As all-round digital transformation gains ground, companies are investing big bucks in software licenses. But, only optimal use of licenses add value to the business. Software license management is no child’s play. Aside from flagging unnecessary expenditure on unused or little-used software, there is significant risk of uncovering security or compliance issues too late, which could cause major service disruptions among other problems. These risks distract from core areas of business and affect innovation.

ServiceNow has revolutionized the workplace and allowed business more visibility and control over all aspects of the organization from ITSM and HR service delivery to customer service management. With its data-driven reports and superior artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, enterprises gain all the insights they need to make smart decisions. However, while ServiceNow provides all the information a business needs about optimal use of its assets and resources, how do companies check if their ServiceNow license utilization is optimal?

In the initial days of ServiceNow implementation, enterprises may have subscribed to a variety of different products and application modules, which may have gone void later due to minimal use or have fallen out of use entirely. Similarly, there may be several roles that go redundant in time. Why should businesses pay extra for roles that are not in use?

ServiceNow Licenses

Three questions crop up with respect to ServiceNow subscriptions:

What entitlements do you own?

Are you buying what you need?

Are you using ServiceNow subscriptions effectively?

Users are assigned different ServiceNow license roles to provide authorization for applications relevant to job responsibilities.  In many organizations, there is no definitive process to revoke the roles that are no longer required when these work responsibilities change.  The ServiceNow instance owner can’t keep track of all these changes and hence, the assigned roles serve no purpose and there is no way to identify whether the role is required for the user.

Exercising the power of data and analytics

Why is tracking roles and ensuring effective utilization of ServiceNow subscriptions a challenge? Data is scattered across various tables of ServiceNow. While ServiceNow performance analytics and tools such as Power BI and Tableau can be used to create reports that may help understand role utilization a bit better, this data falls short when leaders and department heads have to make informed business decisions.

ServiceNow license analytics provide reports on the number of active users based on the number of times a user logs into ServiceNow. However, to optimize usage of subscribed roles, the reports need more data such as active session time of users, the number of transactions and role-specific transactions by users. Analyzing the data already available is a time-consuming process. This raises a critical question of how effectively a company uses the data that is available in ServiceNow.

Empowering the decision-makers

With all the data and insights at their fingertips, business leaders and department heads can make more informed decisions. These decisions have a direct impact on expenditure. Owners can assign roles to users depending on their responsibilities and needs and can flag under-utilization of assigned roles. By reducing the number of redundant applications, enterprises would be able to simplify the provisioning and de-provisioning process. Effective and smart usage can help enterprises save up to 70% in software licensing costs.

Even a well-oiled machine needs a check-up once in a while. The same goes for software subscriptions. Keeping track of the various applications and modules that the business owns and how well they are utilized can save the enterprise on its ServiceNow license costs. The business may find a new feature that better suits its goals or uncover adoption issues. Enterprises can also review current usage to chart out a roadmap for future requirements. Our experts can recommend approaches to effectively manage roles and thus optimize utilization of your ServiceNow subscriptions. Aspire Systems, a premier partner of ServiceNow, has helped many leading enterprises in ServiceNow adoption through a customized roadmap and can help your business too.

Check out this case study on how Aspire helped a business slash licensing costs by 70%.

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