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Unlocking the Power of ITSM with Now Assist

Navdeep Singh Gill | 25 September 2024

Unlocking the Power of ITSM with Now Assist
20:11
Now Assist for IT Service Management

Introduction of ITSM

Since the mid-20th century, the IT industry has been a cornerstone of business and has become even more important and complex today. Integrating emerging technologies, secure remote work solutions, and the need for uninterrupted service presents unprecedented challenges. To address these, organizations are increasingly turning to IT Service Management (ITSM). 

 

ITSM manages the end-to-end delivery of IT, helping teams plan, design, build, deploy, improve, and support IT services. It operates on the principle that IT activities should meet user needs and align with business objectives, extending beyond basic support to include all aspects of IT.

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Key Benefits of ITSM for Companies

48% of companies use IT Service Management (ITSM) to ensure the quality of IT services, while 35% leverage ITSM to enhance the Customer Experience

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Widespread Impact of ITSM Programs

89% of businesses experience added benefits across all ITSM programs, demonstrating its broad effectiveness and value

Understanding the role of ITSM in Digital Transformation is essential, and Now help ITSM deliver agile, scalable solutions that keep pace with your business needs. 

Key Data Insights 

  • Global IT spending: According to Gartner, global IT spending is expected to reach $4.4 trillion by the end of 2025. 

  • IT services costs: More than $1.26 billion of this total will be IT services. 

  • Customizability: This high cost emphasizes the potential for customization of software and hardware assets. 

  • Public Cloud Service Growth: Gartner predicts that public cloud service spending will grow 20.4%, reaching $494.7 billion by 2025. 

Digital Innovation and Now Assist ITSM 

Now Assist ITSM is a modern, cloud-based, silo-busting solution that integrates on-premises legacy tools into a single platform. Native AI, Machine Learning capabilities, and Virtual Agent Chatbots now support ITSM to offload IT staff, increase productivity, and empower employees to solve problems on their own 24/7. Key features include: 

  • Virtual Agent with NLU: Virtual Agent with NLU now provides instant solutions for common IT service tasks through conversational chatbots. These AI-powered virtual agents understand human language, allowing users to troubleshoot problems and fulfill requests without the direct intervention of IT staff. This 24/7 virtual capability increases user satisfaction, reduces the burden on IT teams, and enables more efficient resource allocation. 

  • Service Operations Center: The Service Operations Center integrates IT operations and management functions into an integrated experience. This integration enables a simple business model and modern best practices, improves service reliability, and delivers a unified, efficient service management experience. By integrating IT operations and service management into a single workspace, Now Assist helps improve ITSM administrator productivity and accelerates incident resolution.  

  • Artificial Intelligence: Predictive insights use machine learning to automatically segment data and route it to the right solution teams. By analyzing historical patterns, predictive intelligence enhances its recommendations over time, providing engineers with AI-enabled responses that provide faster issue resolution. This methodology is time-consuming and undertakes and optimizes IT operations, ensuring high-impact incidents are dealt with quickly and effectively.

    Unlock the Future of Innovation with Artificial Intelligence

Optimizing IT Service Management with Now Assist 

Now Assist stands out as a comprehensive and capable ITSM platform that is well-aligned with the goals. Its strong capabilities in asset management, cloud integration, automation, AI, service desk operations, and continuous monitoring provide a sound foundation for transformation.

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Figure1.1. Now Assist driven ITSM 

 

The diagram shows the ITSM integration process, which starts by installing and configuring the ServiceNow plugin in a third party for easy data exchange and then retrieving data using a REST API, bringing it in order easily and initially stored in Import Sets. This has been modified and mapped to fit the now assists’ fields before storing them in the Incident Table. Incident logs have been linked to Configuration Factors in the CMDB for impact assessment and Now Assist the ability to activate the response based on incident data. This intuitive design enhances the efficiency of incident logging, escalation, incident classification, incident prioritization, analysis, and business solutions. 

Event management using Now Assist’s Automation  

Improving incident handling is essential to maintaining effective IT operations. Assist now uses advanced automation to improve productivity and service delivery with a simpler and smarter approach.   

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Figure 1.2. Incident Management and Now Assist specification 

 

  • This flow ensures efficient incident handling through the use of AI to automate and optimize incident classification and processing. 

  • Users interact with the mobile/web interface to trigger events, which are fired via API integration. 

  • Assist now uses AI to distribute, route, and deliver events, mapping and transforming data as needed. 

  • Processed events are stored in event tables, which trigger actions and generate KPIs for performance management. 

  1. Empower Employees through Self-Service:  offers an intuitive omnichannel self-service platform, allowing employees to self-resolve issues through web browsers, mobile apps, or chatbots. This reduces reliance on IT support and improves team member productivity. 

  2. Speed ​​up service Restoration: Using machine learning, Now Assist automatically classifies incidents and routes them to the appropriate solution process. This ensures a quick and effective service restoration by getting the right experts on board immediately. 

  3. Reduce the number of Incidents with Distractions: Dynamic incident distractions through a self-service portal and intelligent chatbots help users troubleshoot and resolve common problems automatically, reducing the number of tickets needed for IT support to process. 

  4. Increase Agent Productivity: Intelligent programs powered by machine learning direct events to the most appropriate groups based on historical data and current context, allowing agents to focus on problems that will be handled properly. 

Transition planning through Now Assist’s Workflow Capabilities 

Managing change in an IT environment requires a careful balance between speed, accuracy, and minimal risk. Assist now streamlines this process through advanced workflows, leveraging built-in AI, data-driven flows, and customized change models to ensure an agile and deliverable change management process relies on it  

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Figure 1.3. Conversion process and Now Assist 

  1. Increase Conversion Speed: Assist now uses a dynamic approval process and automated state conversions to accelerate the conversion process. By automating these critical steps, organizations can reduce complexity and ensure rapid implementation of changes, making time-to-value more quickly.

  2. Increase Efficiency and Accuracy: The platform uses a change success score to evaluate the likelihood of each proposed change being successful. This data-driven approach improves decision-making, ensures that change is proficient and accurate, and reduces the risk of failure. 

  3. Seamless Integration with DevOps and SRE: Now Assist seamlessly integrates with DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices, enabling distributed developers to work in their preferred tools while leveraging Now Platform capabilities. This integration ensures that change processes are integrated and do not disrupt existing business processes. 

  4. Change Models Aligned with Goals: Now Assist offers change models that match development teams where they are based on their practices, toolchain, and maturity level. This process ensures that change management processes are appropriate and effective and meet teams' specific needs

Service Catalog Management using Now Assist’s User Experience Tools 

Effective inventory management is critical to the smooth delivery of goods and services to employees and customers. Assist’s user experience tool allows change, empowers users, increases productivity, and provides valuable insights for continuous improvement.

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Figure1.4. Service catalog management and Now Assist 

 

These dimensions seem to represent a process that includes user interaction, data mining, integration with Now Assist, and the use of tools and KPIs for monitoring and feedback  

  • User Interaction: Users submit information, which is ingested via API integration Now Assist. 

  • Now Assist: This system processes the data, interacts with a cataloging tool for validation and feedback, and generates KPIs for monitoring and improvement. 

  1. Enhance your service: Support staff and customers can now request inventory directly through a user-friendly interface, speeding up request fulfillment and reducing the need for IT intervention on the snow. 

  2. Increase operational efficiency: By automating routine tasks and ensuring routing accuracy, Now Assist speeds and reduces service delivery costs, increasing overall efficiency. 

  3. Gain real-time visibility: Service inventory owners gain real-time insight into order volume, velocity, and automation levels, allowing for data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.

  4. Speed ​​up the time to deliver value: Help now delivers a visual and guided inventory development experience, making IT department inventory more consistent and streamlined.

Advanced problem-solving using Now Assist’s AI Insights 

Managing and resolving IT issues is critical to maintaining service reliability and reducing disruptions. Assist now uses AI insights to improve problem-solving, enabling organizations to quickly identify, address, and resolve issues. Here’s how Now Assist’s AI-powered approach is transforming problem-solving. 

 

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 Fig.1.5. Advanced problem resolution using Now Assist 

 

  1. Reduce service disruption: Now Assist uses built-in dashboards to analyze service performance and processes better, identifying potential issues before they escalate. This way of working ensures minimal impact on service delivery. 

  2. Enable faster service restoration: By enabling IT teams to immediately identify faults and known services, Now Assist significantly reduces the time required to restore services. IT staff can quickly access the information they need to execute and handle information effectively. 

  3. Accelerate root cause resolution: Now Assist links problems and organizes workflows to identify the fastest path to the underlying problem. This quick neurological examination helps to resolve issues quickly and effectively. 

  4. One system of reference: It provides a single platform for finding and managing potential failures and predicting issues' impacts. This single system simplifies problem-solving and provides greater visibility. 

  5. Known defect documentation: Solutions and workarounds for known defects are documented and published, making ITIL or ITSM easier to remember. This contextual knowledge speeds up decision-making and minimizes the impact of interference. 

Key components  

  • Asset Management Optimization: This feature Now Assists management tools in tracking and meticulously managing software and hardware assets. With predictive analytics, it can accurately forecast asset lifecycles and maintenance needs, preventing downtime and ensuring seamless operations. The automation features now assist in streamlining asset provisioning and decommissioning processes, significantly reducing manual efforts. 

  • Cloud Integration: Now Assist's cloud capabilities facilitate seamless integration with public cloud services, ensuring scalability and flexibility. The platform's cloud-native tools for monitoring, logging, and management have optimized resource utilization and service delivery. The hybrid cloud strategy, supported by Now Assist, has not only reduced costs but also enhanced performance, effectively meeting clients' needs.


  • Automation and AI: Now assist AI-driven automation has revolutionized ITSM processes. Routine tasks such as incident management, request fulfillment, and change management are now handled with precision and speed. AI-powered chatbots provide 24/7 customer support, ensuring clients receive timely assistance. Additionally, it now assists machine learning capabilities in analyzing incident patterns and helps to predict and prevent potential IT issues.

     

  • Service Desk Enhancements: The Service desk has been significantly enhanced with Now Assist self-service portals and comprehensive knowledge bases, empowering users to resolve common issues independently. Multi-channel support, including email, chat, and phone, ensures clients can reach through their preferred communication medium. Now Assist AI capabilities automatically categorize and prioritize tickets, ensuring critical issues are addressed promptly. 


  • Continuous Research and Improvement: Now assist continuous monitoring tools detect and resolve issues proactively, minimizing disruptions. The platform's analytics provide valuable insights into ITSM performance and identify areas for improvement. A feedback loop, established through Now Assist, gathers user input, enabling us to continuously refine our ITSM processes. 

Transforming IT Service Management 

Help ITSM’s innovative features drive digital transformation by solving the key challenges currently facing modern IT departments: 

  • Enhanced Productivity: With virtual agents and predictive intelligence, routine tasks are automated, and issue routing is improved. This allows IT professionals to focus on complex and strategic tasks. 

  • Enhanced Experience: Virtual agents' ability to provide self-service 24/7 empowers users to resolve their issues faster, resulting in greater satisfaction and reduced reliance on IT support. 

  • Seamless Integration: The service business unit simplifies the business process by integrating IT operations and service management and ensures a unified approach to service delivery. 

  • Faster Resolution: Predictive intelligent machine learning allows for more efficient issue handling, reducing repetitive issues and improving overall service reliability. 

  • Efficient Resource Allocation: By automating routine tasks and using AI to manage information, ServiceNow ITSM helps IT departments allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that important information gets the attention it deserves. 

Now Assist ITSM by the Numbers 

Support ITSM is now recommended to improve IT services, increase end-user satisfaction, and increase the flexibility and agility of the IT team. An in-depth study by Forrester reveals key benefits: 

  • 66% reduction in the number of monthly service and action requests 

  • 25% reduction in the number of monthly high-priority events 

  • 20% increase in IT team capacity 

  • $4M reduction in infrastructure spending over three years 

  • $3M of efficiency savings over three years 

  • The average service request time decreased by 15 minutes 

ServiceNow is a leader in the ITSM industry, as ranked by Gartner in the 2021 ITSM Magic Quadrant

 introduction-iconBenefits of Now Assist IT Service Management
 
Event management: Automatically assign events to relevant machine learning-deployed solutions and bring stakeholders together to quickly search and return services. 
 
Problem-solving: Identify root causes and solve problems within a structured workflow. 

Change Management: Reduces the risk and cost of unplanned changes and improves business speed. 

Configuration Management (CMDB): Help consolidate IT data silos into a single system of record for proactive management. 


Business Analytics: Enables stakeholders to make intelligent, real-time decisions through data visualization. 

Continuous Improvement Management: Align data, people, and business objectives for continuous service improvement. 

Vendor Manager Functional Scope: Monitor and analyze vendor operations from a single location. 

Real-World Use Cases of ITSM with Now Assist 

Flight Centre Travel Group 

Challenge: The Flight Centre Travel Group faced a high volume of IT incidents that strained their support teams and impacted service quality. Their existing IT infrastructure lacked the efficiency needed to manage and resolve these incidents promptly. 

 

Solution: By implementing Now Assist ITSM, Flight Centre Travel Group will streamline its incident management process. The platform’s automation capabilities and AI-driven resolutions allowed for quicker incident detection, classification, and routing to the appropriate resolution groups. 

  • Reduction in Incident Volume: The number of incidents was reduced by 50%, significantly easing the burden on IT support teams. 

  • Faster Resolution Times: Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) was cut by 80%, ensuring that issues were resolved more swiftly, minimizing downtime, and improving overall service reliability. 

Danske Bank 

Challenge: Danske Bank needed to enhance its incident management to reduce the frequency and impact of high-priority incidents. It also aimed to improve its ability to restore services quickly following disruptions. 

 

Solution: Now Assist ITSM-provided Danske Bank with advanced incident and problem management tools. The platform’s predictive intelligence and major incident management capabilities helped in swiftly identifying and addressing critical issues, while structured workflows facilitated faster root cause analysis and resolution. 

  • Reduction in High-Impact Incidents: The number of high-impact incidents was reduced by 93%, significantly lowering the risk of major service disruptions. 

  • Accelerated Service Restoration: The time to restore services was shortened by 6X, enhancing the bank’s operational resilience and customer trust. 

NHS Oxford Health (NHS Foundation Trust)  

Challenge: NHS Oxford Health faced challenges in managing their IT service requests and maintaining high team member satisfaction. Manual processes were time-consuming and inefficient, impacting the overall productivity of their IT staff. 

 

Solution: Now Assist ITSM’s automation features enabled NHS Oxford Health to automate routine IT tasks and service requests. The platform’s self-service capabilities empowered employees to resolve common issues independently, reducing the need for direct IT intervention. 

  • Annual Time Savings: Automation of routine tasks saved 1,200 hours annually, freeing up IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives. 

  • Improved Employee Satisfaction: Employee satisfaction levels doubled, thanks to the streamlined IT support processes and faster resolution of service requests. 

Conclusion 

Now Assist for ITSM is transforming IT service delivery by improving productivity, reducing costs, and improving the team member and customer experience. By leveraging the Now Assist powerful platform, organizations can reduce the number of incidents, improve resolution time, and increase overall productivity and team member satisfaction. Its comprehensive features can make it an invaluable tool for businesses across industries. Embrace the power of ITSM by helping you scale up your IT services and start your digital transformation journey now.