The Impact of ServiceNow Challenges on Business Velocity

Like any other complex system, even a powerful tool such as ServiceNow can be managed effectively if it's true potential is realized. Unfortunately, many organizations struggle with specific challenges that can significantly impact business velocity. Some of these factors and their impact are:

 

  • Change and release management: When these processes are hindered by manual tasks, approvals, and lack of visibility, they can severely slow down business operations. Innovation slows as new features and improvements are delayed, negatively impacting time to market and eroding competitive advantage.
  • Challenging upgrade process: Lengthy and complex upgrades can become a continuous burden, diverting teams from their core responsibilities and negatively impacting productivity. Furthermore, customer satisfaction may decline if system outages or performance issues arise during the upgrade, creating a highly disruptive situation.
  • Platform costs: Inefficient platform use can lead to financial burdens that can divert resources away from strategic initiatives, hindering growth and innovation.

 

Let us understand how we can overcome these challenges and boost business velocity.


Overcoming Challenges with Change and Release Management

In the ServiceNow world, change and release management are interconnected processes that ensure the smooth implementation of updates and modifications to the platform.

 

  • Change management is the structured approach to controlling the lifecycle of changes to IT services. It involves planning, authorizing, and documenting changes to ensure minimal disruption to business operations.
  • Release management is the process of planning, building, testing, and deploying software releases into production. It involves coordinating the release process across teams and ensuring that the release meets business objectives.

 

The Role of Automation in Streamlining Change and Release Management

Automation is a powerful tool for streamlining both change and release management processes. By automating repetitive tasks, organizations can:

  • Accelerate release cycles: Reduce manual effort and streamline the process, allowing for a 65% faster time-to-market.
  • Improve accuracy: Minimize human error through automated testing and deployment, leading to a 95% reduction in production defects.
  • Enhance visibility: Gain better insights into the release process with real-time data, ensuring faster User Acceptance Testing (UAT) sign-off and go-live.
  • Increase frequency: Enable more frequent releases without compromising quality.

With inMorphis's expertise, businesses can reduce their ServiceNow delivery time by 30% and achieve a 70% reduction in manual testing efforts.


Accelerating Upgrades with CI/CD Pipelines

CI/CD, or Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (or Deployment), is a series of software development practices that automate the build, test, and deployment processes. It helps create a rapid pipeline where code changes are moved from development to production. CI/CD significantly reduces manual effort and the potential for human error.

According to a recent report, CI/CD trends highlight the widespread adoption of DevOps and continuous delivery practices. It emphasizes the influence of well-integrated technologies, the importance of security testing in CI/CD pipelines, and the potential impact of using multiple CD tools on deployment performance.

Benefits of Implementing a CI/CD Pipeline for ServiceNow

 

A well-structured CI/CD pipeline offers various benefits for ServiceNow upgrades, which are as follows:

 

  • Accelerated upgrade cycles: Reduced manual intervention leads to faster upgrade completion times.
  • Improved quality: Automated testing catches defects early, ensuring a higher quality upgrade.
  • Increased reliability: Consistent and repeatable processes can significantly minimize the risk of errors.
  • Enhanced collaboration: CI/CD encourages better collaboration between development, testing, and operations teams.
  • Faster time-to-market: By streamlining the upgrade process, new features and improvements can be delivered more quickly.


Strategies to Build a Successful CI/CD Pipeline for ServiceNo

  • Define your pipeline stages: Determine the steps involved in your upgrade process, from code changes to deployment.
  • Choose the right tools: Select CI/CD tools that integrate with ServiceNow and meet your team's needs.
  • Create a version control system: Establish a central repository for your ServiceNow code and configurations.
  • Automate build and test processes: Create scripts to build and test your ServiceNow instance.
  • Set up deployment environments: Create multiple environments such as development, testing, staging, and production for gradual rollout.
  • Implement continuous monitoring: Track your pipeline's performance and identify improvement areas.
  • Foster a DevOps culture: Vitalize collaboration and shared responsibility between development and operations teams.

Optimizing Platform Costs and Operations

Though ServiceNow is a powerful tool, it can also be expensive if not managed carefully. Some of the standard cost drivers include:

  • Excessive customization: Overly customized cases can be costly to maintain and upgrade.
  • Inefficient resource utilization: Underutilized or overprovisioned resources lead to wasted spending.
  • Complex workflows: Inefficient processes can increase operational costs and slow productivity.
  • Data growth: A volume expansion can drive up storage and processing costs.
  • Third-party integrations: Additional licenses and maintenance fees can contribute to overall costs.

Organizations can significantly reduce costs, improve efficiency, and accelerate time-to-market by centralizing change and release management processes with CI/CD pipelines. Fewer errors and faster resolution allocation can lead to lower operational expenses. Additionally, rapid development and deployment cycles can generate more revenue.

Strategies for Optimizing ServiceNow Platform Costs

To optimize ServiceNow platform costs, consider these strategies:

  • Regular cost assessments: Conduct periodic reviews to identify cost-saving opportunities.
  • Right sizing instances: Ensure resources align with workload requirements.
  • Leverage native capabilities: Utilize ServiceNow's built-in features to reduce reliance on customizations.
  • Optimize data storage: Implement data retention policies and consider data compression.
  • Consolidate applications: Combine multiple instances where possible to reduce licensing costs.
  • Negotiate contracts: Always review contracts with ServiceNow and third-party vendors to identify potential savings.


The Role of Automation in Cost Reduction

Automation is a powerful tool for cost reduction:

  • Automating routine tasks: Free up staff for more strategic work, such as process improvement and innovation
  • Improving accuracy: Reduce errors and rework, saving time and money.
  • Optimizing resource allocation: Automatically adjust resources based on demand.
  • Enhancing reporting: Automate data collection and analysis for better decision-making.

By combining these strategies, organizations can significantly reduce ServiceNow platform costs while improving overall efficiency and performance.

 

Case Study: Optimizing ServiceNow Release Management

inMorphis partnered with a leading public sector entity to address critical challenges in their ServiceNow release management. The client faced multiple challenges, including high production defect rates, inefficient testing processes, and delays in UAT and Go-Live.

 

Solutions by inMorphis

inMorphis implemented the following strategic blend of manual and automated testing:

 

  • Automation Tools: Utilized AutomatePro and Postman for complex scenario automation.
  • Shift-Left Approach: Early defect discovery through story refinement sessions.
  • Data-Driven Testing: Enhanced efficiency with reusable test blocks and a comprehensive test suite.

 

Results

  • 95% reduction in production defects
  • Faster UAT sign-off and go-live
  • 65% reduction in regression testing efforts
  • 70% reduction in manual testing

Conclusion

inMorphis, as a ServiceNow invested partner, is committed to helping organizations achieve their full potential with ServiceNow. Our expertise in change and release management, CI/CD, and platform optimization can deliver 3x faster business velocity. We can help you streamline change and release management by up to 50%, reducing errors and accelerating deployment times. Additionally, we can optimize your platform, reduce expenses, and boost efficiency.

If you’re ready to transform your ServiceNow operations, contact inMorphis today for a consultation.