Agility, Continuity and Resilience at the Core of ServiceNow Paris Release

By Lewis Martin – lewis.martin@ka2.io

 

For many organisations around the world, the arrival of COVID-19 has been a stark reminder that sometimes the worst can happen. As the world adapts to a new post-pandemic world, organisations are focussed on getting back on track and ensuring their workforce stays productive and secure – wherever they may be working.

So, it’s no surprise that productivity, continuity and enhanced service are at the core of the latest ServiceNow Now Platform release. Announced in mid-September, the Now Platform Paris release offers a powerful set of capabilities designed to help organisations drive growth and strengthen business resilience. While the release includes six new products, the key highlights for me are Business Continuity Management and Financial Services Operations.

Business Continuity Management

One of the core products of the Now Platform Paris release is Business Continuity Management (BCM), an out-of-the box application designed to help organisations plan for those events they hope never happen – and be prepared to protect their business and their workers in case they do.

Business continuity is a core concern for today’s businesses and can be the key to mitigating risk when the worst does happen – whether it’s a pandemic, natural or man-made disaster, or some other unexpected event. I once owned the business continuity plan for a London insurance broker, which was unfortunately directly affected by a terrorist event. Being able to keep people safe, informed and protected was of the utmost importance, followed very closely by the protection of the business and the customers it supported.

At the time, having the functionality that’s now available in the ServiceNow BCM application – such as the ability to define and prioritise critical services for recovery based on accurate CMBD data – would been massively helpful. Instead, much of what I had to do was manual, dispersed across various systems and data sources, and difficult to communicate.

The COVID-19 pandemic should serve as a reminder to all organisations that it’s crucial to have a solid BCM strategy in place to withstand and recover from unexpected crises.  ServiceNow has done a fantastic job of incorporating this key business function into the Now Platform, and supporting it with integrated, accurate data and processes that enable you to test scenarios for disaster. This capability will help greatly improve organisations’ confidence should it ever be called upon.

Financial Services Operations

Recently, ServiceNow has begun to move into and support a wider range of organisational activities – most notably with its HR Service Delivery application, which has matured into a very effective capability for those organisations that have adopted it in line with other new ServiceNow applications and processes.

The Paris release extends ServiceNow’s organisational footprint with its Financial Services Operations (FSO) application. Designed to help retail banks unite front, middle and back offices to quickly serve customers, FSO is ServiceNow’s first real attempt to solve operational issues within the financial services market. The application brings together all of the best elements of the Now Platform for a number of key banking operations, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses and matures as customers view to adopt it.

Legal Service Delivery is also included the Paris release, giving legal operations the visibility it needs to drive speed and productivity. It’s nice to see ServiceNow expanding across markets, and I hope it gains the same traction as the HR application before it.

Discover the Now Platform Paris Release

The Now Platform Paris release offers a lot of new and improved capabilities – from enhanced Asset Management and streamlined process automation for ITSM to improved Customer Service Management and increased use of virtual agent in the HR application. It’s definitely worth investigating and determining how its adoption and implementation can add value to your organisation and help achieve your defined outcomes.

ServiceNow’s Now At Work digital event taking place tomorrow is a great opportunity to learn more about the Now Platform Paris release. We’ll be attending sessions throughout the week and keeping our followers up to date on the latest insights via our social channels (so be sure to follow us!)

At KA2, we specialise in working with our clients to define outcomes and values. As a ServiceNow partner, we can assist you with matching the capabilities offered in the Now Platform Paris release to your desired outcomes and accelerate delivery to meet them.

Get in touch with us today to learn more.