your users are free to use natural ways of communication, as if they were in a conversation with an agent, and at the same time, they will receive relevant answers.

In practice, your Virtual Agent will perform more accurately, providing a more positive experience. It can also help derive actionable insights from interactions by removing bias and errors.

Virtual Agent
Source: ServiceNow

Pre-built conversational topics

There is no need to start from scratch and build dialogue flows. Your agents can save precious time with ServiceNow Customer Service Management, HR, and ITSM. Pre-built conversations and reusable topic blocks make it easy to start using the Virtual Agent. 

You can install the pre-build conversational topics that contain a list of topics ready to use and make them available to customers in just a few clicks. Also, the pre-defined conversation flows help users with the most common self-service tasks in each business area.

With Customer Service Management, two topics are available immediately for creating and updating cases. The pre-built models are read-only, and you can’t edit them, but you have the possibility to clone the models and create your own NLU models.

Virtual Agent Analytics

Once VA is installed and active, you will want to see and measure its effectiveness. This is when Virtual Agent Analytics comes in handy. ServiceNow created the analytics tool to measure and objectively evaluate it so the business can value and assess its impact. It is built based on User Experience Analytics. 

Just as with User Experience Analytics, you can see: 

  • the number of deflections,
  • the amount of active VA instances,
  • conversations occurred,
  • information on most used categories,
  • most used languages.
Virtual Agent
Source: ServiceNow

There are also other useful indicators that can help you understand the usage of VA and how to make it more impactful. You can, for example, refine topics and increase the percentage of issues resolved by VA.

ServiceNow CSM and Virtual Agent

Predefined VA topic conversations enable your customers to get the customer service help they need quickly and efficiently. Integrating NLU models with your virtual agent topics allows chatbots to analyze, understand, and navigate the user to the right topic based on the inferred intent. 

To start with it, you need a Customer Service Management Professional. VA is usually for organizations that automate processes, so it should not be implemented in the first iteration. At this point, you need to understand which requests take up most of the agents’ time and the difficulty in deflecting them. Do users waste much of agents’ time asking about an update on their cases? The deflection is simple and makes a perfect VA use for your ServiceNow Customer Service Management.

To fully use the VA capabilities, you should first activate it and install the appropriate plugins for Virtual Agent and the pre-built conversations. Then it is time to enable the pre-build exchange or create new ones based on the requests identified before to start freeing up your agents’ time. With connected digital workflows, you can drive customer satisfaction.

Take advantage of Virtual Agent in your CSM

By using the VA and all related plugins in your ServiceNow CSM platform, you can create better process workflows and improve the omnichannel experience of your customers. By applying VA with the NLU engine, you not only improve the resolution times but also allow proactive customer service and clear communication. Your agents can manage the tasks better, as they have more time for more complicated issues, and at the same time, your organization reduces costs. Read more about Virtual Agent here, and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us!

Virtual Agent
Source: SPOC

CMDB – 4 things you need to do for successful implementation 

Posted on by Malwina

The Configuration Management Database has been a hot ServiceNow topic for years. We already know how important it is when it comes to IT decision-making and finding dependencies among processes, people, applications and IT infrastructure. But to fully enjoy all the benefits of CMDB implementation, it is good to get prepared before it is up and running. How? Here you can find a few tips based on our and our clients’ experience! 

What is a configuration management database?

CMDB is a standardized database repository with all the relevant information both about the hardware and software used in your organization and how these components relate to each other. Getting this clear overview of configuration data lets you examine it from different perspectives, finding opportunities for improvement, faster resolution of incidents and fewer errors. Implementing this huge data warehouse and storing information about your IT infrastructure is not an overnight task, but it allows you to have a purpose-built database for configuration management. 

Source: ServiceNow

Business benefits of CMDB implementation

Growing organizations face a common challenge: keeping track of all the assets. The great benefit of using CMDB is that you have everything in one place, which means transparency, visibility and improved IT infrastructure management, considering compliance with software license agreements. The risks carried by change deployments can be easily contained through CMDB, ensuring smooth transitions without business disruptions caused by unplanned changes or misconfiguration. Sourcing data from different parts of the business improve the incident management process, helps track changes over time, and automates software discovery processes. With CMDB, you do not stick to a stiff solution, as it changes over time with your organization, reflecting current knowledge and best IT practices. You will not only diagnose and fix costly service outages but also reduce service delivery costs, maximize ROI and accelerate time-to-market for new services.

Explore and find data in CMDB Workspace

The biggest advantages seen by our customers are:

  • Reduced incident volume
  • Reduced number of system outages
  • Improved vulnerability response
  • Increased automation to respond to issues faster

How to implement CMDB

CMDB implementation is not as straightforward as we wish. To make the process smoother for your organization, it is important to prepare the right ground for it. That means some extra work that will pay off when your CMDB is up and running. Investing your time into the following points will help map possible challenges, control the implementation process in the best way possible and ensure that the final result is successful and does not fail to generate value. By identifying the possible issues, like, e.g., lack of people and processes in place to move data into CMDB, you have more power over the CMDB implementation itself.

Data acquisition tools easily populate CI data

#1  Ensure compliance in configuration management

Security starts with proper management of your IT infrastructure. That is why it is so important to first identify and understand your compliance obligations, spot the risks of non-compliance and act to reduce the organizational risks. Understanding the relationships between an organization’s information assets and the applications that use them helps meet the audit and compliance needs. 

CMDB Compliance is a ServiceNow toolset to certify CMDB data – check their correctness and fix any issues. You can audit the CMDB for its adherence to predefined regulatory requirements, internal governance or certificates. 

Download EBOOK: Navigating CMDB Implementation in ServiceNow

#2  Apply data centre consolidation & improve security

When you have multiple data centres, your costs are higher, you become more vulnerable and prone to security breaches. Instead of using many servers, storage systems, and networking systems, it is better to have one data centre. Centralization reduces digital footprint, making the organization at the same time less vulnerable to cyber-attacks or risks related to data loss and downtime. It is not only going to reduce management overheads but also costs for your organization. 

You want to reduce and limit the impact of a potential threat against data. Once you have your asset inventory and CMDB in place, you should set up good practices. You could, e.g., allow deep network scanning to ensure only allowed devices are connected. Your database and inventory lists should be up-to-date, establishing a good baseline for all the IT activity. Staying on top of patches and updates for all the assets could lead to more accurate inventory and, consequently, improved security. 

#3  Implement enterprise change management

Enterprise change management is the constant process by which your organization implements and manages changes to maximize change capability. It is all about centralizing the organizational change process, and among its effect, you will find increased ROI, improved business agility or increased effectiveness.  

Change managers can use the CMDB to spot the relationship between different configuration elements that can be affected by a change in the future. Thanks to understanding the relationship between the components, assets can be reconstructed at any time. You can map physical, virtual, and cloud components using asset management and design services. 

You also need impact analysis to get information about the system areas affected due to the change in the particular section or application features. The impact analysis engine goes through CMDB, and located Configuration Items (CIs) expected to have outages. 

#4  Ensure transparency and visibility for innovation

Lack of visibility into service performance causes headaches to many organizations. It equals erratic assumptions, reactive decisions and speculative contexts. That makes introducing innovation a very difficult task. In a perfect world, CMDB should be thought-out and planned. It is not just limited to the selection and implementation of discovery technology to populate your CMDB.  

Knowing where you are and what your shortcomings might be is essential for transparency. When you address governance, configuration management data and technology plan and define methods for populating and maintaining health, there is a big chance for successful visibility for innovation. 

Powerful visualization for understanding CI relationships

 CMDB – make it successful

The above list might seem overwhelming, but by applying each step at the beginning of the CMDB implementation process, you will be able to improve the capability to diagnose service issues, detect root cause problems and find a resolution quickly.

CMDB has great business value. If applied properly, you can model your services and digital products, react in real-time, manage the life cycle of your services, keep the ServiceNow instance healthy, accelerate time-to-market and last but not least, improve processes effectiveness.

Implementing CMDB is a more complex topic; therefore, we encourage you to get some extra help to address the problems and ensure success. Contact us if you want to take advantage of our vast experience and best practices in implementing CMDB in ServiceNow.   

SPOC S.A.
ul. Szyperska 14
61-754 Poznań, Poland
ul. Grzybowska 43
00-855 Warszawa, Poland
sales@spoc.eu +48 614 152 903

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