Today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape can either be a hindrance or a step up for companies, depending on their willingness and ability to try new products and services and then maintain them over time. With the right leadership and governance, businesses that embrace new technology have a distinct advantage over their competitors that are risk-averse. According to research from McKinsey, executives at companies with a strong culture of innovation were more likely to succeed in implementing new technology—in turn, they had a competitive edge over companies with a weak culture.
The ServiceNow platform is a powerful tool for businesses looking to leverage technology to improve processes, services, and more for their employees and customers. An episode of The Distillery looked into the challenges and successes one company encountered in using ServiceNow and replatforming to best suit its needs.
Chris Skaggs is the ServiceNow global product owner at the AES Corporation, a large global electric utility. He has worked in the ServiceNow ecosystem for more than 10 years in various capacities, including as a solutions consultant, administrator, and technical consultant. He has vast experience in implementing ServiceNow and putting the platform to work for companies. Now, at AES, Chris has been involved in replatforming ServiceNow to meet the company’s evolving needs. Here are some of the insights he has gained from undertaking a replatforming to utilize ServiceNow’s full potential.
Addressing technical debt
Using new technologies to solve pain points for a business is often a great solution, but it can turn into a problem if not done strategically and with proper governance. Failing to keep up with upgrades, implementing a new application rather than maintaining an existing one, and creating too many niche solutions can lead to technical debt. Over time, a company can deal with excess applications and out-of-date solutions that take up precious time and financial resources to upkeep.
Chris says that the first step to understanding what changes needed to be made with ServiceNow at AES was to look at the technical debt the corporation was dealing with. As with many businesses willing and eager to innovate, AES adopted ServiceNow and dove into customizations to achieve solutions. Over time, however, many of those customized solutions were no longer providing the most effective service, and technical debt began to build up. As Chris explains, a clear sign that the company was dealing with technical debt was the number of items that had not been updated regularly.
“And when you start seeing that number creep over a few hundred, 500 plus—and in our case, we were looking at probably around 1,500 skipped items just on the most recent upgrade—that lets you know that there’s probably a lot of customization, right?” Chris says. “A lot of technical debt going on within the platform.”
Technical debt can lead to significant costs for a company as the apps and modules need more individual attention from IT, do not get updated properly, or perhaps even go unused. At AES, Chris says the numerous customizations that were developed meant the company did not get the full benefits of major releases from ServiceNow, as the customizations would not be updated. The customizations that once worked well for the business were now just technical debt that held it back.
Replatforming
At AES, the decision was made to replatform with ServiceNow and essentially start from scratch to utilize the out-of-the-box options and achieve a healthy platform across the board. Chris says ServiceNow no longer uses customizations as it did before but rather allows for configurations to the existing system. This allows major updates to take place across the platform and gives users access to powerful new capabilities as they are released.
When AES first began using ServiceNow, the platform had fewer capabilities. The corporation frequently used App Engine to design custom solutions. While the module gave the business solutions that Chris says worked perfectly for what they needed, the company was dealing with over-customization. “Those were a big piece, I think, of some of that technical debt we talk about,” Chris says. With replatforming, the company is able to use more modules from the start and then determine over time which ServiceNow services to bring on board, such as HRSD, without taking on technical debt.
Establishing governance
A lack of governance is often a major culprit behind technical debt, and it can often contribute to poor outcomes. According to Gartner, an estimated 80 percent of companies trying to scale digital projects will fail due to poor governance. In the case of AES, Chris says the company worked with a managed service partner in the past with ServiceNow. There was not enough oversight when requests were sent to the partner to develop solutions in ServiceNow, which led to a high number of customizations for various entities within the organization.
In conjunction with replatforming, Chris says it was critical to establish strong governance to ensure that there is a process that is followed and people who take ownership over what changes are necessary and which are not. There is now an approval process for requests with people who take ownership over specific modules to determine the most important needs before making requests with the managed services partner. “We basically gatekeep and say, ‘Does it make sense for us to proceed with this? Is it going to create technical debt going forward?’”
Roadmapping for future growth
Companies with an innovative culture, like AES, cannot just implement new technology and then fail to move forward. It is critical to continually be open to building upon the technology and embrace advancements as they emerge. Chris says this line of thinking contributed to the decision to move forward with a ServiceNow replatform rather than continue to try and make their customizations work. With a replatforming, Chris says the company has the capability to put generative AI to use.
GenAI, machine learning, and automation give companies the ability to streamline processes and turn over manual tasks to AI. The key to using this technology well is a strong knowledge base, and replatforming gives AES the ability to create that strong knowledge base. “We’re building the foundation to allow us to use GenAI and use that successfully and properly,” Chris says. “If we have a bad knowledge base, if we have a bunch of bad foundational data within ServiceNow, GenAI can only take us so far. And so we’re getting that strong foundation in place.”
ServiceNow gives innovation-minded companies a powerfully dynamic platform with configurations that can address a variety of needs. The decision to undertake a ServiceNow replatforming, along with strong governance and oversight, gives AES the opportunity for a more streamlined and adaptable ServiceNow environment.
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You're working in a rapidly shifting environment.
Global dynamics, AI advancements, heavy competition–the only certainty is change.
We get it. And we’re here to help you harness the full potential of ServiceNow to simplify transformation.
Let's navigate the future together.
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We’re with you for what comes next
You're working in a rapidly shifting environment.
Global dynamics, AI advancements, heavy competition–the only certainty is change.
We get it. And we’re here to help you harness the full potential of ServiceNow to simplify transformation.
Let's navigate the future together.
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