If your business has implemented ServiceNow’s IT Service Management (ITSM) or IT Operations Management (ITOM), you’ll see that IT department activity can be efficiently managed on the ServiceNow platform. Although IT applications can be tracked via ITSM and ITOM, is your business truly evaluating the financial impact? Losing sight of the expenses associated with your IT application portfolio can be costly to your company.
Tracking the financial impact of your application portfolio is similar to cleaning your garage. When you start cleaning, you notice piles of things and think to yourself, “How did all of this accumulate so quickly?”
Although some items are used often, others haven’t been touched in years. Sifting to the bottom of the pile and deciding what will stay and what will go is an exhausting task.
This concept is a similar “chore” that companies face within their IT department. Software applications are accumulated much like the miscellaneous items in your garage: each app once served an important purpose in your IT department; however, as newer software products are purchased, they often become obsolete in a fast-paced IT environment. The older, potentially outdated applications do not come without costs, although often require consistent maintenance expenses.
ServiceNow ITBM Solution
ServiceNow’s IT Business Management (ITBM) provides a solution to businesses’ cluttered software application portfolios (i.e. your garage). ITBM consolidates your information onto the ServiceNow platform, giving management a better look at the financial impact of your software portfolio.
With the introduction of ITBM, ServiceNow has provided users with the ability to track the financial impact of IT resources, timelines and costs. ITBM allows management to make more informed decisions about how their resources are affecting their budget. Decision making is enhanced with 5 key tools of ITBM:
- Identify existing application
- Measure apps in terms of quality, cost, usage, risk
- Evaluate each app
- Make decisions: invest in a current application, maintain an app or replace an app.
- Take action
ITBM can be viewed as a “business within a business.” The suite of applications helps management take control of your IT projects’ financial impact. Each application, further explained below, is designed to help your business gather IT financial information onto the platform. Under the umbrella of ITBM, the suite comes with four key applications:
- Agile Development
- Financial Management
- Application Portfolio Management
- Project Portfolio Management
Agile Development
Agile Development is an application designed to help programmers implement an Agile software development framework for your software development lifecycle. It provides a flexible approach where developers and users collaborate to transform user requirements into software solutions. The Agile approach is team-oriented and the methodology is available on a framework called Scrum. Scrum lays out the roles and responsibilities of the Development personnel and their activities. The enhanced layout provides project team members better visibility throughout the project lifecycle.
IT Financial Management
IT Financial Management (ITFM) allocates, tracks and provides reports on IT expenses within your company. ITFM is enhanced with its own costing methodology. The integrity of the data is sound, as the application pulls financial information directly from the accounting general ledger. It leverages data from the NOW platform to map costs and usage to each software application. Data from your ITSM and ITOM can be integrated into your ITBM decision tool.
Application Portfolio Management
Designed to give management a comprehensive overview of your organization’s applications, APM identifies apps that may be serving the same purpose. Management can eliminate redundant, unnecessary applications thus reduce operating expenses. APM also helps you decide whether to invest, sustain or replace applications based on your business’ needs.
Project Portfolio Management
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) contains its own suite of applications and tools used to manage projects, tasks and resources. These actions include the ability to plan and request future resources for projects as well. With PPM, project managers have a variety of ways to track current project progress, align resources to organizational goals and plan for future needs. PPM gives management the full picture of IT activity within your organization.
Get Started Today!
ServiceNow ITBM helps your company manage IT like a business. Infocenter can help you plan, build and manage your ITBM by leveraging RADIUS™. We can deliver success before your project begins. Schedule a free consultation today.
