Digital transformation is changing the way that businesses of all industries and sizes get work done and interact with their customers. These changes to the world of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) are coming fast, and they’re coming quickly. To keep pace and maintain your competitive edge, it’s essential that you understand how ServiceNow’s approach to delivering and managing enterprise services is likely to evolve over the next few years. Let’s explore five key trends in digital transformation that will reshape ESM by 2020:
1. IT will partner seamlessly with non-IT teams to drive ESM transformation: IT has traditionally been seen as the de-facto leader in the modernization of services across an organization. But that paradigm will fundamentally change over the next few years. IT will no longer lead the charge in automating and streamlining services through ServiceNow; the driving force for ServiceNow-powered ESM initiatives will instead be the partnerships that will be forged between IT and non-IT counterparts. These non-IT teams, which encompass sales, marketing, operations, HR, and other business units, will not only step up to the plate to work toward ESM transformation, but also will proactively drive planning and decision-making.
2. CIOs will become ESM leaders: While CIOs have traditionally been valued for their technical expertise and leadership on technology initiatives, the CIO role is expanding rapidly. CIOs will continue to be valued for their technical expertise, but they will increasingly be called upon to develop and lead ESM transformation initiatives. These initiatives will require the CIO to connect technological advances to strategic business goals, especially customer-centric goals that revolve around improving the customer experience. Making the connection between technology and the customer experience hasn’t traditionally been the domain of the CIO, but it will be in the next few years.
3. Employees will be freed up to focus on higher-value initiatives: As organizations automate delivery and management of enterprise services using ServiceNow, they will find that their employees have much more time on their hands. Organizations will learn how to channel this human talent into higher-value initiatives that drive bottom-line results and, most importantly, lead to an enhanced and optimized customer experience.
4. Artificial intelligence will be integrated fully into ESM: Artificial intelligence technology that replaces live customer service agents has so far been largely a novelty that organizations are just starting to deploy and test. Over the next few years, organizations will learn how to use AI effectively to improve—not hinder—the customer service experience. Future iterations of ServiceNow, in turn, will more comprehensively integrate AI into customer service management tools and capabilities.
5. Analytics will be used to generate more actionable intelligence: ServiceNow’s big-data analytical capabilities are just starting to become part of business intelligence and decision-making processes. In the next few years, these analytics will comprehensively and fully drive how businesses allocate resources and make their short- and long-term planning decisions. These insights will eliminate reliance on intuition and arbitrary, instinctive decision-making.
Digital transformation is fundamentally changing the Service Management landscape. As organizations learn how to effectively and optimally integrate ESM principles into their core business processes, a number of key changes will happen: non-IT teams will proactively partner with IT to drive ESM transformations, CIOs will become more than just technology leaders, employees will be freed up to focus on higher-value initiatives, AI will be integrated fully into ESM and ServiceNow, and big-data analytics will become the holy grail for generating actionable business intelligence.
If you’re interested in a much deeper dive into the digital transformation trends that will reshape ESM over the next few years, you should be sure to check out Crossfuze’s on-demand webinar Flash-Forward to 2020. In this webinar, you’ll hear from a panel of ServiceNow and industry experts on what the future of digital services transformation holds and how you can capitalize on these trends to ride the wave to ServiceNow success. Click here to view Crossfuze’s Flash-Forward to 2020 webinar.
