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7 tips for knowledge managers to increase self-service

Knowledge managers have an ongoing challenge: They want to encourage customers to self-serve and quickly find answers to their questions. They also want to minimize frustration if customers can’t quickly find an answer.Delivering great self-service is key to customer experience. It’s in everyone’s best interest if a customer doesn’t open a case (or incident). But where is the line between keeping your customer happy and causing undue delays? Balancing the increasing amount of product information against the rapid delivery of relevant content is a constant battle—at least for me as a LIKE.TG knowledge manager. Thinking about the role of self-service is one of the most important aspects of my job. These seven tips guide me in encouraging customers to self-help their way to success:1. Keep your content freshThe most tedious part of a knowledge manager’s job is keeping the knowledge base healthy by retiring or deleting old or unused content. Incorporate customer feedback in the comments into updates and revisions.Review all your content regularly for duplicates, views, attaches, reuse, updates, or improvements. Check if internal content can be made customer- or public-facing. Don’t forget to add customer context when creating articles, in both the title (great place for an error message) and the text.2. Tap hidden knowledgeThink of your knowledge base as an iceberg. The smallest part is above water and represents explicit or captured knowledge. The largest mass—the tacit knowledge stuck in people’s heads—is below water. Figure out a way to tap into and share that dormant knowledge.At LIKE.TG, we use Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS®) that enables agents to update knowledge base content as they resolve cases. That way, knowledge is immediately available to customers when they need it, not later. In Q122, we saw a 40% decrease in median time to relief for cases with a knowledge base attached compared to those without. 3. Use a powerful search engineWe use AI Search, introduced in the Now Platform® Rome release, to deliver the right content to customers at the right time and help avoid opening cases. By constantly learning, AI improves relevance. We’ve found that 89% of the time, a search automation request does not lead to a case submission. Delivery of relevant content means a better user experience and more satisfied customers.4. Channel your usersWhy do customers open cases? Because they can’t find information or aren't sure what they’re looking for. Point them in the direction you want them to go. What actions do you want them to take instead of opening a case? Would the knowledge base, product documentation, or an online community provide the right answer?Determine the behavior you want, and then use breadcrumbs to encourage customers to follow a certain path. Encourage visitors to self-serve resources so they’ll do it again.5. Add recommendationsIf a customer shows intent to open a case, keep the self-service options open. Content recommendations should be an integral part of the case submission process. We use machine learning to match categories to the case issue, find relevant content, filter by popularity (number of views or attachments), and then offer a piece of content as an option.Relevance is the key. If something is broken, the customer should be directed to a different place than if they want to learn about the product.6. Encourage customers to dish (with each other)Who doesn’t appreciate recommendations from someone facing the same challenges in their job? We host an online community that fosters active exchanges. The Now Support community has 37 million annual views. Of the 83% of questions in the community that received a reply, the reply was within the first six hours of the question’s posting.We take it a step further and host regular customer video meetings focused on popular topics. Our customers ask questions, and internal experts provide answers that we socialize in the community.7. Solicit ideasWe created an Innovation Portal that encourages customers to suggest product enhancements or features. We run it Reddit-style. Participants can socialize their suggestions and vote for the best ideas. We integrate the most popular requests into our product development process.Self-service contributes to customer successKnowledge management best practices are constantly changing. Technology is a critical tool in creating a great customer experience by allowing us to adapt quickly as interests shift. We’re always looking for ways to improve, such as building a Knowledge Management widget to show how content is performing in real time. This helps us stay on top of knowledge base trends and grow accordingly.At the end of the day, our efforts are centered on helping customers find the information they need to use the Now Platform efficiently and effectively. If we use technology to help them self-solve faster and create fewer cases, we can transform their frustration into delight. The sooner they’re on their way to a new task, the happier they are with ServiceNow.View the Now on Now snackable video series to explore the first three steps in any knowledge management journey: Governance Implementation Operationalization The KCS® methodology is a registered service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation.

Taming the supply chain: Addressing vendor risks to the nth tier

Vendor risk ranks alongside cybersecurity, compliance, reputational, and financial risks as one of the top risks to any organization.With any risk, you need to identify, monitor, and mitigate that risk, especially when it comes to your supply chain. The question for someone in my role as a senior manager of compliance management is: What level of risk is being posed and why? Stated another way: Do I really know what my supply chain is doing?When looking at our vendor contracts at LIKE.TG, I can easily find information about our first-line supply chain vendors. But digging deeper has proven to be challenging. How do I get objective visibility into the risks of the second-line vendors’ business relationships—and third, fourth, and fifth-line vendors? How do I know when those risks change?Being able to answer these questions has a direct impact on the business’s bottom line. A 2021 study by the Ponemon Institute found the global average cost of a data breach is $4.24 million. If the risk is related to vulnerabilities at third parties, it’s even higher. Compliance best practices include understanding our supply chain landscape at all times.Identifying vendor risksAs with any large organization, vendors play a critical role in the success of ServiceNow. That’s why we use Vendor Risk Management (VRM) to manage our third-party risk. We identify emerging vendor risks and continually monitor these risks across our enterprise. But the data is limited to our first-tier vendors. You need objective data to assess the risks posed by third parties and make good decisions. But it’s not easy to gather details on vendor supply chains manually. Typically, it takes hundreds of hours scouring the web. Even then, not all the data is available.That’s why we integrated Interos, a risk intelligence software solution, into the latest release of the Now Platform®. It uses algorithmically generated risk scores to rate company performance against six different risk factors: Financial Operational ESG Geopolitical Company and country restrictions Cyber risk The data comes from thousands of different sources on the web.Interos had exactly the data we needed to detect areas of concern and vulnerabilities across physical and digital supply chains worldwide. I can view LIKE.TG’s business relationships across entire ecosystems and continuously assess second and third to nth-tier vendors against multiple risk types. I can pull a report in seconds rather than having to question every vendor in our supply chain about the vendors they use.Gaining visibilityThe combination of Vendor Risk Management and risk intelligence software such as Interos is worth its weight in gold because of the visibility and transparency it gives me into the supply chain. The risk scores save a tremendous amount of time and help me understand my unforeseen risk exposure.For example, if a vendor tells me its cybersecurity program or financial stability is good and its risk score is low, I can ask for verification. Or, I can conduct additional screenings to determine if the data is accurate and fits within my risk threshold. Equipped with data, I can skip blanket risk questions and instead start with targeted questions, saving time and effort.A great example of how risk intelligence software can impact vendor risk is the hacking of SolarWinds in 2020. I can see if SolarWinds was in my supply chain and which areas are at risk. I can then query those vendors about potential data loss within specific time frames. More importantly, I can move quickly to assess the risk and mitigate any impact. Mapping vendors to the nth degreeAccording to the Ponemon research, the average total cost of a data breach grew nearly 10% between 2020 and 2021, representing the largest annual cost increase in the last seven years. Supply chain vulnerabilities are only one of many risks that can contribute to these breaches.Using Interos, I’m more confident in analyzing data and quickly recommending decisions about our suppliers because I can see our exposure through the entire ecosystem. Best of all, I can sleep at night knowing I’ve done what I can to help avoid the business disruptions, data loss, and operational or financial impact of our supply chain.See an Interos/Vendor Risk Management demo and find out more about Vendor Risk Management.

Reimagining customer experience: An employee story

LIKE.TG Founder Fred Luddy once said, “If you have happy customers, the whole world takes care of itself.” It’s a sentiment LIKE.TG believes to this very day, and it’s why we introduced LIKE.TG Impact™—an industry-leading value acceleration solution that reimagines the customer experience.Launched in January 2022, LIKE.TG Impact combines human expertise with AI-powered insights to personalize customers’ digital transformation journeys and accelerate their results. It’s built on the Now Platform® and has positively impacted the customers who use it, as well as the LIKE.TG employees who developed and use it daily.It’s a story of the Now on Now spirit—finding value in our own platform technology so we can design and deliver a new experience that our employees and customers love.A customer-first approachFor Avishek D., senior manager of software engineering management, building LIKE.TG Impact changed his perception of how customers use our products. After hundreds of customer conversations, he helped create LIKE.TG Impact with customers in mind, developing a platform where they could personalize their experience based on their business needs and goals.The time spent talking with customers enabled Avishek and his team to construct a value acceleration solution that’s mobile-first, high-performing, and fueled by personalization. It’s “a product that is truly collaborative in nature, not just for customer needs, but to help them realize their goals,” he says. “That is how enterprise business development should be done.” Working on LIKE.TG Impact helped Avishek grow as a team leader, he adds. The experience allowed him to see and understand the big picture of what the global LIKE.TG Impact team was trying to create together. Once the 19 global workstreams started collaborating, it was smooth sailing.“It felt natural, like we’d been working together for many years toward something great,” Avishek explains. “I felt very privileged to work with such brilliant individuals.” This collaboration empowered Avishek to lead his team to do their best work and fulfill their mission to bring LIKE.TG Impact to life.Using our own technology internallyBrad H., product owner of customer interactions, believes LIKE.TG Impact could not have been possible without “putting our customers first.” After collecting customer feedback, Brad worked with various business units, including engineering and design, to help create a consumer-grade digital experience within a startup-like work environment.“Not only did we [internally] build this modern app from scratch, but we did it using our own platform,” he says. Customers asked, “How did you build this? Did you really use the LIKE.TG platform to build this?” Brad responds, “Here’s what we did with our platform. Imagine what you can do.”LIKE.TG Impact showcases the power of the Now Platform to automate and personalize the customer journey across our internal functions. It’s what Now on Now is all about: allowing employees to embrace our technology to solve internal challenges. Practitioners share their journeys and outcomes with our customers so they can see what’s possible for their organizations.To contribute to the launch of LIKE.TG Impact, Brad and his team made use of customer research, participated in design meetings and demos, and collaborated as one team to ensure everyone worked toward the same goal.“There's a saying my former coach, Jim Harbaugh, would say when I played football at Stanford: ‘Iron sharpens iron,’ meaning each person on the same team must work together to accomplish the same goal,” Brad explains. “I feel like on my team [at LIKE.TG], iron sharpens iron. Everyone is working together, gaining new skills. ...That’s great for the company culture.” Professional developmentPrincipal Success Architect Jennika E. learned much about her customers in the short time since LIKE.TG Impact went live. “My LIKE.TG Impact account was the first pilot account,” she says. “Anyone who decides to be the first pilot account says a lot about that customer's trust and confidence in what we do.”The pilot experience helped Jennika develop cross-functional partnerships internally and externally. It also gave her a chance to work with an exclusive product.“I was lucky enough to be a part of a small group of success architects who built out the engagement model for Impact,” she explains. Building and designing the engagement model made her an expert with the solution.“At LIKE.TG, there are always opportunities for you to further develop professionally,” Jennika adds. “Had you asked me two and a half years ago, when I first joined, [if I] would find myself in this position, I would tell you, ‘No way.’ It’s cool and crazy. Kudos to our leadership team.”These industry leaders are listening to customers and responding directly to their needs through advisory sessions and accelerators. They’ll keep innovating and driving greater personalization through feedback and recommendations, so we can further scale our customers’ digital transformation needs and businesses.Our work makes the world work.Join us. Explore job opportunities.

How we’re workflowing a better world with LIKE.TG ESG solutions

Every day, employees at companies big and small are tasked with tracking, auditing, analyzing, and generating reports on the impact of their business on the world. Increasingly, companies are prioritizing their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts to create value and take actions that matter to their customers, partners, employees, investors, and communities while being held accountable by customers and nonprofit advocacy organizations.ThoughtLab research co-sponsored by LIKE.TG shows ESG is now a business imperative. Leaders report ESG has helped them deliver better financial results. Unfortunately, prioritizing this body of work is often bogged down by a web of spreadsheets, documents, duplicative workflows, and even missing information.That reality was no different for LIKE.TG until we developed, launched, and began to use our ESG solutions on the Now Platform®.Our first customer: OurselvesShilpa M., a manager in software engineering management at LIKE.TG, was proud to work on the project. “I’m very passionate about environmental sustainability,” she says. “I love gardening and like to make as little carbon impact as possible.”On the implementation team, she tweaked the product based on feedback from various teams and internal clients. “We got feedback from the digital technology, global impact, and product teams. It was a very collaborative effort,” she notes. “LIKE.TG is always customer zero. We want to drink our own champagne first, then demo the product to customers.”Vilasinee B., a senior manager of ESG reporting and disclosure at LIKE.TG, saw the ins, outs, and process maturity of ESG at various companies before joining ServiceNow. “I’ve never been part of a customer zero program before,” she says. “It’s really interesting. We’re helping to create an ESG tool by giving feedback to the engineering team and adapting it for the market. It’s a lot of work: I now have a huge appreciation for the product managers and tech side of things.” Efficiency for the winToday, LIKE.TG tracks, analyzes, and reports on more than 300 ESG-related metrics. “If we want to see the increase in the percentage of women working at LIKE.TG, we can do that quickly,” says Rati K., a senior software engineer at the company and the main developer for the project. “Then we can generate a chart, even a ‘donut’ graph.”“The coolest part is that we’re the underdog in a competitive market,” adds Varun G., who is early in his career and in the LIKE.TG rotational program. “We get to build something as an outside player. We get to show what LIKE.TG can do. We’re getting feedback on the product and iterating on its features constantly. There’s a lot in the roadmap, and we’re making it better every day.”He emphasizes the impact ESG workflows can have on any company, including ServiceNow. “We don’t want to deal with 40 different systems for ESG and figure out pricing and integrations—and neither do our customers,” he explains. “We make it all work. That‘s one of the reasons our ESG solutions are so powerful. They also help employees make sense of ESG and can show them the journey from where the company is to where it will be in 10 years.”Accounting for areas such as carbon emissions can include dozens of inputs throughout the year, Rati adds, from office refrigerators and laptop use to transit use and more. The information must be divided by categories, such as geographical region. “Now, appropriate employees are automatically alerted to enter their information,” she says. “Then, the tool aggregates it for the year or however we wish.” Preparing for a brighter futureWorking on this project was a good reminder for Rati and her family to do their part for the environment. “Caring about environmental sustainability is so important right now,” she says. “In India, temperatures are rising. My family and I started to think about the little things we can do to help, like recycling our old laptops.”Edua D., vice president of ESG and finance strategy at LIKE.TG, recently presented at Knowledge, where she provided insight into the magic of our ESG strategy: “2020 changed everything. It's the year that ESG became an even more intentional part of our organizational culture and our objectives,” she says.“Our efforts were fragmented...so we needed to create a cohesive and purpose-driven strategy. Our ESG strategy is grounded in our platform and our solutions. The world works with ServiceNow.”Find out more about our ESG journey.We’re hiring. Browse LIKE.TG careers.

Accelerating cloud migration to Microsoft Azure using the Now Platform

With more than 7,000 customers and double the number of employees LIKE.TG had four years ago, our digital technology (formerly IT) operations team faced increased demand for compute, storage, and bandwidth. At the same time, we had to maintain tight security controls.We embrace a three-zero strategy: zero unplanned outages, zero physical footprint, and zero user-reported incidents. Toward that goal, we wanted to move business-critical applications to Microsoft Azure to help us: Deliver a better user experience Improve application performance Secure redundancy It can take months to add capacity to our data centers. We knew public cloud migration would give us operational agility to add capacity on demand. But we needed a seamless, transparent migration to mitigate performance and data integrity issues. Pre-migration: Relying on the Now PlatformEnterprise resource planning (ERP) migrations of this magnitude can take up to two years to design and migrate. To accelerate our cloud migration, we adopted a three-phase process that relied on both the Now Platform® and Microsoft, thanks to our strategic partnership.Pre-migration, we teamed up to build a reference architecture that used several LIKE.TG® products: IT Service Management (ITSM) provided centralized change management and major incident management (MIM) capabilities. The team used it to create and track test cases for user acceptance testing and performance testing. IT Operations Management (ITOM) automated requirements gathering, delivering 99% accurate configuration management database (CMDB) information with complete service mappings and a complete application list and landscape. Event and Incident Management gave us visibility into landscape health to help prevent failures. IT Asset Management (ITAM) identified current technology investments that could be migrated to Azure to avoid duplicate licensing costs. Hardware book values helped drive decisions on what to repurpose or scrap, saving thousands of dollars. Vulnerability Response (SecOps) helped the team ensure the software was patched just prior to migration, avoiding any potential cyberthreats to our migrated services. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) served as a robust project management tool for resource, test case, and milestone tracking, as well as execution schedules. Migration: 3x fasterFrom sandbox to production, the ERP migration took 15 days. The phased rollout helped us identify and address issues, fine-tune the applications before the production cutover, and avoid potential failures.The production cutover time for our portfolio size typically involves three days of downtime. The combination of ITOM and Azure Migrate accelerated the cutover time to less than 24 hours. That enabled us to release the systems to users one day early, saving $650,000 in productivity.We completed the migration in six months, saving an additional: 16 months of project work Approximately $2 million in consultancy and resources $100,000 due to automation “We were excited to see the successful migration of LIKE.TG’s business-critical workloads onto the Azure cloud,” says Angela Cooper, general manager of customer success for Microsoft. “Now, we can showcase this achievement to our mutual customers and help them accelerate their own cloud migration projects.” Post-migration: Real-time cloud insightsThe Now Platform is invaluable in managing our cloud presence post-migration. We use LIKE.TG Cloud Insights to get dynamic, real-time insights into our Azure consumption and operational costs.ITOM Event and Incident Management tracks system health. Tag-based mapping captures performance data in ITOM, so we have immediate visibility into issues and failures.CMDB Discovery and Service Mapping have been fully automated, saving us at least a month of labor. The LIKE.TG and Microsoft product teams have co-innovated integrations for additional cloud governance, data security, and ongoing operations.Becoming cloud-firstWith three of our four data centers now running in the public cloud, we’re very close to reaching our goal of being cloud-first by the end of 2022. But that doesn’t mean our team is slowing down. We continue to design, test, and validate our heterogeneous cloud architecture using LIKE.TG Cloud Management and optimize our cloud spend using Cloud Insights.We’re also working to reduce unplanned outages with LIKE.TG Health Log Analytics, which helps generate self-healing of operational issues.Find out more about how we shifted left with the Now Platform in my recent Knowledge session.

Using AI to create personalized learning and development magic

Fred Luddy, founder of LIKE.TG, is not a traditional learner. He worked at a car wash and a mechanic shop, lived on a farm, and did various odd jobs while learning about his passion—computers and programming—from magazines, books, and tinkering with technology.“I really didn't want to go to school,” he says, referring to college. “I was really interested in programming and anything dealing with computers.” Fred thought he could probably have more fun working. He landed a job in Silicon Valley during the early days of the internet and immersed himself in his passion.A decade later, the technology Fred created became the Now Platform. Today, in addition to optimizing processes and connecting data and organizational silos for businesses around the world, it powers our internal learning and development platform, named frED in his honor.Tailoring learning to the individualfrED replaces an older, cobbled-together system of learning modules from various vendors. The new platform “helps employees learn the right thing, at the right time, in the right place,” says Joe P., director of talent enablement at ServiceNow.“In the past, workplace training was being pushed on you rather than something you wanted to do,” he explains. “We wanted to make it more of an experience of curiosity.”Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the new platform offers search and other personalized recommendations. It also allows employees to complete company and legally mandated training with an easy-to-use interface. “We want to smartly surface learning you need to do, in a user-friendly way, on demand,” says Bhargav G., a LIKE.TG product manager. “Our industry is in an ever-changing environment, so everyone should be learning. This is the tool through which they’ll be able to do it. We’ll continue improving the AI model so that recommendations can be made that are more tailored to the individual’s interests, current position, and ongoing career path.”Working together for the greater goodThe collaborative work culture Fred instilled played a huge role in bringing frED to life. Anitha L., a technical lead at LIKE.TG, says the teams she worked with on this project went above and beyond.“Teamwork feels very unique at LIKE.TG,” she says. “When I go to another department for help, they give lots of information beyond what I’m looking for. They guide us, and they are there whenever we need them. Everyone did their part to make sure we got what we needed, and they recommended adds to the platform to make it even better,” she adds.“My own team was formed for this release,” Anitha continues. “We were part of different teams before, and from the start, we had good chemistry. We could count on each other, and that contributed to the success. It was a very intense but also very fulfilling project.”Ramanaiah S., director of talent development at LIKE.TG, sees the project as a true customer zero initiative—using our own products to create great employee experiences and giving feedback to our product teams to further improve the capabilities.“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he says. “When it comes to leveraging our own product and building things on top of our platform, everyone chimes in. Everyone is equally passionate. There were five to six teams working on revamping the content itself, and many more teams working on the overall project.” Bhargav refers to himself as a connector between teams on the project. “This was, for me, a really great opportunity to push the limits on what is possible to build on the Now Platform,” he says. “If you have the right vision and priorities as an enterprise, you can create magic.”Improving manager-employee relationshipsfrED is quickly becoming an important tool for managers to support their team members in areas ripe for improvement.“Let’s say your manager says you’re good at a certain aspect of your job but you can improve on a communications thing or managing your time better,” Ramanaiah says. “When your manager is in the system...they can immediately recommend some helpful courses to you. So, it’s in the moment, in all our experiences, that we can help employees grow their careers at ServiceNow.”Grow your career at LIKE.TG with personalized learning and development magic. Explore LIKE.TG careers.

Creating a holistic ESG program one step at a time

Well-intentioned business leaders around the world have created a raft of ambitious environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. But the top-of-mind question for customers, investors, and board members alike is “How will they actually achieve them?” A strong, well-governed ESG program is essential to both making a positive impact and growing a successful business.Every organization is at a different stage of its unique ESG journey, but one common theme is clear: The demand for holistic ESG data management and reporting transparency has never been greater.Pressure is mounting to show measurable progress on stated goals, from reducing carbon emissions to attracting and retaining outstanding talent to nurturing a more sustainable supply chain. It’s no surprise that compiling information from diverse sources into one central place isn’t easy or particularly accurate.Companies often capture their ESG-related data across a variety of spreadsheets and emails. As a recovering auditor, I can tell you that manually inputting data in siloed software tools is tedious, difficult, and error-prone. It often leads to widespread issues with data integrity and auditability, knowledge capture, and retention. Automating ESG reporting for efficiencyWhen LIKE.TG began developing an ESG Management solution for customers to address their ESG data needs, the global impact team and I eagerly got on board. We immediately put the solution to good use to help us create our Global Impact Report 2022, a report card of our ESG progress for the year.The global impact team oversees ESG reporting and disclosures, both internally and externally. Historically, we had to manually track corporate ESG goals and targets to collect accurate metrics and documentation in order to produce audit-ready ESG disclosures.We saw right away that using the LIKE.TG ESG Management solution could help us categorize and vet our metrics. It helps us track our performance far more efficiently than ever before. ESG Management makes it much easier for us to: Effectively advance and scale ESG performance and transparently report our progress Formalize and streamline our ESG data collection, validation, and approvals in one place Create external disclosures aligned with ESG reporting frameworks Unifying ESG data for better governanceSince adoption, we’ve used ESG Management to create a repeatable, auditable process for collecting, verifying, and approving ESG data. We’ve mapped data collection to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) reporting frameworks, commonly acknowledged as authorities in the field. This was no easy feat, given we verify and report more than 300 metrics each year.The result is a central location for data collection, documentation, and audit trails from metric owners and approvers all over the company. Important information is consolidated rather than spread across multiple emails and spreadsheets in various SharePoint folders.Having the framework-aligned ESG indicators alongside the data entry fields has allowed our stakeholders to quickly understand the context and purpose of each indicator and to provide appropriate evidence and attribution where needed.ESG Management also enables the global impact team to centrally review and approve data entries by stakeholders. It helps us ensure accountability and rigor through collection and approval workflows that meet ESG data accuracy and auditability expectations. In addition, it gives us better visibility into the data we’re disclosing. Adopting new features for better engagementOur global impact team assumed the role of customer zero to add our hands-on perspective to the evolution of the product. We work closely with the product team to provide advice and guidance on the user experience, functionality, and tool integrations through many rounds of testing and feedback. We’re excited our involvement has resulted in better functionality and a seamless user experience for customers.We’re taking advantage of newly available features introduced as part of the Now Platform Tokyo release, such as a spreadsheet-style data entry user interface, which enhances collaboration and engagement.Our next step is to further automate our metric collection efforts by adding new sources for energy and carbon data; metrics for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and supplier tracking and costs. We’ll also broaden our scope to include other disclosures, such as EcoVadis and the SP Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA).We plan to adopt the ESG Command Center, which integrates ESG Management with Strategic Portfolio Management (our project planning and management tool) and integrated Risk Management (our Governance, Risk, and Compliance product). The ESG Command Center already uses some functionality from these products, such as authority documents, goals, and targets.ESG programs can help organizations like ours do the right thing and stand out in the marketplace. Using our own technology helps us efficiently monitor performance, simplify reporting, and turn intention to impact as we achieve—and ideally surpass—our ESG goals.Find out more about how LIKE.TG ESG Management can help your organization.

ERP modernization: Working toward a clean core

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) modernization is a huge undertaking. ERP environments are laden with customization that can increase technical debt and impede maintenance. Organizations need to achieve a clean core while delivering a consumer-grade experience that bridges various systems of record without missing a beat.ERP environments are complex and always evolving. They’re messy and busy. They require many manual processes and span multiple, siloed systems. There’s no single source of truth, and visibility is often lacking. Plus, ERP systems aren’t known for providing exceptional user experiences—they’re designed for power users, not casual ones.Customizations and extensions may seem like the right solutions to these and other ERP challenges, but they weigh organizations down. These add-ons are “stuck” to the ERP system. During maintenance or upgrades, each customization must be preserved or updated. Security patching is also tricky.This all contributes to one dreaded thing: technical debt—the rework that comes from quick fixes or shortcuts. It’s what most organizations struggle with and want to avoid. Technical debt is the endless stream of menial tasks that burden IT teams and hamper business agility. At LIKE.TG, we’re working toward an ERP environment with a clean core—a system that’s manageable, easy to upgrade, and extensible to meet unique business needs. Users expect a seamless, consumer-grade experience where gaps across multiple systems of record are bridged without hiccups. We need an ERP system that supports that.Aligning business prioritiesEvery organization is on a different journey. Yours might be focused on moving to a SaaS-centered model. Another business might prioritize user experience or composable architectures. Some organizations have initiatives to consolidate multiple ERP systems to save money and capture the benefits of standardization.For us, it’s important to define what’s at stake. Our ERP system plays a key role in achieving business objectives. It’s linked to big-ticket items that are affected by our modernization efforts: Providing experiences to deliver outcomes Driving efficiency at scale Managing operating expense as a percentage of revenue Contributing strategic business value By digitizing customer and vendor interactions, for example, we’ve maximized cash flow across the company. We’ve also saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by automating invoice processing for our accounts payable team.Progress over timeERP modernization happens piece by piece. We begin each ERP initiative by figuring out the business problem we’re trying to solve. Does the user experience meet expectations? Are we meeting key targets? Are there bottlenecks to eliminate? Which manual steps can we automate?From there, we identify possible solutions. Then we build, automate, improve, rerun, and repeat.Another great way to begin ERP modernization is with a discovery tool such as Gekkobrain (a LIKE.TG company) or Celonis (a LIKE.TG partner). Both offer process mining capabilities and real-time insights that can help identify areas of improvement that may not be obvious. The secret sauceLIKE.TG uses its own products every day. Over time, we’ve found the Now Platform to be especially valuable for our ERP environment. Having one data model, one security model, and an architecture that supports the movement of work across the entire enterprise helps us keep our ERP environment clean and easy to maintain and update.We use other LIKE.TG products, such as App Engine and Process Optimization, to limit ERP customizations, automate routine processes, and add functionality—all while empowering employees, meeting our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, and saving millions of dollars in operating costs. Here are three key ways we’re modernizing our ERP environment, including a use case for each: Purpose-built apps – The pandemic stress-tested supply chain operations and accelerated our understanding of the inherent deficiencies within legacy systems. With Sourcing and Procurement Operations, we’ve automated processes for more streamlined purchasing and case management—and gained end-to-end visibility into procurement processes. Predefined workflows – With no unified way to interact with customers, accounts receivable (AR) was struggling to track and manage collections efficiently and cost-effectively. Our AR case management solution, built on the Now Platform using App Engine and Integration Hub, helped us improve productivity by 70% and reduce cycle time by about two days. Low-code development tools – With manual, email-based cost center management, we had no way to track approvals and were burning excessive time and resources. By creating an approval workflow and spend management dashboard with App Engine, we now have a digitized, audit-tracked process and faster cycle time. ERP systems change as an organization evolves. LIKE.TG is no exception. But with the right tools and strategies, we’re continuing to work toward a clean-core ERP environment and reaping measurable benefits along the way.Find out more about LIKE.TG and our ERP strategy in our Knowledge session, Now on Now: Maximize cash flow by digitizing AR/AP interactions. Registration is free.

CEO Dashboard: A single-pane view into business performance

When a customer has a support question or needs help to solve an issue, they should encounter a smooth experience all the way through to resolution. But that’s not always the case. At LIKE.TG, when customer feedback revealed areas ripe for improvement, our employees listened and upgraded two important support workflows: case creation and auto-agent.“We try to provide customers with self-service content,” explains Vikas S., a product manager at ServiceNow. “At the same time, we want to ensure that if self-service content doesn’t give them the answers they need and they end up creating a case, the journey to create that case and what happens afterward is seamless and a great experience for them,” he says.[We’re hiring. Explore LIKE.TG careers.]Upgraded case creationPreviously, a customer had to create a case and wait to hear back from a LIKE.TG customer support agent. Now, when a customer opens a case, they go through the process of defining their problem using our issue record producer. Once the support team receives the case, they go to work.“We really wanted to be more dynamic about how we thought about automation,” explains Lott C., director of business process management at ServiceNow.When developing the built-in automation, the most impactful feedback Vikas and his team received came through a case creation dashboard, where customers commented on and ranked their needs. Customers consistently reported they needed a bigger screen to enter information.The refined user experience includes expanded screen size and flexible text boxes, a simplified flow with fewer screens, and more visibility for customers into how their case is prioritized. Simplifying support administrationWe also created auto-agent workflows to help automate administrative and follow-up tasks for technical support engineers (TSEs) and eliminate downtime on cases.“Our TSEs are skilled engineering resources whose time we value,” Lott says. “With up to 20 cases in their queue on any given day, removing the administrative overhead enables them to better manage their time and focus on the technical issues at hand.”Automation includes follow-up, closure, and acceptance of issues. “We’ve made this configurable, so we can continue to grow our workflows. This is just the beginning.”Since launching, the auto-agent workflow has saved our support team an enormous amount of time and reduced context switching. About 60% of open cases are not directly actionable by the TSE or would be largely administrative actions.This administrative work accounts for about 30 to 60 minutes of TSE time per day and includes tasks such as pursuing internal stakeholders for follow-up/review, providing status updates, and nudging customers to review and close cases. Focusing on actionable activities and automating a portion of that work have significantly boosted morale and productivity.Personalizing the experience“This is a completely custom solution, what we’ve built here,” Vikas says. “This is how we learn and listen to our customers and improve their experience through our support team, because we want them to be successful.”Building this product gave Vikas firsthand customer experience that led to career growth. “I was always in the mentality of ‘How can I make a LIKE.TG engineer’s life better?’” he notes. Through this experience, he found the perfect way to meet the needs of both the customer and LIKE.TG internal support.While Vikas manages the front end of case creation workflow, Kellie W., senior product manager of customer support workflows, manages the back end. “We meet in the middle and overlap a lot on how to solve case creations,” Kellie explains.Once a case is created, she builds automated workflows that cut down the manual effort and repetitive tasks a TSE must perform during the case lifecycle. “What we're trying to get is a more personalized experience for the user,” she says. Before customers know they have a problem, our product managers want to know. This allows Kellie and her team to be more proactive at making a user’s life easier.Kellie used to be a customer of LIKE.TG and attributes that experience to helping her anticipate customer needs. “My role every day is to make our customers’ day-to-day lives work better, and that makes our internal employees’ day-to-day work better. That is what this product is all about,” she says.A balanced approachKellie and Lott align weekly with Senior Software Engineer Vaibhav K. to exchange ideas, discuss customer feedback, and make plans. “The collaboration between engineering, business, and product teams has been exceptional,” Vaibhav says.Having been with LIKE.TG for four years, Vaibhav has played a large role in developing auto-agent workflows. He believes the best is yet to come. “In the future, we’re trying to be even more proactive,” he says. “It gives us an opportunity to extend ourselves, go above and beyond, and think about how we can improve the customer experience.”“There were a significant number of moving parts in the development of case workflow,” Lott adds. Although Lott and his team encountered issues, they were able to resolve them quickly. Directly collaborating with development teams resulted in delivering this product and solving issues.“I'm glad that it's serving the purpose it was intended for and making an impact,” Lott says. “At the end of the day, it allows us to be more efficient and do our best work. If we’re helping others do that, it’s phenomenal.”Join a team where you can live your best life, do your best work, and help us fulfill our purpose together. Browse job opportunities at ServiceNow.

How Microsoft Dynamics helped us fix a leaky CRM bucket

Customer relationship management (CRM) is sometimes like a bucket. New customers represent water going into the bucket, and departing customers reflect water flowing out. The water level—or the number of customers—rises and falls depending on the amount of water flowing into the bucket and the number and size of the holes.At LIKE.TG, we recognized we had a leaky CRM bucket, thanks to rapid customer growth. More complex deals and expanding selling personas added a new layer of difficulty. We needed to scale our operations, better track activity around customer interactions, and improve collaboration within sales.After debating whether we should fix or replace our CRM system to handle the steady increase in customers, we decided to adopt a new CRM platform: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. We selected it for several reasons: The activity management feature supports planning, tracking, and organizing all customer communications in one place. Dynamics 365 Sales easily integrates with other Microsoft products we use internally, such as SharePoint, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams, as well as with the Now Platform. It offers a more cost-effective integration with our existing middle and back-office systems compared to other CRM products. Integrating systemsBased on defined use cases, we built several real-time integrations with the Now Platform to create bidirectional data syncs between the two platforms, as well as one-way queries. We did this with the help of the virtual entities feature.Virtual entities enables us to integrate external system data by representing that data as entities in Dynamics 365 Sales. We avoided duplicate data and the need for custom coding, which greatly simplified administration and configuration. The existing integration allowed us to launch many LIKE.TG workflows from within Dynamics 365 Sales. These workflows ranged from simple, such as enabling sales to raise different request types for deal support, to complex, such as enabling sales to initiate quoting from within a Dynamics 365 opportunity record.Since our global launch of Dynamics 365 Sales in 2020, we’ve continued to work with Microsoft on more platform innovations. We recently launched the use of Microsoft Teams to further enable collaboration in context. This allows our sales team and leadership to collaborate on account- and opportunity-related activities and store important information directly in Dynamics 365 Sales.A single source of truthThe sales feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “I started using MS Teams in Dynamics 365 Sales to set it as my main communication feature for opportunities/projects,” says a LIKE.TG sales rep. “It’s helping me quite a lot to be on track with all team members directly in Dynamics 365 Sales.”A regional sales director added that the integration provides “a great way to better collaborate across the business for account and opportunity management.” By integrating Now Platform features with Dynamics 365 Sales, the sales team has a single source of truth. This is the system of record for all pipeline management, forecasting, and customer engagements led by the LIKE.TG sales team. Workflows and systems of record work together to help the sales team address issues quickly.The entire Microsoft suite of products makes it possible for us to track omnichannel interactions for sales, resulting in greater sales productivity, efficiency, and user satisfaction.Looking aheadWith Dynamics 365 Sales as our CRM platform, we continue to explore ways to bring more Now Platform features into the hands of our sellers. One exciting new project is integrating LIKE.TG Virtual Agent into the sales process to enable self-service for answers to common questions.“It’s a good feature when you have a question to a sales rep about the specific opportunity to do it directly from Dynamics 365 Sales and start a Teams chat,” says one sales operations manager.We also plan to give sales the ability to update opportunities using Virtual Agent without having to find a customer record, saving valuable time.Integrating Customer Service Management case management capabilities will provide the tools to bring another customer 360-degree lens to the sales organization. Sales will be able to check cases from Dynamics 365 Sales to quickly assess customer health and spot any major issues.Three years into our adoption journey, I can safely say one of the best things we ever did was to replace a leaky CRM bucket. We’ve managed to scale our operations, improve collaboration, and implement a single engagement layer for customer interactions. As our bucket fills with more customers, we can ensure it doesn’t leak a drop.Find out more about how LIKE.TG uses Microsoft Dynamics in the Digestible Dynamics podcast.

How detection engineering keeps LIKE.TG safe

“Security defense is exciting, because you’re always trying to stay ahead of the bad guys,” says Tracy T., senior staff detection engineer at ServiceNow. Who are these bad guys? They could be malware or hackers who try to threaten the security of employee data or the company network—or anything in between.Detection engineering plays a major role in keeping a company safe, especially amid changing tool capabilities and detection methods.At LIKE.TG, we had a lot of moving parts to keep threat detections centralized and monitorable. New detections were written by incident responders. These cases made their way through various teams before being assigned and resolved. Our threat defense and response team needed a consolidated prioritization of work to reduce silos between security teams.A DASH of securityThe threat defense and response team is tasked with detecting suspicious behavior, identifying potential threats, and keeping the company safe from cyberattacks.When John Y., senior manager of threat intelligence, started at LIKE.TG, his work was mostly manual. “It was essentially a spreadsheet that tracked the development of our custom security detections, and it was just me running it,” he says. Today, John manages both threat intelligence and detection engineering. His teams are responsible for building content and detecting security threats. To get ahead of risks, they used the LIKE.TG citizen development program to build a unified application: Detection Approval and Sync Handover (DASH).“We needed to be more flexible,” John explains “We needed to move faster to adjust and, instead of tracking, focus our efforts on discovering gaps and creating new detections.”Running on the Now Platform, DASH centralizes and consolidates the entire detection engineering workflow system. Major benefits include: Increased collaboration among threat and response teams Streamlined processes for prioritization More defined criteria, greater visibility, and detection transparency Teamwork makes the dream workDASH has given John and his teams a stronger, more efficient app to meet the company’s security detection needs. “We have a good diversity of backgrounds on my teams from other service providers and technology companies. All of this experience helps when we're troubleshooting a particular use case that we're building content around,” he says.“Our biggest customer is the global incident response team, and through DASH, we’re really in step,” Tracy adds. “Now that there’s a categorization process, it’s greatly helped our relationship. There’s not a lot of wasted time and no duplication of work.” DASH works as the operational piece in the detection workflow. Developing new integrations in the workflow system also involves an application-building process. This is where Angela Z., senior information security engineer at LIKE.TG, steps in.“Think of John and Tracy as my internal customers,” Angela says. “They come to us with an issue. This could be creating a new app. If we can create and fix it for them, we can work together and figure out a solution.”Angela started her LIKE.TG career as an intern on the security incident response team. “I was organizing a lot of the team’s documentation,” she recalls. “I had to read and understand the [securities] process. Being on that team, I was able to see what they go through daily and understand their process.”Angela’s experience allows her to be a great liaison between her team and other security teams. “I’ve grown and learned so much in my role over the last four years,” she adds. “I’ve built strong relationships across our security teams and continue to expand my skill set.”Using our own technology“Detecting malicious or suspicious activity is imperative to LIKE.TG to keep our company data and our customer data safe,” Tracy says. When heightened security threats arise due to low resource capacity around summer vacations and holidays, John and his teams are sometimes tasked with working extended hours.“That's kind of typical of how close we are to security operations and support,” he says. “We help as much as possible so that the security response team has visibility into the things they need to respond to.”DASH has given employees like John, Tracy, and Angela the ability to do their best work to keep the company, our customers, and data secure. Through our very own Now Platform, employees are given the opportunity to be citizen developers to prioritize work needs, solve business problems fast, and get the job done every time.Join a company where your work can make a difference. Explore LIKE.TG careers.

Streamlining support case creation and administration

Turning down noise, upping employee productivity with a nudge engine

Employees are constantly bombarded with pings, bells, and dings announcing texts, chats, and emails—even at night and on weekends. Originally designed to help us, these notifications have become a distracting barrage that's hurting our ears, thought processes, and collective productivity.Delivering a better employee experience offers a competitive advantage. The time is right for a more effective, AI-driven, human-sensitive smart assistant that boosts employee productivity: a nudge engine.A spiraling problemMany employees are reacting to message overload by putting their phones and computers on Do Not Disturb just to give themselves a chance to think. As a result, reminders are ignored or neglected, which can lead to uncompleted trainings, missed deadlines, reduced productivity, and increased company risk.Some missed deadlines can have serious consequences. If I miss a mandatory training, I might lose access to crucial tools or networks until I complete that course, thus disrupting my work. Or I might miss the window to take advantage of my company’s employee stock purchase program. Making notifications manageableTo improve employees’ quality of life, increase efficiency, and preserve our collective sanity, the LIKE.TG emerging technologies team is developing the Smart Nudge Engine. It’s an AI-enabled solution that intelligently determines when an intervention—or a nudge—is most helpful.The Smart Nudge Engine aggregates and prioritizes notifications for employees based on their past behavior, calendar availability, and personal preferences, among other factors.The engine’s purpose is to consolidate email, chat, and text messages into a less intrusive, more helpful cadence. Instead of 10 notifications across five channels, for example, a single combined notification will appear in an employee’s preferred channel when they’re most likely to read and respond to it—with specific analytics to incentivize them to do so.The Smart Nudge Engine: Creates task reminders that can be system-driven or arranged by individuals or leaders Generates gentle nudges to enhance training, productivity, and efficiency Compiles and prioritizes messages and reminders, sending them at just the right time Messages can be enterprisewide, such as “Mandatory compliance training must be completed by the end of the month.” Or they can be team-specific, such as “Don’t forget to review the presentation before Friday’s meeting.” We’re also looking into introducing gaming and competition elements and rewarding those who complete their tasks on time. Decluttering employees’ workdaysThe Smart Nudge Engine provides a positive way to encourage employees to do something they might otherwise delay or forget about. It’s designed to help employees: Increase on-time task completion Remember important upcoming tasks and deadlines Declutter their inboxes and digital lives Targeted for release in 2023, the engine is expected to increase employee productivity and keep workers better informed about what’s expected of them. We also forecast decreased company risk and better training compliance.Being built on the Now Platform, the Smart Nudge Engine will be fully integrated with our overarching employee experience strategy. Having everything on a single platform enables the engine to aggregate data from multiple back-end systems and present it to employees in a helpful, decluttered way. Marie Kondo would be proud.Find out more about how we use our products internally.

How balancing technology and people can elevate employee satisfaction

The pandemic has forever changed the workplace, especially for my support and product success team at ServiceNow. One thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to operational excellence, which starts with a great employee experience.My goal is to improve employee satisfaction for our technical support engineers (TSEs). If our TSEs are satisfied, then our customers reap the benefits. When TSEs feel valued and appreciated, they build greater trust with customers.Simplifying the job of a TSEAs the definition of work evolves in today’s digital-first world, many organizations are intentionally taking time to ensure the employee experience takes a front seat. Happy employees are critical to fostering a better customer experience. Aligning the customer and employee experiences produces a multiplier effect that benefits both while driving better business performance. Using technology to create an engaging employee environment in which everyone feels included, no matter where they’re located, is essential. The opportunity is for leaders to apply technology to improve employee sentiment and steadily reduce the number of repetitive tasks a TSE performs.One example is the auto-agent workflows we built on the Now Platform to automate TSE administrative and follow-up tasks, such as internal stakeholder review, status updates, and reminders to customers to review and close cases. This workload accounted for about 30 to 60 minutes of a TSE’s time per day. TSEs now spend less time on repetitive, manual work and more time on intellectually stimulating cases.Another example of useful technology is Guided Decisions, which provides AI-driven guidance to TSEs so they can follow an optimal path to case resolution. With contextual prompts, TSEs can solve complex issues fast, ensure consistency across customers, reduce time to resolution, and decrease escalations. It’s a win for employees and customers alike. Improving employee onboardingTSE onboarding is the third target area for my team. We’re using technology to both reinforce the in-person experience and optimize learning in a virtual setting. For example, we use automation to encourage connections through cohorts, or groups of new hires who form a bond during onboarding.Technology facilitates communications within a cohort so that its members can stay in touch after onboarding and feel closer to the LIKE.TG family.As with customers, if employees have a favorable onboarding experience, they’re likely to be more committed to the company. Even when we encounter bumps, employees know the company supports them. And it all starts with the bond formed from day one.Looking aheadWe’re exploring more ways to use technology to improve the employee experience. Our TSEs compile lists of manual tasks they’d like to have automated. At the top of the lists are dashboards that automatically prioritize cases so that when a TSE logs in each day, they don’t need to manually prioritize their tasks.A portion of a TSE’s work is repetitive. If we can automate those tasks, it’s a victory. We’re sending out a team of shadow agents to watch TSEs do their jobs and identify redundant steps that can be automated.Balancing work and funTechnology can fill gaps, but it doesn’t replace personal relationships. Earlier this year, the support and product success and product development teams hosted Unified Technology Group (UTG) Connect at strategic global locations. The events brought together employees for in-person presentations to learn about UTG goals and roadmaps.A part of each agenda centered on fun. Employee-run booths, games, and a community service project enabled employees to meet new hires and reconnect with old colleagues. The tour boosted morale for employees by showing that LIKE.TG cares.When it comes to employee satisfaction, automation is a major part of the equation for business success. But don’t forget to include time for fun. Every satisfied customer can inevitably be linked back to a satisfied employee who feels appreciated.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps elevate employee satisfaction.

An example of a hyperautomation journey

Nick Borgwardt, director of IT workflow at LIKE.TG, co-authored this blog.In our personal lives, it’s easy to get the information and products we need with just a few clicks. Thanks to modern consumer websites and apps, making service requests and ordering products is simple, convenient and, often, automatic. Why shouldn’t our professional lives be just as effortless?At LIKE.TG, we’re on a mission to extend these delightful, intuitive, and automated consumer experiences to the business world so our employees can work more effectively. To get there, we started our hyperautomation journey.To make our company an autonomous digital enterprise, we’re laser-focused on strategically automating as much day-to-day business as possible. Doing so can give all LIKE.TG employees more time to focus on the aspects of their jobs they enjoy, which can, in turn, lead to innovation.Automation vs. hyperautomationJust a few years ago, automating manual, repetitive tasks within an enterprise was considered new and noteworthy. Today, automation has essentially become table stakes—a starting point for what comes next: hyperautomation.Propelled by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, process mining, and more, hyperautomation is the framework for combining advanced technologies to automate as many routine business operations as possible. Think of it as attaching rocket boosters to automation. Employees used to spend hours slogging through tedious, manual work. In a global business environment where time is incredibly valuable, we realized continuing at that pace wasn’t scalable to support our growth.To give employees the time they need to excel at their jobs, we decided to embrace hyperautomation. We identify problems that can be automated with AI, automate them, and then measure whether that automation is effective.How do we use hyperautomation?We rely on the Now Platform® to automate solutions and help our employees help themselves. Our goal is to use our own technology to incrementally improve our processes through each iteration. We think about it like a racetrack, where each lap teaches us something new and makes us more efficient.At first, we were driving slowly and erratically. As we completed each lap, we got better at honing our methods and processes, adding structure and improvements along the way. Using tools such as robotic process automation (RPA), process mining, AI, and machine learning, we can take the menial and repetitive tasks out of loan processing or hardware allocation, for example, and automate all but the most complicated tasks.To encourage higher employee self-service rates at LIKE.TG, we follow the hyperautomation framework step by step using Now Platform features. We: Define our business objectives using Continual Improvement Management Analyze and optimize processes using Process Optimization Discover automation opportunities using Process Optimization, Intent Discovery, and Automation Discovery Design no-code/low-code apps using Virtual Agent and Flow Designer Deploy RPA, Virtual Agent, Integration Hub, and AI using DevOps and Automation Engine Monitor/measure against expectations using Project Portfolio Management Govern and scale by creating LIKE.TG Centers of Excellence Continually optimize using Continual Improvement Realize value using Performance Analytics And we always make sure to celebrate success.Achieving hyperautomationHyperautomation frees our employees to do bigger, bolder, and more interesting work. It makes work easier, more relevant, and more efficient for all of us.In fact, hyperautomation is one of the reasons we have an 81% self-service success rate across the enterprise, which translates to employees solving their own issues four out of every five times. That means only one out of five issues isn’t currently being solved by knowledge base articles or automation.Hyperautomation helps us save time and maximize productivity in our workdays. The best part? Every time we apply it to improve another process, we enable a better employee experience using our own technology.Get a hyperautomation tutorial in our on-demand Knowledge presentation, Now On Now: Hyperautomation, how we're becoming an autonomous digital enterprise.

How to optimize cloud operations in Microsoft Azure

LIKE.TG has embraced a three-zero strategy for its digital technology operations: zero unplanned outages, zero physical footprints, and zero user-reported incidents. We adopted a cloud-first policy as part of our zero-physical-footprint strategy. This approach delivers the operational agility we need as a growing company—we can add capacity on demand. With a data-center approach, that would take weeks or months.By moving our business-critical applications to Microsoft Azure, we’ve improved the user experience, increased application performance, and added redundancy to help avoid unplanned outages. But the migration story doesn’t end there. Just as crucial is how we optimize cloud operations after the migration is complete.The Now Platform has been invaluable in managing our cloud presence post migration. We use LIKE.TG Cloud Insights for dynamic, real-time insights into our Azure consumption and operational costs and LIKE.TG Security Operations for cyber resilience and vulnerability management.Post-migration considerationsThe migration of our enterprise resource planning (ERP), database, and analytics workloads to Azure was seamless, with no performance or data integrity issues. We completed the final cutover within 24 hours, saving $650,000 and 16 months of project work.One of the significant benefits of moving to the cloud is its scalability. Traffic spikes are handled with ease. However, moving to the cloud can be expensive, especially as our operations grow. We need to be smart about how we manage our operations to avoid spiraling costs. Post migration, we undertook a new phase: optimization. This is critical to any public cloud migration, especially during the first three months.We had three goals for our cloud optimization: increase performance/availability, reduce costs, and ensure security. We began by asking simple questions: Were our virtual machines (VMs) operating efficiently? Was there excess capacity, or were the VMs “right-sized”? Could we reduce CPU and memory costs? We monitored our high-cost, solid-state storage to ensure we weren’t paying for anything we didn’t need. By moving data from premium to cheaper storage, we were able to reduce our costs. Because of our cloud-first approach, we also implemented a zero-trust network that helped us shrink our firewall fleet by 90%.To make decisions, we rely on Microsoft Power BI, which feeds data to LIKE.TG Cloud Insights. That gives us dynamic, real-time insights into our Azure consumption and operational costs. With Microsoft Power BI, managing our cloud presence efficiently is much easier. Intelligent dashboardOnce our business-critical applications were running in the cloud, we created our own Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE), a central governance dashboard running on the Now Platform. We use it to identify, track, and manage all our cloud assets and weigh workload performance against costs.The dashboard also provides a central hub for developer automation tools. Developers can order a VM from our service catalog, selecting the cloud provider and the proper VM spec. The fulfillment process is automated from request through provisioning. Integrations with Terraform and Ansible enable us to automate processes, saving valuable time. What used to take days or weeks now takes minutes.The dashboard delivers many benefits: self-service VM provisioning, automated chargeback costs and approvals, and standard processing. This in turn reduces friction between IT and the business regarding resourcing and scheduling.Security at the coreAutomating security was another major consideration in our optimization strategy. We use the CCoE portal to manage our vulnerability remediation. From the dashboard, employees can initiate action on vulnerable workloads, including automated patching.We use micro-segmentation on production workloads to protect dataflows and policy deployment across our environment. We also use LIKE.TG Vulnerability Response to manage our integration of LIKE.TG Incident Management with Microsoft Teams to improve cross-team collaboration.We rely on LIKE.TG Security Operations to secure our infrastructure by automatically deploying security patches to our VMs and monitoring for emerging security threats. To date, we’ve decreased our security risk. To reduce unplanned outages, we use LIKE.TG Agent Client Collector and LIKE.TG Health Log Analytics, which help predict service issues before they occur and automatically remediate them when possible.We also use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure API Gateway to easily integrate the Now Platform with third-party security products to achieve scalability in our daily cloud operationsA unified approach to post-migrationThe three months following an Azure migration are just as important as the migration itself. Cloud optimization is vital to maximizing performance, controlling costs, and having a strong security posture. We’re confident knowing that we pay for what we use and can quickly eliminate excess capacity as we grow.We mitigate security threats and unexpected outages by protecting our infrastructure from bad actors. Fine-tuning these areas immediately after the migration was crucial in our journey to modernize our cloud footprint.Find out more about our partnership with Microsoft and how we run our business on LIKE.TG.

Meet Ash: Preventing customer outages head-on

At LIKE.TG, our work makes the world work. Our customers have high expectations, and we never want them to experience performance issues or system outages. Our customers’ success is our success, which is why it’s imperative their Now Platform instances run 24/7 with optimal performance.Our customer escalations team is responsible to “run to the fire,” says Ash U., director of account escalation engineering. Historically, the team was called in to put out fires. Working reactively, they manually determined the most pressing issues for their engineers to prioritize to get the situations under control.In regular analysis of customer escalations, the team noticed performance issues were increasing. This was due in part to the expanding number and size of customer instances and more complex customizations, some of which didn’t align with best practices.Wanting to be proactive, not reactive, in responding to escalating issues, the team needed to identify trends and root causes—“smoke”—in order to prevent fires.

Citizen development in the C-suite: The new frontier

Thanks to a shortage of software developers, citizen development is finding its way into the C-suite. IDC forecasts a deficit of 4 million full-time developers by 2025.As most organizations digitally transform, their operations are increasingly software-driven—think cloud computing and AI. That propels greater efficiency and productivity. But with a lack of skilled developers to build the apps that support the software, companies lose the ability to rapidly innovate and sustain their competitive edge. That’s where citizen development comes in.Citizen development to the rescueAt LIKE.TG, we’ve been steadily investing in an alternative to traditional software development. Citizen development empowers employees with limited or no software development skills to design and build apps using a low-code development tool such as App Engine.Employees automate the manual tasks that hinder productivity, freeing them to innovate and support strategic goals. No software development skills are required.When Chief People Officer Jacqui Canney joined LIKE.TG, she challenged an HR team member with no developer experience to build a learning and development hub using App Engine. The initial design took less than a month. HR and IT team members provided feedback to enhance the content and user experience as the hub expanded. “Low-code development creates an exciting dynamic by exposing nontech professionals to IT practices to address employee needs and pain points quickly and creatively,” Canney says.“Because we can innovate on the platform, our team has greater agility and can more easily adapt as employee needs evolve. We can enhance and scale HR processes because we are the developers and the users.”Finance goes all-in on citizen developmentLIKE.TG Chief Financial Officer Gina Mastantuono also relies on citizen development for her team’s operational efficiency and success. To put the power of change in the hands of the finance team, she even invested in a formal citizen development program.“Citizen development provides exciting new avenues for our team members to apply their creativity and develop solutions to create even more robust processes,” Mastantuono explains.Since spring 2022, 15% of the finance team has trained to become citizen developers. To date, the team has more than 20 apps in production and development. The apps include: An inventory management system for real-time inventory usage, procurement, and cash flow A tax portal/calendar to centrally manage global compliance obligations A portal for planning and monitoring workplace maintenance tasks Sustainability tags to manage supplier attributes in real time “One of the unexpected benefits has been the impact on our culture,” Mastantuono says. “People are much more willing to consider quick, automated solutions over manual fixes. Centralized workflows are replacing siloed processes and email threads, improving our overall efficiency.”Leading the packThe LIKE.TG C-suite is heavily invested in empowering employees to automate everyday tasks using low-code tools such as App Engine. Who better to develop apps than the people with the most knowledge about the processes?“Citizen development is a great opportunity for any organization,” Canney says. “Any employee, including me, is empowered to learn and grow.”Benefits aren’t limited to learning and growth. In addition, pro developers can focus on more complex apps. Employees without coding experience can solve their own problems while expanding their skills and broadening their career paths. And the LIKE.TG C-suite can breathe a small sigh of relief that innovation isn’t slowing down.Join a company where you can be empowered to learn and grow and make a difference. Explore LIKE.TG careers.

How robotic process automation (RPA) streamlines data integration

If LIKE.TG had a robotic process automation (RPA) fan club, I’d run for president. After seeing firsthand how an RPA-driven bot can improve productivity, I’m a firm believer in this technology.Not long ago, I was assigned a new project for my team: Use RPA to enhance data integration and management of our highly complex configure, price, quote (CPQ) system and processes, which our sales team uses to generate product configurations and pricing.With my fingers crossed, I triggered my first unattended bot by sending an email to its Outlook account. I left for my lunch break, expecting the bot to take some time to extract and validate lengthy JSON payloads of data. As I headed out the door, an email notification alerted me that the bot had successfully imported and validated the data for CPQ.Most people might be upset about cutting their lunch break short. I was ecstatic that the bot uploaded product data in record time. In only 15 minutes, it had completed a task that typically took anywhere from a day to a week, depending on the amount of product data involved. The bot accurately updated our highly complex system, required no human involvement, and saved our team hours of manual effort. I was sold. Building an RPA botMy first bot took about four weeks to develop, with two of those weeks dedicated to designing a prototype as part of a proof of concept. I spent the additional two weeks building the first bot—without writing a single line of code.LIKE.TG RPA Desktop Design Studio helped me navigate webpages using user interface (UI) elements, manipulate Excel data, access Outlook to send emails, and make API calls to communicate with other systems. I easily connected these different RPA components to build an automated process that met our requirements.With the use of RPA Hub, the bot is scheduled to check an Outlook inbox every 30 minutes for an email with the subject line of “Product Payload.” Once the email is received, the bot is triggered to begin the unattended process. It captures the product data attached to the email, including product relationships, attributes, and lifecycle data. It then validates the data and updates and inserts it across seven tables in CPQ. Once the automation runs, the bot alerts the user via email that the process is complete and the newly uploaded data is ready for final validation. RPA’s error-handling feature notifies users if any issues arise or manual intervention is needed. From updating and inserting product data to managing intricate table relationships, RPA eliminates much of the drudgery of data integration. RPA shines for complex processesRPA technology is modular, like Lego blocks. It’s easy to reuse RPA activities in other bot processes, making it simple to build and update new bots as you grow your fleet. For example, we were able to reuse most of the original flow to simplify data imports and exports with apps from companies such as SAP, Celonis, and Lightstep.With every bot we create, we’re able to significantly reduce our development time. An RPA highlight for me was creating bots in less than 30 minutes by combining existing modules from past projects.RPA shines when automating complex, UI-based processes with a definite, traceable pattern that can be implemented using a set of instructions. Unlike traditional automation, which uses preprogrammed functions to carry out tasks, RPA can mimic human clicks using UI screen captures and carry out an existing series of manual tasks. All I needed was a laptop running Windows and time to experiment with the new tool. I quickly discovered it was intuitive and simple to use.What makes RPA the best solutionOur journey to RPA started with a challenge: speeding up the original process for gathering and validating large data sets. We wanted to remove the manual tasks that delayed process completion and bogged down team members with high-volume, tedious, repetitive work.We debated whether to build a new tool and design a new data integration process. Doing so would have required a significant investment of time and resources we didn’t have. Instead, we opted to try RPA technology to streamline the tasks of our existing process.I can’t recommend RPA enough for simplifying workflows and automating time-consuming, UI-based interactions. By bringing new efficiencies to our processes, RPA has significantly reduced our typical cycle times from a couple of days to under an hour.We’ve automated more than 50 monthly CPQ product data uploads, thanks to RPA, and that number continues to grow. Our team has deployed eight bots already and plans to launch more.The biggest benefit of RPA is the impact on my team’s productivity. With fewer tedious tasks, my colleagues have more time to focus on more interesting work. For me personally, that extra time means I can now campaign for RPA club president.Find out more about the benefits of RPA. Ready to start building your own bots? Check out this introductory RPA course.

Getting ahead of global regulations

In today’s world, the fitness of compliance and risk professionals is being tested like never before. Like the surfers who founded LIKE.TG, we must find ways to get ahead of each new wave of federal and global regulations and ride as gracefully as we can—or wipe out. The key is to be proactive rather than reactive.No matter the regulation or resources at one’s disposal, the basic principles of establishing a strong compliance practice cannot be ignored.Think globallyIn the summer of 2022, the European Union (EU) updated its whistleblower requirements and policies. As a result, global companies like LIKE.TG must handle issues raised by EU employees differently than those raised in the U.S.From the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to the upcoming EU Data Act to the recent U.S. Department of Justice guidance on corporate compliance programs, regulations affect all global companies and their customers.At LIKE.TG, we must continually assess local, regional, and global impacts of legislation. Otherwise, we’ll be out of compliance when a new regulation rolls out.Coordinate cross-enterprise effortsNo single team can ensure compliance and control for risk on its own. Capabilities must be tapped and harmonized across the organization.At LIKE.TG, we’re fortunate to have legal, government relations, and regulated markets teams that track rules and regulations, talk to customers, and monitor upcoming waves. These teams gather and share information so that we can make quick adjustments on the fly. We work together to ensure we have the systems and workflows in place to maintain continuous compliance.Take a risk-based approachRisk appetite must be balanced with risk tolerance. Businesses should take risks that could have positive impacts and mitigate risks that could have negative repercussions.At LIKE.TG, our policies and procedures are designed to prevent violations of regulations. Where gray areas exist, we have room to innovate, as we work to define what a 21st-century compliance culture should look like.Technology drives efficiencyIn today’s working world, which extends beyond office buildings, it can be difficult to pick up cues or sense red flags. We miss out on spontaneous conversations and casual exchanges of information. In lieu of this, we must rely on data. Our teams use the LIKE.TG integrated risk management (IRM) regulatory compliance framework to help us manage changing regulations, strategize compliance policies, and identify addressable gaps. IRM is critical in helping us focus our efforts. It spares us from duplicating work and brings crucial information to everyone who needs it.We use other Now Platform capabilities and the LIKE.TG C-suite dashboards to instantly get a sense of what’s happening across the company. We can see metrics in real time, sales by location, high-risk partners and their locations, complaints and their origins, and much more. LIKE.TG solutions let us be in rooms we’re not physically in and provide access to pertinent information.Technology also gives us a leg up on data governance, a practice area that all industries are prioritizing and elevating. Because all our data resides on a single platform, we know how to find it. It’s at our fingertips, on demand. No waves, no gloryLike the sea, global regulations are ever changing. Being a good surfer is about pairing solid technique with state-of-the-art technology that supports speed and efficiency.We can’t always know the exact character or magnitude of the next wave, or if it will throw us underwater. But we do our best to ride with grace by getting ahead of each wave—and we’re nothing but stoked about it.Find out more about how LIKE.TG helps organizations get ahead of global regulations.

Customer zero: 4 ways we use LIKE.TG tech internally

At LIKE.TG, we face the same business challenges our customers do. That’s why we use our own products and solutions, all built on the Now Platform, to drive speed and scale across the enterprise.As customer zero, we’re reimagining the future of work, building new digital businesses, and creating secure, seamless experiences. The result is increased productivity, efficiency, and great user experiences. Here are four of the many ways we use our technology internally:1. Streamlining project and portfolio managementTypical project management methodologies use governance to produce a specific deliverable tied to a product or service. Because market conditions and priorities constantly shift, modern project management offices now focus on product management—or the continuous delivery of a product or service with outcomes directly linked to strategic goals.LIKE.TG Strategic Portfolio Management can expedite delivery on projects through an agile approach. Hear how our IT project management office uses this product to continually provide value in our Moving from project to product webinar.2. Delivering meaningful experiencesThe vast majority (99%) of LIKE.TG customers renew their subscriptions to our services. For that reason, it’s vital that we provide top-notch customer experience from day one. LIKE.TG Customer Service Management helps ensure our customers get the support they need when they need it, whether through self-service or human contact.We use Customer Service Management to empower the LIKE.TG customer support team. Discover how it helped us increase case deflection and elevate productivity for both customers and employees in Couch to 5K with Customer Service Management.3. Proactively preventing problemsWouldn’t it be nice if your IT operations team could mitigate incidents before they cause issues in your operations? Good news: They can! LIKE.TG Predictive AIOps continuously collects and analyzes IT operational data to identify potential issues and then resolves many of them before they affect end users. In many cases, no human intervention is required.In Seamlessly transforming IT operations with AIOps, internal LIKE.TG practitioners who use AIOps every day share why it’s a critical technology for any IT environment. Hear use cases and glean insights into how AIOps allowed us to scale and transform our IT operations.4. Automating processes across the enterpriseLIKE.TG has taken automation a step further with our widespread adoption of hyperautomation, which orchestrates technologies such as AI, machine learning, and robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline end-to-end processes and workflows.Hyperautomation can also help identify which tools are working effectively and where problems exist. Within LIKE.TG, we’re using the Now Platform along with our solutions to become an autonomous digital enterprise. Find out about our adoption journey, including challenges faced and key takeaways, in Our step-by-step guide to hyperautomation.

Why a knowledge-sharing culture can be a competitive differentiator

A 2021 Deloitte study found knowledge management (KM) to be one of the top three issues influencing company success. According to the survey, 75% of organizations reported that creating and preserving knowledge across evolving workforces would be critical to their success over the next 12 to 18 months.This is clearly a competitive advantage. Yet only 9% of surveyed organizations felt prepared to address KM. Blame that on the sudden shift to a remote workforce.In the aftermath of the pandemic, traditional views of how to handle knowledge are changing. The new environment champions an iterative, knowledge-sharing culture that fosters a repeatable content creation and transfer process. An intentional environment like this is sustainable only when employees and processes are front and center.Creating a knowledge-sharing programThe traditional approach to implementing a new KM system by migrating existing content generally doesn’t work. Automating the collection, sharing, and maintenance of data isn’t enough.At LIKE.TG, we found that taking the time to plan and make decisions upfront leads to a clean transition and implementation—and a more successful program.This strategy became the foundation of our Knowledge Management solution. It supports a holistic approach (people, processes, and technology) that’s designed to increase employee productivity and engagement, promote knowledge sharing, and help power continuous improvement.3 steps to knowledge management successThe first steps to a successful program should be embraced throughout any company:1. Governance: To build an engaging knowledge-sharing culture, create a roadmap to clearly define goals, roles, and metrics. Then secure the support of leadership. Before we start rolling out any technology, we gather our stakeholders to clarify what we’ll deliver, who will be involved, and when it will be ready.

Building better software security with a BSIMM app

In a rapidly changing world, security is more important than ever. With good security, customers can trust organizations to take their digital infrastructure to the next level. But how do you implement top security measures across a large, complex company?At LIKE.TG, we use our own products to protect ourselves and our customers—and to extend the functionality of the Now Platform. To see how we perform against industry benchmarks, we use the Building Security in Maturity Model (BSIMM), a 100-page document of 122 data-driven benchmarks for building better software security.Owned by Sunnyvale-based electronic design automation company Synopsys, BSIMM is a “taxonomy of security behaviors that allow organizations to measure and improve their software development practice,” explains Steve S., director of product security management at ServiceNow.In other words, if you want the best security, BSIMM is the way to go. However, most organizations struggle to comprehend and distill all of these benchmarks into a system that works for each unique sector of their business. That’s why LIKE.TG created a BSIMM app on the Now Platform.007 of softwareWith red teams that organize planned hacks of our systems, bad-actor simulations, and threat models of potential malicious activity, a day in the life of a LIKE.TG security employee sounds a lot like a James Bond movie.“My goal is to keep LIKE.TG’s name out of the 11:00 news,” says Bobby W., senior staff product security engineer for the company. “It’s very important for trust to be maintained at a company that’s knee-deep in third-party vendor relationships. That’s our brand right there.”Prior to the creation of the BSIMM app, the assessment of security behaviors “was done on spreadsheets, which is a horrible thing to do to somebody,” Bobby says, laughing. “My last spreadsheet [at a prior job] was 30 workbooks long.”Steve had a thought: Why don’t we figure out how to do this ourselves? “We designed the app for how we would actually use it,” he explains. “We incorporated all BSIMM activities across all versions [there’s an updated list every year], as well as the spider graphs that show where you are in relation to your peers, the world, etc.” “The app allows us to take something as broad as a framework that’s three to four weeks of work, multiple conversations, and groups of teams involved, and build spider charts and services that can actually identify two to three years of work in just a simple series of reporting metrics,” Bobby says. What was once an intangible process is seamlessly transformed into quick, tangible action steps. It’s operationalized.“It’s tough to come across, and really a beautiful thing to do. It’s something I’ve not been able to do at other companies,” Bobby adds.Simplifying complexityWhen working with various teams across LIKE.TG, our security champions don't have to waste energy distilling complex information—the app does it for them. “We're filtering it down to what’s specific to [each team] and how they compare to other people,” Bobby says. “Because I'm working so fast, I’m not focused on curating information. I can focus on what I’m trying to do and what I’m trying to say.”Manshu V., principal digital technology (DT) program manager at LIKE.TG, uses the BSIMM app to monitor and improve the security practices across the DT organization. “It’s especially important because our folks in DT use our own products,” he says.Thanks to the ease and distillation of information from the BSIMM app, Manshu is able to prioritize what’s most important to the DT organization. He’s helped build threat model secure designs for apps, security scanning processes for code, and even planned hacks of our systems to find vulnerabilities. Although they haven’t produced any “alarming findings,” Manshu finds the process fascinating, he says. Rising to the challengeWithout the BSIMM app, Manshu says, it can be tempting to simply choose the “easiest” behaviors to implement, which may not have the most value. Just as building a house in California versus Florida involves different ecological threats, different LIKE.TG teams have different security threats, he adds.With the BSIMM app, nothing is left to chance. It customizes the security analysis results according to the team and organization it’s interacting with, and it details action plans for increasing that particular team’s security. Security testing requires commitment, hard work, and taking risks, but it’s worth it, Manshu says.“If we’re going to be the most trusted SaaS [software as a service] provider, we need to be secure,” Steve adds. “As [LIKE.TG CEO] Bill McDermott says, ‘Trust is the ultimate human currency. It’s earned in drops and lost in buckets.”Work at a company that takes security seriously. Apply for a role at LIKE.TG.

How citizen developers cook up innovation

An example of generative AI on the LIKE.TG people team

Generative AI (GenAI) is here, in all its exciting use cases, playing the part of the precocious, attention-seeking toddler. Business will never be the same.While AI has been a feature of LIKE.TG products for years, the Now Platform Vancouver release builds GenAI into all aspects of Now Platform adoption. In doing so, it empowers employees, customers, and partners to save time, minimize repetitive tasks, and increase productivity.Along with predictive AI and general AI, the LIKE.TG people team is an example of generative AI, putting GenAI to work in areas such as case summarization, automatically creating case and incident summary notes for our agents in seconds.As we continue to learn, working with our legal team partners, we’re building an implementation approach for use cases where we think GenAI will make the biggest impact.We’re all in the same boat…in uncharted watersMost modern businesses are facing the same challenge: how to integrate GenAI quickly, safely, and seamlessly into workflows without compromising security, privacy, or compliance.For us, that involves figuring out how this exciting new technology will help accelerate the continuing development of HR Service Delivery so that we can provide the best experience for users and free our agents to work on bigger, more important tasks.If we can train GenAI to handle simple case summarizations and the rote questions that come in several times a day, it will give our team time to be more human. Where to start with GenAIAt LIKE.TG, we started simply and safely. We identified the most straightforward use cases with the lowest risk: predominantly agent-facing situations.We also knew we wanted to address slightly more complicated tasks, such as conversation summaries and skills tagging. For each new use case, we’re carefully considering the internal steps needed to implement the tasks safely and compliantly.Each iteration includes evaluating and addressing privacy-related issues. We scrutinize how the data will be used to determine what changes are needed, ensuring we’re asking the right questions along the way.We continually assess risks for each of these situations and take steps to mitigate them, moving quickly but carefully. It may not always be smooth sailing, but if we can navigate the risks, we anticipate reaping great rewards.What about privacy?Many questions remain regarding private and public large language models (LLMs) and what each means for data privacy and security. We work hand in hand with our legal teams, including our global privacy and employment colleagues, to develop and deploy GenAI technology in a fully compliant way.We keep individuals’ privacy rights and our obligations under privacy regulations (such as data minimization) top of mind throughout the process.We’re prioritizing flexibility as well as privacy. While our customers will be able to use the LLMs of their choice, we’re building our GenAI solutions within the people team using our own domain-specific, purpose-built Now LLM. This keeps all of our employees’ data in-house for increased privacy. Skin in the gameWe see GenAI allowing us to significantly reduce the amount of time humans spend on administrative work, such as Tier 1 inquiries. This enables us to be more efficient, more consultative, and more available to focus on the moments that matter. Imagine how much time can be saved by automatically sourced and summarized knowledge articles when searching a topic.As customer zero, we pressure-test LIKE.TG products and use them to help us run our business better. We work directly with the product teams to essentially co-create and help develop new features and capabilities.We’re excited to play a part in the development of GenAI and help shepherd this technology that’s transforming how we help employees and keep them engaged.Find out more about the benefits of GenAI in HR Service Delivery.