Is ServiceNow a CRM? Is ServiceNow an ERP? (And Other Questions)
Quick Answer: Is ServiceNow a CRM or ERP?
- Is ServiceNow a CRM or ERP? ServiceNow is neither traditional CRM nor ERP software — but it offers powerful CRM- and ERP-like features.
- What is ServiceNow used for? Workflow automation, ITSM, HR service delivery and enterprise-wide transformation.
- Why choose it? ServiceNow is flexible, scalable and designed to unify services across large organizations.
ServiceNow is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product popular with businesses, especially large enterprises. A primary reason is because of its versatility and ability to deliver a consistent experience to users. By integrating ServiceNow into their IT architectural makeup, enterprises can automate their routine work tasks while simultaneously streamlining and improving operational efficiencies.
Designed to give a comprehensive development environment, ServiceNow is also highly customizable. This means businesses can shape its use to meet their specific requirements, needs and wants. ServiceNow also has a strong ability to integrate with other applications, including legacy software. The latter is a unique aspect because it easily resolves the technical issues many businesses commonly face.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at ways ServiceNow can empower businesses and answer some common FAQs about this product.
What is ServiceNow used for?
ServiceNow is a powerful cloud-based platform used for workflow automation, digital transformation and enterprise operations. Its wide array of modules and customization options make it suitable for IT, HR, customer service and operations teams. Whether you’re aiming to improve service delivery, streamline internal requests or enhance user experience, ServiceNow provides the tools to get it done, efficiently and securely.
Is ServiceNow a CRM?
ServiceNow is not a traditional CRM, but it offers CRM-like features. What it does is focus on IT operations management (ITOM) and IT service management (ITSM), helping enterprises streamline their IT processes through automation. This helps enterprises to gain an easier ability to:
- Address problems
- Manage incidents
- Make service requests
- Implement changes
While ServiceNow is not a CRM in the purest sense, where it does deliver is in its ability to give a consumer-like experience, which is why many tend to compare ServiceNow to a CRM.
Is ServiceNow an ERP?
No, ServiceNow is also not an ERP. However, it does integrate with ERP systems to help support business processes. How ServiceNow emulates an ERP is the fact it is designed to assist in planning, budgeting and transforming enterprise service management.
As a part of its capabilities, ServiceNow can equip your business to be able to build, test and implement applications, along with managing organizational day-to-day business activities. Highly customizable, ServiceNow emphasizes its practical abilities by empowering businesses to gain access to a heavy focus on workflow automation, digital transformation and enterprise service management.
ServiceNow CRM and ERP Use Cases
Although ServiceNow is not a traditional CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) tool, many organizations are adopting it as a complement or alternative to these systems.
ServiceNow CRM’s capabilities are best seen in its Customer Service Management (CSM) and Field Service Management modules, which help businesses enhance customer satisfaction through case management, omnichannel engagement and proactive service. This makes ServiceNow a viable option for organizations seeking customer experience platforms with more integration and automation than typical CRMs.
When it comes to ServiceNow ERP comparisons, the platform’s IT Business Management (ITBM) and Enterprise Service Management tools offer ERP-like functionalities. These include resource planning, budgeting, project tracking and performance measurement. Many businesses leverage ServiceNow to augment or even partially replace ERP functions, especially when agility and speed of deployment are critical.
What industries use ServiceNow?
Due to its high level of flexibility, ServiceNow offers the ability for enterprises to span a wide berth of business types. Industries that are leveraging this product find it helps support their business initiatives, objectives and day-to-day requirements. Examples of industries that use ServiceNow include government agencies, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, education and manufacturing, to name just a few.
How ServiceNow Fits into Digital Transformation
ServiceNow is one of today’s top digital transformation tools because of its scalability, low-code/no-code options and seamless integration with other enterprise platforms. Through ServiceNow integrations, teams can link disparate data sources and legacy systems, allowing for real-time reporting, simplified operations and a unified experience across departments.
Companies often choose ServiceNow not just to solve IT issues but to transform how work gets done. The platform’s intuitive dashboards, mobile support and advanced analytics enable teams to deliver faster, more personalized services across the enterprise.
What are the key features of ServiceNow?
One of ServiceNow’s most powerful aspects is its ability to unite business functions across an entire organization. Key primary use cases and features include the following examples:
Information Technology Service Management (ITSM)
ITSM enables you to deliver high-quality IT services to your users, regardless of their role in your organization. With its intuitive features, ServiceNow’s ITSM gives your employees the opportunity to focus on their work, not wasting time trying to solve IT issues or find information. ServiceNow designs its ITSM software as self-service to provide users with excellent experiences, from intelligent automation to access to high-quality data to analyze and much in between.
IT Operations Management (ITOM)
Many enterprises utilize ServiceNow for its ITOM capabilities, which entails an integrated, service-centric approach. This ensures a seamless experience, fewer service outages and decreases the level of complexity involved with managing their IT architecture.
Instead of running fragmented components of their network, everything is streamlined, empowering technical staff to easily detect, diagnose and resolve IT issues. This eliminates many of the challenges enterprises face when running numerous cloud databases and systems and makes the multi-cloud approach much more friendly and easily builds upon ServiceNow’s ITSM product.
IT Business Management (ITBM)
IT investments are a valuable component of your strategy, and you want to ensure they run as you want them to. Through ITBM, you gain the visibility and transparency you need to see where your technology is best utilized and then allocate it to the right places to maximize its value. As a result, enterprises can easily integrate their resources and manage their processes, people and projects, all from one place.
IT Asset Management (ITAM)
ServiceNow’s ITAM product is perfectly suited to provide insight into your enterprise’s asset use and costs. Through ITAM you can eliminate the complications of managing items such as:
- Hardware assets: Keeps asset inventory accurate and visible, improves upon asset workflows and reduces costs associated with waste.
- Cloud resources: Manage all of your cloud applications from one singular location.
- Software licenses: Streamline workflows, take action on unlicensed deployments, optimize license use and reduce overlap.
Ultimately, you gain full transparency and visibility of all your technology, both in-house and in the cloud.
HR Service Delivery (HRSD)
HRSD enables your teams to get the access they need regarding HR issues from one portal. Designed to be self-service, your users can leverage tools to help them obtain help, guidance and resolution, all in one dashboard, saving your organization both time and money.
ServiceNow offers the above and so much more. Other key features your enterprise can choose to utilize include other products the platform offers, such as:
- Customer Service Management (CSM)
- Software Asset Management (SAM)
- DevOps
- Change Management
- Common Service Data Model
- Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC)
- Security Information and Event Managers (SIEM)
- Integrated Risk Management
How Does ServiceNow organize its different cloud offerings?
ServiceNow groups its cloud offerings into five categories:
- Customer service
- Information technology
- Security
- Human resources
- Business apps
Within these categories, businesses can enjoy access to service portals, knowledge bases, workflows, developer tools, subscriptions, dashboards, reports, collaborative tools and much, much more.
Can ServiceNow be customized for specific business needs?
Yes, it can. One of the primary characteristics of the ServiceNow platform that attracts businesses to utilize it is its high ability for customization. With its level of flexibility, an enterprise can mold the software into exactly what it needs.
Even better, ServiceNow is powerful and customizable enough to consolidate systems into a singular architecture, increasing convenience, efficiency and productivity. This is greatly beneficial for businesses because their employees are empowered to remain connected, collaborative and transparent to all aspects of their organization.
How ServiceNow is utilized for everyday tasks – some examples
One of the primary benefits of integrating ServiceNow as a part of your IT strategy is its strong level of automation and powerful intelligent AI components. For instance, your employees can use ServiceNow’s products to:
- Eliminate repetitive tasks
- Book meeting rooms
- Obtain a legal review of a contract
- Generate a purchase request to hire a recruiter
- Initiate employee onboarding
- Ask for a new cellphone from IT
- Assign and prioritize work
- Perform no code development
- Intuitive mobile integration and experience
- Delivering intelligent data
This is only a small sample of what this technology can do, demonstrating the vast capabilities businesses gain by implementing ServiceNow, adding value and function to their IT environment.
Benefits of using ServiceNow
- Cost-efficiency
- Productivity
- Easier, seamless experiences
- Intuitive mobile experience
- Single cloud platform
- 24/7 access
- Own database (not shared with other customers)
- Single data source
- Highly scalable
- Security features
- Compliance mechanisms
What is the pricing model for ServiceNow?
It is difficult to state the exact price of how much ServiceNow would cost an enterprise. The company does not list prices on its website since, like many other products, it is customized and tailored for each customer. To obtain a precise quote, you will have to sit down with a representative and discuss your needs, goals and other relevant factors. Once gleaning more information, they can pinpoint the level of service you need and identify which products you should invest in.
The reason why you cannot obtain a quote online is simply because no two organizations will have the same needs or objectives. The bottom line is, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for organizations, thus there is no singular price point that can be quoted. Factors ServiceNow considers in a customized quote will include the modules needed, how many users will be accessing them, the size of the enterprise and other individual factors.
While it may be frustrating to not know off-the-bat what ServiceNow would cost as a solution, the benefit to this is you will get a customized solution and not have to pay for services or products you do not need, will not use or do not want. Your best bet is to seek out the technical advice of a trusted ServiceNow partner, such as Red River.
ServiceNow Modules: What Else Can It Do?
ServiceNow’s suite of applications goes far beyond ITSM. Some popular ServiceNow modules include:
- Security Operations (SecOps): Automates and prioritizes incident response
- Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC): Ensures regulatory alignment
- Facilities Service Management: Tracks and resolves physical space requests
- Legal Service Delivery: Speeds up contract reviews and legal requests
These modules empower organizations to run smoother by supporting non-IT departments with robust workflow automation.
Summary
ServiceNow is a cloud-based, full-scale workflow solution that offers enterprises an easy-to-use system. This empowers them to connect every aspect of their business, making for a highly cohesive and seamless experience.
The cloud is not a passing fad – it is here to stay. The challenge many businesses face is determining what is the best way to invest their IT budgets when choosing the right cloud solution. Multi-cloud is becoming more and more common and ServiceNow may be able to “stitch” together all your needs to present them in a singular place.
Considering Implementing a ServiceNow Solution? Contact Red River Today!
If your enterprise is considering transitioning to a ServiceNow solution, Red River is here to help. With more than 25 years in the market, our professional staff has extensive knowledge of ServiceNow solutions, and we will work closely with you to evaluate, analyze, identify and implement the solutions that will be the right ones for your enterprise.
Additionally, we’ll not just look at your current needs, but keep scalability in mind. We understand your business will likely change over time, so we will strive to customize a solution that will meet your future needs and requirements as well as your current ones. As things change, we’ll be with you every step of the way to ensure your needs are consistently met.
Clients often choose to work with Red River because they know their needs as an individual business matter. Whether you are a commercial, federal or SLED organization, we are confident we can find the solution you need. To schedule a consultation, contact Red River today to start the conversation.
We look forward to connecting with you.
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