IT Service Management Blueprint

Accelerate Service Delivery with Automation

Start

2

Are Manual Processes Draining Your Productivity?

There are many factors that contribute to lost productivity among your IT staff —recurring requests, repetitive problems, and too many manual processes. Your IT staff might be running in circles, with little to show for it. That’s when it’s time to accelerate service delivery with automation.

Automation can significantly impact and alleviate commonly reported service desk difficulties.

Automation lets your team thrive by:

• Reducing cycle times and empowering employees to get more work done faster

• Increasing IT and employee productivity and allowing you to reallocate time and resources

• Replacing error-prone, manual tasks with automated processes that remove human error and eliminate costly rework

• Boosting customer satisfaction by tracking your net promoter score (NPS) and using those insights to continue improving services

< BACK NEXT >

If these challenges sound familiar, you will want to read on. In this eBook, we’ll explore how automating service delivery processes can transform ITSM into a modern, reliable experience that will help you reclaim lost productivity. You’ll learn about the objectives and benefits of automation, best practices for getting started, and useful measurements for gauging progress and demonstrating the success of your automation efforts over time.

MODERNIZE YOUR SERVICE DESK

CONSUMERIZETHE USER EXPERIENCE

ACCELERATEYOUR SERVICES

CONSOLIDATEFRAGMENTED TOOLS

3

Envision How It Could BeWith Automation

Imagine entering the office with the confidence that your team can handle anything that hits the service desk. Incoming incidents and issues are routed and resolved promptly. Human error—resulting from tedious, manual processes—is a thing of the past. And your IT team members, freed from cycles of recurring requests, are able to focus their attention on more strategic issues while developing more valuable skills.

This is the promise of automation. By automating your service desk with the right ITSM solution, you can modernize your IT service delivery for a user experience that keeps pace with the demands of your business. Automation is powerful, and as you begin examining your service desk for automation opportunities, aim high and set substantial goals, like the following examples:

• Replace manual work with automated processes wherever possible

• This can enable you to deliver more efficiently with predictable timelines

• In some cases, cycle times can even be reduced to zero

30% or Greater Reduction in Cycle Times

< BACK NEXT >

• Automation gives hours back to your IT team and users

• Allocate those hours to your priority projects

• Your team can get more done in the same amount of time

50% or Greater Increase in Productivity

• Error-riddled manual processes now become foolproof

• Eliminate costly mistakes that create delays and require rework

25% or Greater Reduction in Error Rates

• Speed up processes such as issue resolution and request management

• Allow your users to get work done faster

• Enable end-to-end self service by automating routine requests

20% or Greater Increase in Customer Satisfaction

4

Seek Out High Risk Processes

Look for Complex Processes that Cross Departments

Inspect Processes to Evaluate Frequency of Execution

Accelerate Your Services With Automation Best Practices

Automation has the power to unlock significant IT value by streamlining manual processes formerly constrained by complexity, frequency, and risk. Before embarking on a course of action for automating your processes, your first step is to consolidate your service desk to a single system of record. Consolidation reduces redundancies in your processes, offering rapid ROI and ensuring that you aren’t automating processes that don’t need to be executed in the first place. Consolidation also simplifies your ITSM solution and makes it easier to build and maintain automation. To learn more about Consolidation, see ServiceNow’s eBook, Consolidate: Get Control of Your Service Desk.

After you’ve consolidated, assess the current state of your service desk to pinpoint the areas where automation can deliver considerable returns. The following best practices will serve as your guide for automating your ITSM environment:

Select a few very manual, repetitive processes that, once automated, will result in significant business impact. This could include something as simple as automating the workflow for managing employee requests.

< BACK NEXT >

Apply the 80/20 Rule to Identify and Analyze Manual Processes

Rather than automating processes that surface infrequently in your business, seek out recurring, manual processes to automate—password resets are a popular example. Over the long haul, the automation of recurring processes will produce a significant aggregated impact on overall service desk performance.

Manual, cross-departmental processes are often error-prone, incurring rework, costs, and delays. Automating change management processes helps ensure that planned changes don’t interrupt business and that all stakeholders are included in the approval process.

These are processes where delays or human error cause substantial, negative impact. Automating controls for a process such as user account de-provisioning will reduce your risk during SOX-compliance audits. Failure to pass a SOX-compliance audit can, in turn, lead to reduced IT productivity and increased audit costs.

5

Measuring the Success ofYour Automation Efforts

< BACK NEXT >

Determine key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you assess, improve, and demonstrate the impact of your automation efforts over time. Use the following KPIs to track and measure your automation effectiveness:

Track resolution cycle times to monitor improvement in service delivery speed.

Cycle Times

Identify areas to automate by tracking incidents. Measure overall hours saved and resources allocated.

Productivity

Tally error rate reduction, especially for complex tasks that formerly required significant manual intervention.

Quality of Output

Calculate the number of manual controls being automated and measure this against increases in IT productivity and reduced auditor hours.

Risk Mitigation

Survey users regularly with simple questionnaires at request or incident closure for insight into trends regarding your net promoter score (NPS).

Customer Satisfaction

6

Real-World Customers Automate With ServiceNow

< BACK NEXT >

With 13,000 employees, Swiss Re had to deal with approximately 380,000 IT service requests each year. ServiceNow helped Swiss Re replace multiple separate applications, improving management and service delivery across the enterprise. Now, their IT staff can better react to and prioritize high impact activities.

After Standard Life simplified 1800 service list items down to 50, they saw an immediate improvement in SLA performance.

When you automate your service desk processes with the right ITSM platform, you eliminate the

manual processes that hamper productivity while unlocking efficiencies that drive business success.

Automation empowers your team by replacing manual work with automated processes, reducing

cycle times, reallocating resources, and overall boosting employee satisfaction.

Continue your journey to IT modernization.

Keep Modernizing IT Service Management

< BACK NEXT >

7

Keep modernizing your IT. After automation, your next

step toward IT modernization is consumerizing the user

experience. Find out how you can leverage Self-Service Portals,

Service Catalogs, and Knowledge Management to support your

employees and keep business moving forward.

© 2016 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved.

ServiceNow believes information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. This publication could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. The information is subject to

change without notice. Changes are periodically added to the information herein; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication. ServiceNow may make improvements and/

or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this publication at any time. Reproduction of this publication without prior written permission is forbidden. The information in this

publication is provided “as is.” ServiceNow makes no representations or warranties of any kind, with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of

merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. ServiceNow and the ServiceNow logo are registered trademarks of ServiceNow. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered

trademarks of their respective holders.

< BACK

8