Solving the 5 Biggest ITSM Pain Points

The adoption of ServiceNow has skyrocketed over the past decade. As the popular IT service management (ITSM) platform has grown, it has added features that unlock new capabilities for users. These features help organizations modernize their IT operations through intuitive employee experiences, artificial intelligence and embedded analytics. However, many organizations are not taking advantage of these modern features; in many cases they’re still using ServiceNow as little more than a ticketing system.   

Often, organizations are hampered by inefficient environments, ineffective processes and a lack of contextual data that make it difficult to maximize the value of their investment in ServiceNow. We see the following five pain points over and over again.

Many organizations let technical debt pile up, failing to address it as long as it isn’t having a drastic impact on their IT operations. Often, they’ve implemented custom workflows and configurations to support business needs, but are now dealing with the constant evaluation, testing and updating necessary to stay current on the platform upgrade path. This type of technical debt frequently prevents organizations from taking advantage of ServiceNow’s new features and capabilities.

In organizations where workers have inconsistent ITSM practices, it is impossible to fully leverage the ServiceNow platform. Though the platform provides inherent service management capabilities, many organizations do not enforce good practices to take full advantage. Good practices include cleat roles, responsibilities and management of workflow across functional teams, which reduces the effort to solve operational issues, prevents recurring issues and lowers organizational risk through good change management.

Too often, teams are siloed in different tools, systems and applications. ServiceNow’s modernization value proposition hinges on binding disparate functions and activities into a streamlined, centralized environment. The power of the platform is managing work across functional teams using a single system of action. This greatly improves collaboration and provides the engine for efficiency and workflow automation that powers modern features, like automated support assignments and task generation.

An organization’s configuration management database (CMDB) is key to enabling modern ITSM functionality. Support teams must be able to quickly identify which IT group is responsible for a given service or application, get visibility into the underlying systems and technology, and quickly trigger steps to resolve the issue. This operational data is managed in the CMDB, but all too often, organizations struggle to keep the data accurate and complete, which results in poor operational performance. Modernization of ITSM hinges on a properly functioning CMDB with service-aligned contextual data.

Each of the previous four pain points compounds the lack of relevant and timely information that provides visibility into core ITSM practices and performance. Some organizations get by with tribal knowledge, but that can only take you so far. Operational visibility provides the critical information to move ITSM to the next level with reduced MTTR, fewer recurring problems and workflow automation, all in a service-aware environment.  

Collectively, these pain points can seem overwhelming. To truly get to the heart of these issues, many organizations find they need to rely on a trusted partner with the experience and expertise to guide them along their journeys.    

CDW ServiceNow Solutions offers an ITSM modernization approach with quick time-to-value options to get you on the right path. This includes working with stakeholders to align and prioritize use cases that provide outcomes important to your organization. We help you align your core ITSM practice areas to support your outcomes and leverage platform features that provide modernization capabilities.   

When charting a path forward on ITSM, business and IT leaders must consider the cost of doing nothing. Inaction may lead to slow innovation, poor collaboration on call resolutions and a reactive (or “firefighting”) approach to managing their IT environments. Ultimately, this leads to service outages that impact your core business. By investing in good service management practices and industry-leading platforms like ServiceNow, organizations can achieve faster incident resolutions, improve operational visibility and make their agents more productive.

Story by Dale Landowski, a champion of extending the IT value chain by leveraging digital product and service management practices that provide strong linkage to business strategies. He is a strategic thinker focused on holistic solutions with cost-competitive and customer-centric features.

Dale brings a diverse background and a big-picture mindset to IT challenges. His career journey includes leadership roles in enterprise architecture, data center operations, product management, ServiceNow program management and executive-level consulting. He is the ServiceNow solutions IT service management practice manager.