Hi, everybody. Welcome to the
Crossfuze Fast 15 a segment where we
spend a quick 15 minutes discussing big topics
with a top subject matter expert. My name is Caitlin
Frank and here with me today is Shawn Wilson. Shawn leads our account team
in Canada and the eastern US. He's been with
prosecutor for five years and has worked with
hundreds of customers during that time to really
maximize their value in the ServiceNow platforms. Welcome Shawn. Thank you, Kaitlyn. It's great to be with you today. Great glad to have you. So let's dive right in. So today we're talking
about how to get more out of your investment
in the ServiceNow platform. So you know as we all
know ServiceNow is not a small investment. And especially
today organizations need to get every ounce of
that return on the investment possible. So as somebody who works
closely with I.t. leaders. What are some of
the things you're seeing organizations do
to get more value out of their ServiceNow instance. Yeah, what a great question. I'd agree on all counts that
it's generally an investment that a lot of people have eyes
on and to it to the platforms credit oftentimes,
those high expectations are set by other peers
that have enjoyed them. So So it's a great question. I think one of the sort
of foundational ways beyond just getting
it deployed correctly that people can get maximum
value is to really weaponize the data they capture. Kaitlyn what we see
over and over again, is customers that have
pockets of information all throughout the enterprise
where nobody really has visibility into
anybody else's information. And of course, a core
tenet of ServiceNow is to provide that visibility. We often talk with our
clients and lead I.t. leaders about establishing the system
of truth or the system of record by bringing all that information
into one platform almost everybody who goes to
run the service know, journey wants that to happen. They know instinctually
having all that information in
one place is better than not, the miss I see
about half the time, though. And honestly, I kind
of consider it low hanging fruit is once
we've done that for two or three months once
we've effectively moved all that positive
information into the platform everybody's using a single
instance of ServiceNow the is we should be
analyzing that data to learn about improvements
and enhancements we can make right away. I recall a conversation
I had with a CIO of a large technology
company we were working with. And he told me this
anecdotal story. He said, we got
ServiceNow deployed I've got really smart directors
and v.p. is on my staff. They proactively extracted
the data after 90 days and started analyzing it. And we found something
we never knew which was one of a
number one customer complaints with our
team was one customer or when one employee lost
a swipe card to the gym believe it or not I.t. was
responsible for replacing those swipe cards. But we had never
because it was handled in one of those
pockets of information I mentioned nobody
really understood the scope of the pain in the
organization over something. So silly as they can't
go to the gym anymore. As soon as that was
brought to their attention. They immediately
improved the process, we're able to send
the communication out to the entire organization
saying we know how tough. This was in the past. Here's a new way to do it. Go to ServiceNow go to the
service catalog make a request and we'll have you a
replacement card in 24 hours. And it was that single thing
that glimmer of information that they didn't know before. That really brought the
whole organization on board with changing the image
of the I.t. department and also wind in the
sails of ServiceNow. So that example, it was a long
way of answering your question Kaitlyn but I think the
number one thing people can do is after deploying shortly after
deploying harvest that data. Think about what are the big
problems that maybe we just didn't even know and start to
make a change in those folks professional lives. Absolutely That's a really
that's a great story. I love that it. It seems small. But the ripple effect of that. I can imagine would be so
huge for an organization like that just the amount of time
saved to address all of those. The key cards. But you mentioned you
know looking at 90 days out from an implementation
starting to look at that data. How important is the
original implementation at the start to laying
the foundation to getting that kind of data later on. You need to be having
that kind of foresight. You know if you're
already 18 months out how do you kind of miss
your opportunity to do some of this stuff. Or how would you how
do you approach that. I wouldn't. I think that enablement happens
within an I.t. department staff either organically
to your point, perhaps maybe across
the months or there's enablement by the partner. I know at cross view,
we put a big emphasis on enabling new teams on how
to use this great thing not just day to day. But in a broader sense. How do we get this data. What are the dashboards. I should be looking at outside
of you know today's issues. So I guess the answer
to your question is that learning curve
sometimes is a little longer. But doesn't mean, it's too late. Right I would
encourage any customer that we're working with,
perhaps even that has been a little static on the platform
for maybe a year or a year and a half is their data
is even more valuable because there's 18
months worth of it. So let's really start breaking
it down about, you know, what are the incidents we
see recurring over and over again, what change requests do
we see fail over and over again and why. And if we can start really
using that information again, whether there's an
18 month amount of it or three month amount of it. I think the mantra of digging
into that info and data and planning for
improvements and enhancements not to the platform. But to your end users you
know process is valuable whenever it starts. All right a year
end or two months. Sure So I mean with
you know whether it's three months or 18 months or
however many months of data. I mean, it still seems a
little bit overwhelming. So to kind of unleash
it to your team and say, hey, you know go digging
see what you can find. I mean, is that
the right approach. Or like where do you
what advice would you have for somebody
to determine where to start, where do you start. Right I think well to coin
back to the example, the story. I told you about
earlier that CIO did have a lot of
confidence in his team. In fact, he even called it out. He said, listen, I got really
smart people working for me, my investment in ServiceNow
just allowed me to hand them a bunch of business intelligence
about our organization And I could kind of stand
back and let them go. If that isn't the
case, perhaps maybe it's because of the
enablement piece not really understanding
ServiceNow, and the reporting and the buy component of it. I would recommend to you
know eat an elephant one spoon at a time. So to speak. Think about a very narrow
piece of the platform. But look at it through the
lens of improving end user experience. We know what the end users
find frustration and right. They find frustration
in technical things that break over and over
again, that should pop up in this data as
recurring incidents. We know that the end
users find frustration when they go to the
portal, and they can't find exactly what
they're looking for that should show up in service. Now when we order
ServiceNow automatically analyzes your knowledge
articles based on the incidents your people have put in
and identifies any gaps for self service. There's another example,
we know that end users don't like outages right. Outages are one of
the biggest problems. So let's look at the common
root cause I guess, of outages. And think about or at
least look at that data and see if there's any
associations or trends, we can make. So I know you were looking
for a very specific almost like a
template, but I guess my suggestion is it's
really around looking at through the lens
of the customer even if the customer is
an internal end user. That's great advice. I think. And do you think
you know, you talk about trying to find said
the root cause of things do you think using something
like like the 80-20 rule or radio analysis would be a
useful tool to kind of help you figure out where to start. Yeah Yeah. My friends and colleagues. I work with an
I.t. to your point, I think sometimes we lose
sight of that 80-20 rule and we can try
and boil the ocean or fix every single problem. But you're exactly right. You know when we think about,
well, is an example, in I.t. in the ideal world
problem management is often thought
of a process that has to do with a big
issue that happens. And once that happens,
we follow these rules. Right I know customers that
have taken that concept and started thinking of it as
proactive problem management. In other words, at
the end of every month or at the end of
every quarter, they're looking at what were the
three not 100 just three. What were the three largest
sources of incidents that we had this past
month or this past quarter. And whatever those are
they start to analyze how our knowledge articles. So that customers can
self serve is our process something we have to change. What sort of
enablement do we have to give our own people
at the service desk. So that when they're
talking to the end user about these
top three offenders they're better
equipped to resolve it. So think about that
for just a second. If you were doing
that monthly that one small item just looking
at the top three offenders analyzing them. And then creating assets to
help you support those three offenders you do that
every month for a year. You would have knocked out the
top 36 incident creating issues in your organization taking
this all the way back to your first question. If that data wasn't
all in ServiceNow. If we didn't know
how many tickets were opened if we didn't
know what our customer or end user survey scores were some
number of those 36 things would just not be fixed and
would continually churning up dissatisfaction
that would be a very simple approach that people
could get started on tomorrow. That's that. That's great to hear. Yeah, I mean, thinking on the
flip side of that, you know, we've been talking a
lot about that sort of small incremental
improvements. But what about full on
transformation mode. What if you're
looking to you know, you've been on
ServiceNow for a while and you're ready to make
a change, especially in today's world and
kind of this new normal. We're and a lot of people
are needing transformation. So how can the data in your
ServiceNow instance help to if not create a
transformation at least lay the groundwork or set
some kind of direction for transforming your operation. Yeah, that's really
a great point. What we see when customers
are trying to harvest or go through that
transformation piece that the number one
biggest challenge is never the
application or the tool. It's really around
human behavior in an organizational
change management. I know that's not
the topic for today. But as you Crossfuze puts
a big emphasis on that. So here's what I would
here's what I would suggest. And what I've seen dozens and
dozens of times with customers is that while the data
itself isn't necessarily going to drive a
transformation initiative here is what it's going to do. It's going to get everybody
in the boat with you, right. Because we're going
to make a difference. Think about the example
I gave you earlier. If there's a ton of pain
inside the employees about these replacement
swipe cards and we fix it. And we market that
fix and then we continually to send
those success stories of the top three things. Again, my second point
the top three things we remediated from last month. And we're communicating
constantly to leader and to the
customer our customer base. What you will find
is that everybody is more apt to bite
off what you're selling when you're
talking about that logit transformation. Just put a pin in
this idea right here. I'll drive it home. Many times business
unit leaders that aren't in that phase
one of ServiceNow are kind of skeptical
right that that I.t. tool is going to be
good for me and h.r. is an example. But if I.t. has
thoughtfully rolled it out started changing minds
and influencing and making friends throughout Asia. Melissa Yeah. Because of the reasons
I just shared then you know what happens in a jar. They want some of that too. And that barrier
starts to come down and suddenly it's
a jar in the PMO and the facilities
group and marketing wants EMQQ and legals interests
did vendor management team and suddenly you're full
on full on through digital transformation and
I would argue it all started with giving people
new swipe cards to the gym. Yeah, that's funny. So you're looking at thinking
transformation and thinking of the data and convincing
people to get on board. I mean, do you think that
there's potential then for actually winning more
budget internally for ServiceNow expansion efforts. No question. Yeah, no question that
the best CIO is at this really don't don't use a
business case as only a way to get initial budget. But frankly use
the business case in the delivery of that
value to get the next budget. And the things we've
been talking about just for the last few minutes become
part of that story right. We were going after a million
dollars worth of savings. We found $800,000
worth of savings after the first project or
maybe one point to who knows plus or minus. But then the talking points
that go along with that, right. We increased the end users
opinion in regards to I.t. by 3. Net promoter score
points or we anecdotally have the following
quotes from users that were you know
over the moon excited with the way we were able
to provide service to them. So I think it. I think it becomes
part of the story that really bolsters the second
business case for phase 2. Nice to have a couple
of minutes left. I have one quick question. I want to ask you
what kind of roles would you need on your
team to accomplish what you're describing. Yeah, that's a
really good point. I think you need
less of a technician. The degree to which they
have data analyst skill set is probably helpful. But I really think I'm kind of
a logical thinker somebody who's able to sort of interpret the
data and not collect the data. So this is not a technical
role in my opinion. What we do see just as an
aside, I guess to your question, folks who do go
through transformation often point at somebody and call
them the director of innovation or the director
of transformation. And at an end. I think that people
or folks we're talking about now with
this skill set really are probably the
folks that could grow into that in the future. So in the beginning,
it's about being able to look at some
numbers and some information connect them together to really
interpret and understand that. But also somebody who's able to
perhaps talk to some customers talk to some end users validate
those validate their findings in a way that isn't
overly technical, really that's I guess the last point
I'd make here and to sum it up, it's really being able to put
the head on of the end user. I think that that's
that skill in I.t. sometimes can be a premium
and when you find it. I think this is a
good role for it. Wonderful well Shawn
thank you so much. This has been really
insightful and I'm sure a lot of
people watching are going to have a lot of ideas
kind of popping up out of it. So for anybody that's watching
if you want to talk more about this or about anything
having to do with ServiceNow reach out to us anytime at all. Let's talk at crossings
or give us a call. Check out our website Crossfuze. All right. Thanks Shawn and thanks
everybody for watching. Thanks Kaitlyn. Take care.