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Getting the Most from Your Software Investments

A proactive, strategic approach to underutilized software can help ensure no opportunity is wasted.

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Too Many Acquired Software Solutions Are Gathering Dust

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percentage of CIOs surveyed who said that a quarter or more of their as-a-service subscriptions were not in use1

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percentage of software licenses unused by employees2

How can IT leaders ensure purchases reach their full potential?

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A REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE

Assessments Transform an Underdeveloped Environment

As part of an effort to improve agility and user experiences, a large public research university wanted to expand its ServiceNow® footprint.
Staffing bandwidth and a lack of direction for an overall roadmap had left the platform languishing low on the university’s priority list for years. Dwindling internal adoption of ServiceNow didn’t help either, making the case for purchasing additional modules difficult to prove.
Working with CDW, the customer determined the following needs:
  • Establish a baseline of their current ServiceNow environment
  • Define and map the ServiceNow environment’s future state
  • Upgrade the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and determine what limitations were preventing future releases
  • Outline a framework and foundation for an asset management tool
  • Improve overall satisfaction to increase ServiceNow adoption across the university
THE TURNING POINT

Collaborating for a Future Release Roadmap

CDW started with a maturity assessment of the university’s ServiceNow environment. During the initial phases, it became clear certain modules the university already owned were not being fully used, while implementation of other modules, such as Major Incident, had been delayed due to bandwidth constraints.
The assessment also revealed that their aging CMDB had not been implemented, used or managed to its full potential. The assessment results gave CDW and the university information they needed to determine a future release roadmap that would support their service management needs. CDW also helped develop a framework for asset management, with a particular focus on how to remain compliant and avoid governmental fines due to data loss.
This work was complemented by a Smartflex Program — which included Hardware Asset Management, Request and Incident modules to be broken out and used to their maximum capacity — as well as common service data modeling for Business Applications/Business Services within the ServiceNow CMDB.
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THE RESULTS

Everything Up, Running
and Ready for the Future

Now the university has a ServiceNow environment that leverages all of its owned modules and a roadmap for future releases. Adoption rates and user satisfaction with ServiceNow have increased across campus.
Here’s why it worked:
  • The expertise of ServiceNow Elite Partner to outline an implementation roadmap improved the efficiency of IT processes.
  • A technology partner flexible and willing to reprioritize strategies offered an effective and custom solution.
What’s next?
The university is exploring an ongoing customer improvement plan, which will increase their ability to manage their ServiceNow environment more effectively moving forward. They’re also beginning to align with CDW for real-time ServiceNow Asset Management Automation services to provide real-time data when purchasing PCs through CDW.

Sources:
1 Gartner, “Shelfware – The CIO’s Missing Key Metric and Cost Cutting Imperative,” May 2020
2 Nexthink, “Half of Software Licenses Goes Unused by Employees, Wasting Businesses Billions,” February 2023

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