O2I Implemented ServiceNow to Improve Workflow & Catalog for a US-based Client

The Client

The client whom we served is a construction and construction material conglomerate based in Mainland US. They are a recipient of the 2021 CIO 100 award and are also an S&P index member. The client has a separate recognition in verticals such as mineral exploration, water infrastructure, and transportation.

Client's Requirement

The client was urged to approach O2I because they felt that their existing ServiceNow functionalities needed improvement as they seemed out of spec with the prevailing standards. The client sought to have more processes appended to ServiceNow so it'll serve more dynamically in the customer workflow, passively allowing more ITIL processes (service operation and service transition) to be introduced.

Another area in which the client wanted our intervention was to ensure IT consistency across departments under the collaboration.

Business Challenges

• The client was already an adopter of ServiceNow and hadn't evolved the original functionality. As time flew, they realized gaps in capability as requirements too evolved to meet the increasingly complex business. This prompted the client to want a third-party provider (us) to equip them with functionalities that are better capable of meeting requirements. All that while a parallel plan was spun to expand the current business processes under ServiceNow.
• One of the keynotes of the project was to implement processes that aligned with the end customers' workflow. Ultimately, the goal was to induct ITIL processes governing service ops and service transition while improving the consistency of IT service in local departments. The challenge facing the client was due to a shortage of ServiceNow resources skilled in ServiceCatalog, CMDB, and ServicePortal implementation. Because of this, they could not move cohesively to overcome cumbersome, monotonous, and slow experiences.
• The above challenges resulted in the under-adoption of ServiceNow across the client's organization and proved the process integration was a critical need.

O2I's Solution

What we did for the client started by addressing challenges that fell into three main categories and they were as follows -

1. The Employee Equipment Category

   In this category, we enabled the client's team to engage the customer's IT department and inquire about procedures concerning equipment including keyboards, tablets, computers, headsets, and so on. To extend complete support, O2I's implementation experts created catalog items extending from the category. The items we designed allowed customers to raise a request for repairing faulty equipment, new equipment, equipment handover form, as well as performance test following repairs.

2. The Access Rights Category

   In this category, we implemented features that allowed employees to receive access rights. Our team developed catalog items that provided employees the requested permission, tools, equipment, and information resources.

3. The Financial Operation Category

   We streamlined the ability of the client's financial department to raise a service request. On customer's insistence, under catalog items, we created features such as refund request, invoice annulment, invoice request, purchase order, and so on.

It was a tremendous task to ensure ServiceCatalog requests were handled as per the business process of the client. So we developed the following ServiceNow workflow -

While various processes were defined by the workflow, they often summarized identical procedures in sequence. In the flow we designed, the service requests had to have the approval of an established authority so that the request is deemed valid. This allowed employees with the priority needs to get their requests serviced on priority. As customers' organizational structure was complex, we were prompted by circumstances to create all-inclusive and elastic rules for defining employees and approving certain requests automatically. When ServiceNow realized the granted approval through a set of factors defining the request, it would create a complex system of tasks to fulfill the request. Must of the tasks that arrived on priority were moved into the roster of qualified specialists to be completed as a time-bound request.

We were tasked by the client to develop a feature that allowed ordering several catalog items in one fell swoop within the multilevel service requests -

Despite ServiceNow offering multiple functionalities by default, it wasn't enough to satisfy the client and they ordered having it more tailor-made for their needs. Within the features, we designed, were options to display all possible service orders covering more than one catalog item. For instance, within the multilevel service request workplace creation necessitated preparation of relevant documentation, booking different equipment, provision of access rights, creation of user accounts, and so on. Our feature enabled the automatic filing of suborders to be processed as part of pre-existing workflows.

It proved handy knowing the ServiceNow and ITIL practices as the knowledge helped O2I's team of ITSM experts to draw conclusive solution underpinning these 5 processes -

• Incident Management

  While we know that incident management aims to restore normalcy in the service ops whilst cutting the risk to business ops by half in addition to sustaining quality, there's more ServiceNow can office. Especially, in the following ways -

  • Whenever incidents are triggered, the event is logged. It is also possible to create logs via email
  • Incident classification based on impact and priority
  • Mapping incident response roles to the relevant team
  • Facilitate escalation for further investigation
  • Incident resolution and notification to the source
  • Monitoring, tracking, and analyzing service levels and offering improvement

• Change Management

  Improved the ability of the organization to understand and collaborate to cut down risks from penetrating the IT ecosystem.

• Knowledge Management

  Knowledge management via ServiceNow facilitated create of knowledge bases for employees, customers, and agents. The outcome was great as it allowed the delegation of tasks to managers and members deep in the hierarchy.

• Request Fulfilment

  If you request fulfillment through ServiceNow, it enables the creation of requests from catalog items under the service catalog. The request may be as simple as ordering IT assets and requesting facility compliance to posing specific questions to HR. Change management is the process to manage all changes to a production ops environment in its entirety.

• Configuration Management

  It's so easy to use the ServiceNow Configuration because it's a cloud-based centralized record system for IT infra and digital data. Aside from that, configuration management is designed to support a dynamic virtualized and cloud ecosystem with a vast amount of real-time visibility into tasks.

The Result

The client received our custom ITSM solution for the following processes - Request Fulfillment, Knowledge Management, Incident Management, Configuration Management, and Change Management. The implementation of the project allowed standardization and consolidation of IT workflows.

From the outset of change brought about by our solution to the client's ServiceNow catalog, it allowed employees to place a request for employee equipment, access rights, and financial ops. All the requests raised within the customer's business processes were supported by ServiceNow workflows. Our custom functionality at multilevel service requests ensured that the employees needn't have in-depth knowledge of the categories. It was enough for them to possess a basic understanding as to the system automatically associated the order types with the relevant activities. Thus, significantly improving submission and fulfillment of multilevel orders.

Outsource Enterprise Solutions to Outsource2india

Regardless of how complex your IT challenges are, we have the right skillset and qualified teams to implement cutting-edge enterprise solutions to streamline the way your client interacts with the touchpoint as part of the workflow. Our experience in this vast and dynamic industry goes further back 25 years where our journey began. Today, we are among the best enterprise solution makers and industry mover on whom the customers count on to improve their business outcomes sustainably. So if you have a complex IT problem, we have the solution that will make your experience from good to great.

Contact us today if you have a similar need as the client we served and we'll help you adopt a unique and productive solution.

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