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ServiceNow: Does It Make Sense for Every Scenario?
Nowadays, it is common to see the market, especially HIGH-END companies and organizations, adopting international platforms such as ServiceNow as the main, and often the only, path toward the evolution and consolidation of their internal processes and automations.
However, this perception is not limited to ServiceNow. Other global platforms, such as Salesforce, are also often treated as universal solutions, which can be a serious mistake for several reasons.
They are, in fact, extremely robust and powerful tools, and this article is not intended to diminish or question their strengths. On the contrary, the proposal is to present a different and alternative perspective for many of the situations and functionalities they offer, providing an approach with significantly lower costs without compromising efficiency.
Let’s Take a Quick Comparison: ServiceNow vs. Other Alternatives
Cost per nominal user vs. module, typically billed annually in dollars
Work with platforms of similar robustness, capable of scaling across large organizations, but with licensing models better suited to the reality of our country.
IT-oriented process modeling
Evaluate platforms with a delivery-oriented approach, capable of generating solutions and automations directly within business areas, decentralizing IT and addressing bottlenecks commonly found in roadmaps.
Extremely high consulting and labor costs
Evaluate platforms that offer a faster adoption and learning cycle, with a more attractive cost-to-knowledge ratio, allowing business areas to scale their own solutions.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
Work with a focus on process automation and management, adopting the discipline according to the CBOK and guiding all of the organization’s processes not only IT services, but also business areas. This can be the starting point.
IT Operations Management (ITOM)
The ServiceNow solution is highly robust and technical, operating in an integrated manner with infrastructure and standing out for the strength of its functionalities. As an alternative, it is possible to evaluate process automation through an All-in-One enterprise platform, using functionalities such as CMDB either through ServiceNow itself or through alternatives available on the market.
IT Asset Management (ITAM)
Focus on the automation of processes for asset check-in and check-out, integrating with corporate systems, ERP, asset management systems, LDAP, among others.
Enterprise Service Management (ESM)
Focus on other areas of the company, such as HR, finance, legal, and other corporate services, promoting standardization, operational efficiency, and a consistent experience for internal customers.
Low-Code Automation and Processes
Robust process management and automation software, focused on end users and on well-established process management disciplines based on CBOK, BPMN, and market best practices, give business areas the ability to create solutions more autonomously.
ServiceNow’s automation, on the other hand, is generally focused on IT teams or highly specialized professionals, which tends to result in significantly higher costs.
Artificial Intelligence and Analytics
Automate processes with the ability to integrate and embed agents into their content, providing advanced functionalities to end users in a simplified manner and with minimal adoption requirements.
Security and Governance
Focus on a platform oriented toward data and information as the foundation of the transformation journey, where this data can be managed through robust layers of security, compliance, and auditing, ensuring event trails and traceability for everything that is created, edited, accessed, or deleted, while putting business areas in control of decisions regarding how this information should be managed and governed.
User Experience
Do not be carried away by dynamics or user experiences based on the attention economy thesis. The focus should be on platforms that have real usability embedded in their DNA, rather than merely perceived usability, generating greater value for end users and respecting the level of care this experience requires. Just be mindful of placing too much emphasis on making things look “pretty.”
Document Management (ECM)
Work with an integrated platform for documents, processes, performance indicators, and digital and electronic signatures, with an application-oriented approach based on an All-in-One platform.
Electronic and Digital Signatures
Platforms with an established presence in Brazil, offering native digital and electronic signature capabilities integrated with process and document management modules. In ServiceNow, this functionality is not native, which often results in additional costs for third-party solutions and integrations.
Risk Management, Compliance, and Governance (GRC)
For processes and management scenarios with leaner characteristics, solutions based on BPM, ECM, and related technologies can meet these needs efficiently, at significantly lower costs. ServiceNow, in turn, offers highly robust modules, but with a higher level of complexity and investment.
Integrations
Focus on evaluating platforms that have robust integration layers in their portfolio, requiring as little code development as possible to enable communication between systems and, preferably, without additional costs per integrated transaction or dependence on third-party components or significant implementation efforts and investments.
How to Evaluate Management Platforms Without Compromising Flexibility and Autonomy
Based on this comparison, it is possible to observe that there are scenarios in which alternatives with the same level of robustness and ability to scale the business in the short, medium, and long term have significantly lower acquisition, maintenance, and ongoing development costs. In addition, these alternatives can offer a set of features and differentiators that ServiceNow does not provide, making them a highly viable option and, in many cases, the true deciding factor.
More than just delivering astronomical cost savings, these solutions are capable of providing real value within the organization’s context, not only from a functional perspective but also in terms of culture and mindset. They promote an effective, comprehensive, and sustainable digital transformation journey, without locking the company into an expensive and excessively heavyweight platform over time.
From Theory to Practice: When Digital Transformation Delivers Real Results
There are relevant cases, especially in the public sector, in which Neomind has worked together with its clients while considering all these variables, achieving surprising results. Soon, a case study from Brasília, involving a government agency of national relevance, will be released, concretely demonstrating this approach.
With the Fusion Platform as its foundation, and the organization fully aware of its digital transformation journey, it was possible to raise the standard of overall management by applying the platform to its full potential. In less than three months, the initiative enabled the automation of processes, documents, performance indicators, digital and electronic signatures, mobility, governance, compliance, auditing, risk management, and AI across business areas, fully covering the scope originally envisioned for a ServiceNow project, but at a significantly lower cost.
Digital transformation starts with well-informed decisions. Discover the Fusion Platform.
