ServiceNow is an extremely effective platform not only for ITSM but for managing many aspects of a company’s operation. This has long been clear. But one of the areas that may go underutilized among ServiceNow users is the ability to collect large amounts of valuable data which can then be analysed in specialized business intelligence platforms. That’s where SnowMirror comes in. SnowMirror is a smart replication platform for ServiceNow that makes a copy of your company’s ServiceNow data on your own infrastructure. It can help you identify the opportunities hidden in ServiceNow data.
For example, a third-party business intelligence platform such as Tableau can be used to identify important trends, usage patterns and information that may have been overlooked in standard reporting. For example, a company called Linium has created a Tableau dashboard that uses ServiceNow data to track where assets are physically located in an organization, which can then be used for tasks such as determining which priority to upgrade hardware.
In the example Linium provides, “let’s say your boss wants to start repairing all of the computers in maintenance and he wants you to find out what needs to be fixed. By using this dashboard, you can easily view all of the computers that are in maintenance, their model type, their exact location, and how much they cost. In addition to giving your boss a list of all the computers that need to be repaired, you can also give him insight as what parts need to be ordered, the proximity of the computers to one another, and the priority as to which computers should be repaired first.”
“The key here is flexibility: reports that are dynamic allow you to achieve unique reporting needs by customizing the granularity of the information and the dimensions by which the information is presented,” they continue.
ServiceNow data can also be used to identify ITSM problems that can be turned into opportunities, such as identifying the heaviest users of a certain support task at a certain location, which can then be addressed in a number of time- and labour-saving ways. While it’s true that the standard reporting in ServiceNow can provide some of this functionality, dedicated BI tools are more flexible, user-friendly and powerful. They can also combine ServiceNow data from other data sources.
For companies that use ServiceNow to power the provision of outsourced ITSM services, this can mean aggregating data to identify marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) or even sales qualified leads (SQLs, not to be confused with the database standard) ready for upselling. One example of such a use case scenario would be queries to a call center powered by ServiceNow. Another is the classic IT support desk.
A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that is interested in your product, but may not yet be at the sale level. As Tableau writes on their blog, a marketing qualified lead is someone who is open to the idea of a sale but has not yet bought. This data could be found in behaviour patterns captured by ServiceNow and identifies potential customers for cross-selling or upselling.
Here are some examples Tableau provides of marketing qualified lead actions:
- Downloading trial software or ebook
- Using software demos
- Filling out online forms
- Favoriting items or adding items to a wishlist
- Repeating site visits or spending a lot of time on your site
- Contacting you to request more information
Identifying and tracking MQLs isn’t just for external outsourcing providers. Internal ITSM efforts, internal marketing and training can all be deployed to save a company time and effort.
SnowMirror is a crucial part of the toolchain that goes from ServiceNow to BI tools like Tableau. Because it provides flexible and reliable replication of your ServiceNow data to your own infrastructure, SnowMirror makes it far easier and more effective to run complex queries and reports without causing undue load on your ServiceNow cloud instance – the data is already off the cloud.
If you’d like to to talk with us about how SnowMirror can help your business get the most out of ServiceNow.
