What is ServiceNow?
Introduction
Glassdoor named ServiceNow the best place to work in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) in 2022. The company employs over 17,000 people worldwide.
This platform is made up of both employees and customers. Customers are mostly medium and large enterprise businesses from all over the world.
ServiceNow
Every large company, even if it is not an IT company, has an IT department. However, in such companies, the IT department’s goal is not to directly contribute to the company’s earnings but rather to assist the company’s business department and, together with them, increase the possibility of earning. For such businesses, the IT department alone is an expense.
To achieve the goal, the business and IT departments must work in tandem to ensure that business operations are understood by both parties. This collaboration boils down to exchanging business problems in exchange for an IT solution or service.
In theory, this sounds simple, but in practice, miscommunication is common because the business department understands business operations much better than the IT department. Because of this issue, some business operations are frequently repeated and take much longer than they should.
ServiceNow was created to address this issue. It is a platform that enables the business department to solve business problems without involving IT. ServiceNow Now is a cloud-based Application Platform as a Service platform (aPaaS).
The Now platform consists of:
- Infrastructure
- Platform
- Applications
- Workflows
The Now platform uses these elements to support all of a company’s IT needs, acting as a replacement for the entire IT department and performing cloud-based functions.
How does ServiceNow work?
The business department can tailor the platform to their specific requirements. The platform is accessible via computer or phone.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure includes several elements:
- Hardware
- Security
- Service level agreements
- Backups
Hardware refers to the data centers that house all of the platform’s computing power.
Several certified technologies protect the platform.
Data centers are linked together to provide redundancy and failover. Each layer has built-in redundancy, such as devices, power, and network resources, and non-stop operation is enabled.
Every day, a large number of backups are created to ensure that a client’s data is not lost.
Platform
The platform employs a single data model and database. It allows for the creation of custom applications and workflows that can be easily integrated into the platform.
Applications and Workflows
The platform includes a large number of configured and ready-to-use applications and workflows.
ServiceNow divides applications into four workflow types based on functionality. Workflows are classified into the following categories:
- IT Workflows
- Employee Workflows
- Customer Workflows
- Creator Workflows
Each of the listed categories has subcategories that address the company’s specific needs.
IT Workflows
- IT Service Management
- IT Operations Management
- Strategic Portfolio Management
- IT Asset Management
- DevOps
- Security Operations
- Governance, Risk, and Compliance
- Telecommunications Service Operations Management
- Operational Technology Management
Employee Workflows
- HR Service Delivery
- Workplace Service Delivery
- Safe Workplace Suite
- Legal Service Delivery
Customer Workflows
- Customer Service Management
- Field Service Management
- Financial Services Operations
- Telecommunications Service Management
- Connected Operations
- Order Management for Telecommunications
- Healthcare and Life Sciences Service Management
Creator Workflows
- App Engine
- IntegrationHub
- Manufacturing Connected Workforce
In addition to all of these subcategories, if the client is unable to find a suitable application that meets all of his business requirements, he can always create his own.
Conclusion
As previously stated, the ServiceNow platform operates in the cloud, so no local installation of these applications is required. Because ServiceNow has built-in tools for creating applications, the process is significantly sped up, as creating those same applications separately from the platform would take significantly more time and effort.
The main advantage of the ServiceNow platform is that it provides ready-made applications, and if an application is missing, it is not necessary to create it from scratch. Each prebuilt application is constantly improved, and the ServiceNow platform offers clients out-of-the-box solutions.
Finally, we can describe the ServiceNow platform as an application that lives or breathes because of how it works, rather than a single application that only represents a product for sale and purchase.
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