Partner Article

ServiceNow empowers the service-oriented enterprise

Major software release advances service management into the enterprise

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), the enterprise IT cloud company, today announced the availability of new products and features that drive service transformation throughout the global enterprise. The new ServiceNow release offers an enhanced custom application creation experience, new service automation products, executive decision-making visualisation tools and a more intuitive user experience.

The service model defined by IT is increasingly in demand, giving IT the ability to use its successful roots to transform service across all business domains. Organisations such as HR, facilities and legal are rapidly moving into service-oriented models. IT is at the epicenter of this transformation and is ideally situated to provide the framework for the management of enterprise services. A service-oriented framework defines the service taxonomy, creates a consumerized service experience, orchestrates service workflows, automatically remediates issues when they arise and measures performance and availability of services. Successful service models require this foundation to support the load and scalability that will be needed to transform an organisation to a service orientation.

The products and features in this new ServiceNow release give IT the ability to create a new service experience for business users and improve the framework on which IT can deliver those services across the enterprise. For example, business users can use Service Creator to independently create and deliver services that automate mundane tactical activities typically managed in spreadsheets and email. For larger projects, IT can use ServiceNow Demand Management to easily assess the demand from each business function and then use the new CIO Roadmap to drive conversations with business stakeholders about IT investment decisions. Services can be automated with applications that are purpose-built to solve specific business challenges. These applications can be custom created by users or are offered as complete and customisable applications built by ServiceNow, such as ServiceNow Facilities Service Automation. And the underlying infrastructure can be managed with a comprehensive set of technologies, including ServiceNow Event Management, that enable fast remediation of the issues that could cause business interruptions.

“Enabling our line-of-business users to build solutions themselves creates leverage for the IT department which sometimes cannot keep up with the demand for new applications,” said Carolyn Hollingsworth, senior manager service delivery, Lennox International. “Service Creator is, in effect, a ‘do-it-yourself’ business automation service managed by IT.”

“As tracking and visibility are core to CH Robinson’s DNA, we value how ServiceNow has applied those functions to service automation,” said Hunter Wolf, solutions engineer, CH Robinson Worldwide, Inc. “Based on our success in IT automation, our business departments are keen to use ServiceNow as a better way to manage their work tasks.”

Each of the capabilities in the new release is built on the extensible ServiceNow platform and therefore leverages the common data model shared by the entire ServiceNow application portfolio. The new release offers ServiceNow customers:

• Enhancements to the Custom Application Creation Experience

Service Creator – a new feature that allows non-technical business users to create service-oriented applications faster than ever before. Form Designer – a new feature that enables rapid creation and modification of forms with visual drag-and-drop controls

• New Service Automation Products

Facilities Service Automation - a new application that routes requests to the appropriate facilities specialists and displays incidents on floor plan visualisations Visual Task Boards - a new feature to organise services and other tasks using kanban-inspired boards that foster collaboration and increase productivity

• Executive Management and Visualisation Tools

Demand Management - a new application that consolidates strategic requests from the business to IT and automates the steps in the investment decision process CIO Roadmap –a new timeline visualization feature that displays prioritised investment decisions across business functions.

• New IT Operations Management Applications

Event Management - a new application that collects and transforms infrastructure events from third-party monitoring tools into meaningful alerts that trigger service workflows Configuration Automation – an application that controls and governs infrastructure configuration changes, enhanced to work in environments managed with Chef data center automation.

“Organisations relying on email and spreadsheets to run their business are waging a losing battle for efficiency,” said Shane Jackson, vice president marketing, ServiceNow. “With ServiceNow, IT can work side-by-side with business users – or even enable them to develop applications on their own – to automate all kinds of service-oriented tasks in literally any business function.”

This ServiceNow release is immediately available.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Dave Wright .