10 Pillars of ServiceNow Success for CIOs – Pillar 10: Creating a Fully Integrated ServiceNow Ecosystem

Welcome to Part X of Crossfuze’s 10 Pillars of ServiceNow Success for CIOs blog series!

First, a story to illustrate the challenge of fully integrating your ServiceNow ecosystem: Kyle is an experienced CIO who successfully transformed ITSM processes across his company by rolling out ServiceNow. Mid-level managers and the C-suite alike have immediately taken note of how much meaningful data they have at their fingertips—insightful analytics that helps them in areas such as resource planning, cost management, and staff productivity. Now, these same folks who have enthusiastically embraced ServiceNow are asking: Why don’t our other systems offer these same insights? Can we route all of our data through ServiceNow? Kyle knows these are exactly the right questions to be asking, and he also knows that integrations are the next logical steps to take along his ServiceNow roadmap. The problem is that Kyle feels overwhelmed; he doesn’t know where to start, nor how to proceed in the most expeditious, efficient manner possible.

Crossfuze works with clients that are facing exactly Kyle’s challenge. Once an enterprise gets a taste of the power and adaptability of ServiceNow, there’s a sudden demand to transform more business processes and to bring all of this disconnected data under the umbrella of a fully integrated ServiceNow ecosystem. Would it surprise you that a whopping 90% of IT professionals believe service automation should entirely replace email requests? Or that 98% say that using an ITSM model across their enterprise would improve outcomes?

As businesses achieve more and more ServiceNow victories, they will increasingly lean on their ITSM teams to unify more of their disconnected data. Let’s explore some key elements to prioritize as you build out a fully integrated ServiceNow ecosystem:

1. Enable real-time data syncing: When you look into the feasibility of importing data from other systems into ServiceNow, you may start by manually uploading your data and then determining whether it can be configured in ServiceNow. While this approach is great for experimenting, you don’t want to stop here—you’ll never achieve the automation and visibility you desire. The gold standard is continuous, real-time data syncing. This approach ensures that no matter when someone pulls data, they’re always going to get the most complete, accurate snapshot possible.
2. Create greater visibility and more transparent governance: Your strategy for moving forward with ServiceNow integrations boils down to what will get you the biggest bang for your buck–in this case ServiceNow wins. You cannot integrate every system—some for technical and logistical reasons, and others because your resources are limited. Thus, as you prioritize by effort needed and alignment to corporate goals, keep focused on integrations that offer the highest potential for improved automation. By doing so, the probability of efficiency and information visibility gains greatly increase. You also want to ensure that the integration promotes transparency and improved governance over process quality.
3. Simplify your infrastructure: Integrations can be perceived as having no downsides—until you realize they require ongoing maintenance and support. Thus, you don’t want your integration to be built with another entirely separate piece of software. Not only does third-party middleware add an unnecessary layer of complexity to the integration, it also requires additional specialized knowledge and expertise to keep things running smoothly. The best integrations are built with development code that plugs directly and seamlessly into ServiceNow, enabling you to cut down on—not add to—the number of systems you must maintain. By simplifying your infrastructure in this way, you save significant money and time while improving productivity and system reliability.
4. Minimize your coding and development work: If you find yourself developing customized code to meet your particular integration needs, you are heading down an unsustainable path. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel with integrations. Ready-to-use integration solutions exist that connect critical enterprise systems, including Salesforce and JIRA. Crossfuze’s integration solutions, for example, are developed by experts who live and breathe ServiceNow code; these are individuals who have an intimate understanding of how to provide a reliable, seamless user experience that’s easy to maintain.
5. Seek out outside expertise: As you review opportunities to integrate, and as you prioritize which integrations you’ll pursue first, you want to be realistic about your in-house abilities to evaluate feasibility issues, identify risks, and plan for potential pitfalls. ServiceNow integrations require a specialized expertise that comes only from experience. An implementation consultant, like Crossfuze, has entire teams dedicated to improving the integration experience. At the very least, they offer you another perspective or validate your approach.

ServiceNow integrations are powerful because they lead to deeper reporting capabilities that drive bottom-line efficiency and productivity. In addition, by having a well thought-out integration strategy, you unify disparate systems, improve process automation and deliver information in a consistent and timely way to departments. This is all done while lowering ongoing system maintenance costs and better utilizing your in-house IT team.

When you’re ready to move forward with your ServiceNow ecosystem via integrations, you’ll benefit from having an experienced integration consultant like Crossfuze at your side.

Thank you for reading. If you found this post informative, please consider sharing it with others. Also, if you’re interested in finding out more about creating a fully integrated ServiceNow ecosystem, letstalk@crossfuze.com.

Enjoyed this Pillar? Request your FREE copy of the 10 Pillars of ServiceNow Success book to read them all!

Related Content:

Pillar 8: Optimizing ServiceNow to drive enterprise-wide transformation

Pillar 9: Strategizing to manage demand

Attack the Costly “Complexity of Things” with Elegant Enterprise Services

Additional References:

KPMG: Move Over Email: Service Management Brings Automation to the Enterprise

CIO Insight: How Real-Time Data Boosts the Bottom Line

CIO: How to profit from your company’s ‘data streams’

CIO: The Future of IT Service Management in a World of Digital Transformation

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