If you’re a business leader looking to streamline workflows and improve efficiency, you may have heard about ServiceNow. This cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) has gained popularity with IT professionals, CIOs, and business leaders across industries.
But, what does ServiceNow do, and what is it actually used for? These questions can be tricky to answer because ServiceNow can do a lot of things. Keep reading to better understand what ServiceNow is for, its top features, and how you can use ServiceNow in your business.
What Does ServiceNow Do?
In the most basic sense, ServiceNow is a platform that lets you automate workflows throughout your business. Automating business processes — including IT, employee, and customer processes — increases productivity and efficiency in proactive problem solving and service delivery.
The platform also lets you link your workflows together to eliminate silos and promote collaboration and cooperation. For example, in the past, you may have had an automation system for each department. While you were automating business tasks, these systems couldn’t communicate with one another, leaving gaps in your overall service. You’d still have to talk to someone in the department to get the information you need.
With ServiceNow, all of your business workflows are integrated together. This means employees won’t have to waste time looking for a point of contact or requesting information. Instead, they can access exactly what they need to keep production moving.
Top ServiceNow Features
While the idea of an automation platform isn’t new, ServiceNow’s expanded capabilities make it a top choice for CIOs and IT professionals looking to improve workflows in their business. And like many cloud-based IT platforms, ServiceNow integration is designed to be simple, with little to no downtime for your business.
Let’s take a closer look at some of ServiceNow’s best features and how you can use them to benefit your organization.
- Nearly Endless Integrations: Whether you’re integrating ServiceNow solutions or wanting to use ServiceNow processes with legacy systems, ServiceNow gives you almost unlimited ways to connect your IT system to the rest of your business. For example, you can use ServiceNow to synchronize information between various data sources like on-premise systems or cloud-based CRM and ERP platforms.
- Top Cloud-Based Platform: ServiceNow is a leader in the PaaS industry and is a giant among cloud-based platforms. You can be sure your information is protected by top-level security, and you won’t need to worry about excessive downtime from technical difficulties when using the platform. Being cloud-based also means ServiceNow doesn’t require additional on-premise infrastructure. You won’t have to invest in new servers and the cost to maintain them.
- Business Process Automation: The main feature of ServiceNow is the ability to automate business processes, especially those related to IT workflows. Automated business processes make your business run smoother. Employees spend less time manually entering or analyzing data and more time working on projects to improve their business. Use ServiceNow to create streamlined workflows throughout your business for a more efficient environment.
- Easy-to-Use: Even with a range of features, configurations, and customization available, ServiceNow is designed to be easy to install and set up. You can use an out-of-the-box pre-built package to start automating your business processes right away. You don’t need extensive technical knowledge to implement the system.
- Robust and Powerful: One of the drawbacks of platforms that offer a lot of features is they sometimes lack the power to run all of those features. ServiceNow isn’t one of those platforms. Its systems are powerful and robust enough to run all of your processes without missing a beat.
- Low-Code Application Building: Perhaps the most unique feature of ServiceNow is the low-code application builder. This lets you quickly build ServiceNow business applications using a convenient drag-and-drop builder. You can easily use the program to test your applications and fine-tune them for publishing. When your application is ready to go, you can publish it from the system.
- Customizable and Scalable: You can use an out-of-the-box solution to get started in ServiceNow quickly. However, like most cloud-based systems, ServiceNow can easily be customized and configured to meet your unique business needs. As your business changes and grows, you can continue adding new ServiceNow apps and features to help you leverage the power of the platform and automate your business processes.
Where Can You Use ServiceNow in Your Business?
A platform that can automate a lot of your business processes and streamline workflows can help almost any business. However, it can be difficult to imagine where you might use ServiceNow in your business. Let’s take a closer look at how you can use ServiceNow in IT and employee workflows.
- IT Management: ServiceNow began as an IT ticketing system, so it’s no wonder many of the platform’s features are designed for IT service management. One of the best uses of ServiceNow for IT departments is changing from reacting to service requests to proactively managing business IT needs. This is done by transforming manual processes into simple, automated workflows that move quickly through digital infrastructure.
- Employee Workflows: As it’s grown, the ServiceNow platform has evolved to offer automated workflows to more than just your IT team. Using ServiceNow, you can give employees the tools they need to solve problems and get answers on their own. For example, you can build a unified service center that acts as a helpdesk, virtual service agent, and self-service resource for employees.
Learn More About ServiceNow with 5P Consulting
There are lots of different ways to implement ServiceNow into your business. Whether you want to automate your IT process for faster service times or introduce an employee-first strategy using HR workflows, ServiceNow is one of the best options to automate your business and run more efficiently.
While ServiceNow is designed to be user-friendly, choosing the right configuration and learning to use a new program can slow down business productivity. The help of a ServiceNow consultant, like 5P, lets you get your platform set up correctly and gives you the resources for you and your employees to start using the platform right away. As a result, you’ll have less downtime as your business gets used to using the new system.
Learn more about ServiceNow and find out how it can help your business by getting a free consultation from 5P today.