thanks for joining this is our servicenow live event and we're going to be discussing with you all setting up for success with hardware asset management a few quick announcements before we get started i do want to share that some of the information here will be confidential and privileged so just bear that in mind uh in in addition to that we may make some forward-looking statements depending on questions we get and things of that sort but again bear that in mind that that is subject to change so why are we here well you know this is our servicenow commitment to our customers to help them deploy achieve and adopt value faster with their servicenow implementation and with respect to this case hardware asset management and to do that we've set up this specific uh webinar to get a better understanding of itam principles and setting real realistic expectations so that when you start your hand journey you'll be starting off on the right foot and finally to do that i've also asked our very own eric farrington to join us he's from our product management team and he's joining myself and patrick lowndes who are your hosts for today so eric thanks for joining we appreciate you being here and present with us we understand that you're the director of product management here at hargrass for the hardware asset management product and before we jump in i want to see what where everybody else is dialing in from so you know i'm here in campbell uh and santa clara which is our headquarter area eric i know you're out in michigan but where's everybody else maybe we'll get the chat flowing a little bit see where where that activity is coming through bridgewater new jersey i see okay honolulu hawaii nice not a bad place to be okay gettysburg minnesota twin cities milwaukee sioux falls washington dc atlanta all right a nice spread hey seattle washington that's pretty close to you patrick st louis dayton ohio orlando florida centralville virginia great great so what do you think about that we have a nice big crowd with us today i like it i'm feeling like we're going to get some good good input not just i see there's some there's some canadian customers in there as well which is great so let's uh we'll be mindful here of all of north america but yeah maybe we jump into uh the topics victor that's right so we're going to hit five areas with everybody today and these are these are areas that you know we get from time to time many times in questions either an email or in chat or in our customer engagement interactions and we thought this would be a great way to cover those big central topics to help you get started with hardware asset management and so the first is modern its management now we'll discuss what does it mean to be modern uh with it asset management i mean it's not a new phenomenon it asset management but there are some new caveats we'll touch on those roles and responsibilities with respect to stakeholder management it's one thing to have a tool it's another to have the right processes and individuals using the tool and interacting with your program development then we'll touch on trustworthy data what it what does it mean how to have it how to maintain it and then working effectively with your implementation partners some of you may have already have an implementation partner today or you're considering working with one so we'll touch on that and then we'll close with the hardware asset management roadmap that you want to develop as a customer okay and so with that you know before we jump into the actual questions with eric um just a few reminders on how we want to work together with you all in our audience you know we want to stay laser focused on the topics there'll be opportunity to ask questions um so just keep that in mind when you're asking questions it's about the topic that we had and then we'll jump into new topics and then if you have any any stories to share or any comments or questions use the chat feature and use the q a form and we'll monitor those so without further ado our first topic here is modern i.t asset management so eric why are we calling it modern its management what is modern about it yeah thanks victor i think um you know number one thanks for thanks for the having me on today uh great chance to speak to all of our customers here but when we talk about modern i mean first let's talk about being rooted in traditional its management for a lot of organizations traditional its management grows out of uh configuration management and i.t service management where they are very focused on maybe a set area of technology they're very focused on the active objects they're very focused on monitoring them with some sort of discovery utility and opening closing service tickets right so when we see the evolution into modern uh item we we see the extension of the estate of assets that we're focused on managing uh crossing over hardware crossing over software crossing into cloud we we have the dynamic of serialized versus consumable assets we have byod in entering into our bring your own device entering into our equations we even see um now the diversity of our workplace right we we begin to see uh those that are fully remote those that are hybrid employees those that are coming back to the office and and with that our new challenges and being able to accurately maintain an auditable asset data um so when when we look at the modernization we want to be able to have that end-to-end visibility from acquisition through disposition across all environments for our assets and the need then just it extends a little bit further than you know traditional it will really we just want to say can we see this can we open a ticket can we restore service now we're looking at that full life cycle to be able to drive optimization whether it's from reconciling all of our assets whether it's from optimizing our inventory or maybe even preventing risk of operating that aged asset or tracking things that are leaving our business for an end of life yeah and you know i think there's also one other one other area that makes it modern is that everything is now much more centralized i mean you have the now platform kind of at the base of hard asset management software asset management and cloud insights but maybe you want to touch a little bit on that what does it mean to have everything central yeah i i think there's two two key drivers within there number one having uh central information so we can create these 360 degree views or holistic views for managing our asset state so that single data model single architecture that um regardless if we're talking about end user computing assets or server or network or infrastructure that that we have the ability to define that and then life cycle we have the visibility to report across our full estate and being able to leverage common processes where we're um a lot or where needed the other piece i would say is it opens up the opportunity to standardize workflows we're utilizing but even lessen the demands of our operational workforce legacy systems or even traditional systems where we're seeing they're very heavy click intensive any manual update intensive in updating records in a database once work in a ticket is completed when we look at modernizing item and we begin to talk about prescriptive and automated driven processes with life cycle we want to make sure that we're isolating the technician or the the operational you know whether it's our server manager or our our network uh you know administrator that once they're completing the tasks in a workflow that we can automate the update not only to the physical asset we're touching but related software related contracts so we're getting more accuracy from more point drive point of contact driven decisions and task automation thank you yeah and eric you know we think about this um you know sometimes the three-legged stool and this practice too right it's it's not just the product the technology but there's obviously people driving that there's processes for better or for work that that are helping or hindering so i mean if you could give just on that thought about people process and technology you know is one of them more important than the other especially kind of at the early stage you know of of an implementation for hardware asset management yeah i i you know the thing that and just for for the groups uh you know i've spent the last five years in service now in the product team but prior to that extensive time in the partner ecosystem helping customers on their maturity journey or developing roadmap or even additional solutions and then prior to that you know about 20 years of growing asset programs as a customer of various um solutions so when we talk about people process and technology it's you know the old adage we always like to call out was asset management is a business problem disguised as a technology issue right so it's you know the the answer is well let's get a solution in and this will will fix our problems the the idea here is that when you talk about the three steps of people process and technology we need to make sure that not just having the solution in place but being able to say do we have the right roles do we have the right personas that are doing work within our planned processes to reach desired outcomes whether it's a request a fulfillment process whether i need to be able to improve my inventory accuracy and who's going to go do those audits whether it's um end of life and who are the personas that are involved in not only the physical disposal but making sure that contracts are closed out making sure that uh software is reclaimed off of those assets and really again having that three-point solution of people processing technology i i would tell you that i believe that if we wanted to rank them first i always default the process having a good process in place allows me to set the personas that i put the people that i put into those roles and then the technology aids us in our maturity for for um driving those actions yeah and there's also like a feedback loop as well between process and and individuals and the personas right what they want can we achieve it does the tool allow it okay yes or no maybe we'll save that one for later and we focus on this so there's always that iterative step it's not just having the team up front and then you're done right i think it's continuous improvement victor you'll you'll hear the uh you'll hear me continue to call it this is progress not perfection but how how can we improve how can we work up that that milestone um you know asset programs are very difficult not impossible but very difficult to big bang into high maturity across global enterprises specifically um not impossible you can't do it it's a lot of work we've seen a lot more success from organizations that really then identify their goals identify their challenges and let's set that plan into motion awesome well you know you touched on on people uh so let's let's go there let's talk about roles responsibilities and stakeholder management um so in that regard uh you know who are the who are the team members that you should bring into into your organization or different business units that would benefit from him but also contribute to the overall uh program development yeah yeah victor i'm gonna i'm gonna put some focus on the left side of our screen here right and certainly we have our asset managers that that need to be able to govern that end end estate but when we talk about asset management being you know almost a shared service within the business it's the asset managers are driving the result um and governing the overall process but this is collaborative between our technical teams whether it's end user compute whether it's our server teams whether it's network and infrastructure um being able to have the the um controls with them in place around model management around the work that they're doing for uh restoring service and servicing assets i'm also interacting with our discovery our monitoring team cmdb right when they see that active object on the wire they happen to see it disappear you know what's the check and balance activity that's done with assad the collaboration we have with our contract administrators um so that as we're updating assets as they come in and out of service through their life cycle you know is there visibility to the contract administrators who are processing uh monthly or quarterly invoices against those contracts they want to be able to reconcile what am i being billed for versus what was actually in service and having that visibility and then of course our friends in procurement right they are the gateway for assets entering our business making them part of the equation make sure we're working on model standardization or what models we're actually ordering from which vendors uh being able to establish relationships with those vendors to even challenge and bring in advanced ship notifications so we get advanced visibility to assets before they hit our dock again a lot of a lot of um a lot of roles uh you know part of the asset process and i will say most importantly our executive our leadership these are the ones that we have shared and we're communicating are locked up with the short-term and long-term goals of what asset management can deliver to the business yeah you know and i see sometimes um different stakeholders will have different interests right and and priorities and that's that's common and that's that's well known so how do you navigate those negotiations between hey i want this right now versus i want i don't want to wait till later yeah i think ultimately it looks at what are we what are we looking to accomplish short term and long term for our business right it's asset management programs so often start with a simple tagline of do we know what we have but if we evolve that into the full and then life cycle we talk about accuracy it more turns into a can we prove it historically asset management is is you know they have to climb the hill to be able to we are you know we we like to say it's a sliding scale that we're either very very accurate in the data and provide tremendous value back to the business and we can impact strategy we can impact our tactical management we can impact our operational uh outcomes but if the organization has a perception that we are inaccurate we lose value drastically and that really comes from um lack of visibility within the data environment oh you know what we're you know we're only discovering 70 of our estate well asset management's not all about discovery asset management's about establishing that asset as we order and receive it it's about tracking through inventory placing it into service interacting with all those service engagements and then being able to use our discovery solutions as points of validation to be able to then have that check and balance discussion of when we should see something versus when something has gone missing off that network and we're really guiding the holistic life cycle experience i think i think patrick just summarized that very nicely in the chat there visibility and accuracy creates your credibility as an aura right and as a team i would say that's not just a one-time thing either right that's something that you you continuously do to maintain that that credibility which i kind of you know kind of goes to the next question which is stakeholders will you know they'll be part of the initial project launch kickoff etc but how do you keep them engaged throughout your process so that they don't lose interest so that they keep supporting the program that you're developing well so part of that i think goes into making sure that you know when we start these programs we start these initiatives that there's overall visibility and alignment to the goals right making sure we understand who's contributing to the success of those goals um and then also making sure that it's established through um our executive sponsorship right what what those impacted areas are and and when or if an area falls behind what the impact on those goals will be and they can help us drive um you know maybe improvements in some of those uh participation areas yeah so maybe we'll touch on that double click in that so executive sponsorship we know it's important but why is it important um who could be an executive sponsor for for for a product a program like this sure you know i i see um ultimately i'm going to default to a cio right but this could be in an area of vp it could be an area director it's someone with that the the executive leadership visibility to be able to not only set but um drive and communicate the outcomes of the initiatives when we look at um someone who are so many organizations driving cultures of accountability we know that lots of groups are affected by itm the executive sponsor someone we can really lean on to help navigate through the internal landscape and can help communicate the programmed goals and outcomes more broadly than just the itm team's reach yeah yeah and they can move the big rocks right and they can also kind of set the line in the sand and say we're doing this this quarter and we're doing that next quarter vice versa exactly right exactly right great well maybe we'll turn to some uh questions in the chat or in the qa form i see a lot of activity in the chat so that's great yeah yeah so we're going to focus we're going to focus here on this first two topics here um and jason we'll get to your question here in just a second when we kind of do the overview about trustworthy data but let's focus questions here think about modern itam has there been any misconceptions that you're dealing with internally or even asset classes that you're curious about this is a good time to kind of bring those up and then also has there been any issues with stakeholders you know where you've tried to go across functionally and i'll just start by brian i'll kind of just read off the comment you said which is which is great so while you're typing in your questions um we'll be watching in the chat and the q a but brian put a little note out there he said about the credibility piece he said and that's why working from a horizontal approach across the organization helps to get the needed stakeholder engagement from the business units outside of ic we had a question similar to this earlier about well what if there's an existing process how do you engage with that stakeholder so eric maybe give an example here with let's pretend someone already has an existing process what would you guide somebody especially if you know they just they have ham pro they're trying to begin you know pulling everybody into the room how would you advise customers to engage with stakeholders that already have somewhat of a working you know workflow or a process that maybe is very siloed right yeah patrick i think it's great call out and it's one of the things that when we created hardware ask management as a product for servicenow uh and i'll go back to my services days of you know over 300 servicenow implementations and i will tell you every single customer had unique requirements around uh whether it was cmdb whether it was asset whether it was procurement processes um you know we know that that uniqueness exists i think the thing that's important is that when we look at what's designed in him we want to be able to provide a standard process for executing these lifecycle activities whether it's asset refresh whether it's disposal whether it's how do i handle temporary use or loaner assets right but we do create these in a low code framework because we know and want to anticipate that when customers have that configuration need that there's a simple way to execute however i would come in and challenges that these these implementations are these transformational journeys right is a great time for us to look at the static process we're using today and assess it against something that's standard and understand that you know are the activities that we're doing to complete this action are they things that are driving value into the business or is this certainly how we have grown accustomed to operating uh historically right and and how we we've operated and that could have come from capabilities of another tool set that could have been just preferences of how people like to work but it really is a great time as we're going through this journey to be able to say okay what does a standard process look like for asset refresh and then what does our process look like and being able to do that assessment of what you want to put in place or even what you want to configure on top of the servicenow process gives you the best desired outcome of aligning you a standard giving your leadership confidence and common execution but also then allowing it to be configured to your industry compliance or maybe a business need that's great okay cool very good and obviously yeah there's just there's so much um there's so much to be said about stakeholders and why to engage them how to make them feel ownership in the process so that their voice does matter so i'm sure you'll you'll kind of continue to see that as you as you work with other stakeholders so within that i think we'll we'll uh we'll move to this next section and as we talked about that you know there's that question eric i think you can see um you know jason put in there about about getting some of the data in so let's talk about that and that's where the data so go ahead victor yep yeah so this next slide here is kind of the lay of the land of how hardware asset management works so this is kind of under the hood what's happening right so the first section you're bringing in data you're ingesting information our content service is normalizing that information by making good use of it enriching it and then eventually that data is going to go into different workflows and different business activities right and that's kind of right there on the right side but i want to focus on section one because it really really goes without saying but the quality of data that you get in is going to be the quality of output that you're going to get from those workflows but the the difficulty i feel eric with some of this is that there is so much data out there i mean you have data from discovery you have data from procurement you have spreadsheets that you were keeping at one point you have third party tools that you have so with all of that data coming in where do you start which data set is the first data set that you want to pull in where do you want to spend you know more time cleaning up etc yeah thanks victor and you know i will say when we talk about data a couple couple you know baseline statements right servicenow one of the strengths of the servicenow platform is the ability to bring data in easily right whether it's from um apis whether it's loading flat files whether it's entering it manually whether it's coming from discovery or monitoring utilities be it servicenows or others um and the the idea here is that when we're looking at standing up for a servicenow practice or a servicenow ham practice i i gravitate immediately to asset origination right what is the point of asset origination we know that if we're coming out of an established service management system there's some sort of monitoring it's creating cis and that's generating assets but that's really generating assets at a mid point of our life cycle when something's already active so i really want to put emphasis on upfront my my vendor data whether it's coming from advanced ship notifications acid data that's coming from procurement systems from receiving whether we're utilizing scanning utilities or spreadsheets i want to be able to pull all that data into service now and and one thing i will call out is is when we talk about traditional into modern item you know the traditional sense is dealt with countless organizations that said listen i want to make sure this this data stays clean i want to make sure that we're only loading validated data in and they go through this offline reconciliation process of maybe spreadsheets or databases before bringing it into a system the point i want to make is is you know there's really a second school of thought and i equate it into modernizing item and that is we're leveraging platforms like servicenow to be able to help us tactically reconcile that data so i really go tell my business i want every piece of data that we can get our hands on and now that we have it in the database we can begin to evaluate whether it's through day-to-day processes that are accessing and updating the data whether it's from our discovery utilities that are monitoring it whether it's through reconciliation of end-of-life processes but we really get that run rate of whether it's 30 days 60 days 90 days even six months to be able to identify what our true active asset records are whether it's from an inventory or in use and what are those stale objects that we brought in that you know what we're really not sure what happened to these we can reconcile them out we're going to archive them and retire those away but that way i'm clean i'm painting a clearer picture of my ass of the state earlier in the cycle too many times i see organizations that they do the cleanup process offline and it's someone making arbitrary decisions of what gets in or what gets out the effect of that is that when they push that asset data into their database and then they turn on a monitoring utility they see a large volume of net new assets being created from that discovery process which potentially may have been left off of those inputs before but not really by a rhyme or reason just more so hey we don't think that stuff exists any longer i think this is also a good opportunity to work with those stakeholders right not only are they just going to give you the data but you have the ability to validate that information that's coming through right and check for both the accuracy and the completeness of that before it actually makes its way both into the application but also once it's in the application to make good use of it okay now another question that i have related to this is you know a lot of times customers really want to perfect the data and make sure that it's like a hundred percent clean before they can start making use of it is that the right approach or is there a is there a threshold there that that you would call out yeah so so victor i i'm i hesitate to draw a percentage threshold right because it's going to be different by every organization and what their goals are i will go back to beating the drama of progress not perfection right we want to be able to get data in that allows us to execute on a daily basis because the best way to get that perfect data set or to identify holes in the data is by working it and by working it meaning we have instant tickets that are hitting it change tickets that are hitting we have uh service requests for moves or for disposals or for placing things into service that daily fluid activity and being able to partner that with automated updates from ticket transactions allows us to understand what what assets are in that regular rotation what's being updated what's being touched and then we can actually focus on what's being left out of that is is it inventory that's a bunch of legacy software that hey we need to do a disposal for okay or are there missing assets that we just need to either go investigate and then reconcile off our books got it got it thanks for that eric let's move to the next segment because i think this is going to be a nice one we've talked about who are the in you know internal team members you need from a state from your stakeholder perspective we talked about the importance of data and so now you're really set up let's say internally but now you want to bring an external party who's going to help you augment where you're currently at right and so i want to focus on implementation partners and for those that are either considering implementation partners or currently working with it let's let's let's dive into that and the first question upfront i'll ask eric is should you have an implementation partner or should you not yeah uh victor i'll answer this one pretty simply we'll give a couple reasons to back it up uh yes you should have an implementation partner and here's a couple reasons why number one implementation partners have the ability to [Music] you know build expertise in focused areas uh that then they can help exercise you in your adoption journey number two is they have the ability to um see a wider spectrum of what many customers maybe particularly within your industry are doing around a certain solution to be able to help you evaluate you know is this really good practice is this uh as efficient as it could be are we getting the maximum return we can or value from this type of process they can give you that type of context third and then i'll throw out the last final piece i said it was going to be simple but third is going to be you know we have a very strong partner ecosystem here at servicenow and the the relationship between the partners and the product team is is something that we put a lot of direct focus on when we start talking about roadmap for new features when we start talking about tying in customers around feedback for those new features or new designs and also making sure that they get advanced view and even training into um the current solutions but also what's coming down the road yeah yeah i mean i i've worked with many partners um and i've found that some partners are very technically astute and others are more strategic and business business-minded and so depending on where customers have a need i also feel that partners can can fill in that gap right so if it's people in process that is an issue maybe there's a partner relationship there that can help emphasize that piece for your business yeah i would agree there victor the other point i'll call out is um you know servicenow we we really make sure and we're committed to driving insights and creating even certification programs for our products right so ham sam they each carry their own certification program these are multi-day uh workshops and trainings that partners need to go through it gives them the insight into different pieces of the code it gets into automation into scripts because when undoubtedly those unique customer requirements come up they can can utilize that knowledge to be able to help get you the answer you need in a timely basis and get it into your solution and that's been you know this isn't um you know you hear too many horror stories of of maybe partners learning their way through a project and working that out again one of the things we see in the product team we we value the partner ecosystem we do a tremendous amount of content and training into those partners and we really want customers to be aware of that and to be able to then be judicious when they're doing their partner selection yeah and i guess the other thing i would say is um bringing a partner earlier on in your journey is is pretty beneficial too right because they help you understand what could be a potential roadmap for you as an organization with like you said experience from other other projects they've done but then they also help pressure test what you what you think are either challenges that you're facing or pressure test the goals that you're really trying to go after right because you don't want to extend your arms too far and try to grab at so many things at once i think they help kind of set up the right milestones if you will well i want to draw back in one of the comments i even see in chat and i think brian called it out really nicely but making sure that your um your sponsor your executive stakeholder is involved in those discussions when you're setting goals near or you're making outcomes known with the partner not not at a whole for your for your servicenow platform but even when you're talking about these ham initiatives and kicking these projects off making sure that's a lead voice in the room the expectation that not only for our internal people to here but also for the partner to be aligned with um and then really be able to have that to kick off an initiative yeah so so on that kickoff let's say let's say a customer has chosen their their implementation partner and they're gonna they're gonna launch their initial workshop session with them all right how do you have a good session with the partner how do you set the right expectations uh and how do you make sure that you communicate that effectively so that there's no surprises if you will during the during the project yeah victor i i i touched on a little bit earlier my experiences in uh with service partners and being a strategic partner in the servicenow ecosystem right um the most successful transformational product projects that i was a part of regardless if it was for a medium-sized commercial customer or for a global enterprise customer always started with that executive leadership being in the room for the kickoff being able to clearly state again for the partner for the internal parties that needed to be aligned what the uh desired outcome was what the short-term goals what the long-term goals what the expectation for engagement would be um from that i think it's that important to be able to then establish that that uh list of outcomes right and and be able to identify who will be contributing to those okay so that we can then drive forward what um and really it's a key point for you to then flush out what challenges may affect those goals and again to have everyone in that in that session in that in that arena to be able to call out they hear they can recognize and and maybe either dispel or accept uh that challenges are appropriate in terms of that project yeah i think one thing i'd add there as well is specificity right the partners and you yourself when you set those project plans in place sows your road map what what have you it's not one thing to say hey we want visibility of all our assets it's another to say we want visibility of our workstation environment first yeah during these first two months right and then we'll work on our infrastructure or you know different devices so i think that's a really key thing to have as part of that conversation is adding specificity to the conversation yeah and it helps set the goals right is this an organization where we're starting to build our ham program just in our end user estate are we starting just with our network group and we're maybe building this out through others are we starting regionally where we start with north america and build it out right it's exactly helping to really set that scope set the expectation but then also allow it to be a sounding board for those concerns um because those will be the roadblocks that do slow you down in an implementation if they are not made known upfront that's so good what you know let's go ahead and take a pause here eric for that some questions and i want to i want to get to that question that jason asked um just just talking a little bit about you know what our product capability is around bringing in some of that data so his question and i'll direct you towards you eric is can servicenow integrate with oems like dell and hp to automatically receive assets as they're ordered um we love the question there on that side but the other side is can service now integrate with sap i think you saw some examples of that in the responses below jason but eric what how would you guide customers about bringing in some data and um you know any kind of asn flat file things like that yeah so um i'm going to take them in reverse order so jason forgive me but i will uh i'll bring this along but thank you for the question uh number one i i would tell everyone to look at uh integration hub and the spokes that servicenow continues to create um this is a group within our platform that creates those integrations directly into other solutions a lot of some of those spokes that are in there are four erps and that's a great connection point to have between either your ham and sam solution and that system to be able that when we're doing the request and ordering process that can then go through an integration create your purchase order even communicate that purchase or number back to servicenow then when you're doing physical receipt through maybe the servicenow app or a scanner that's integrated um you can then communicate back to your erp to kick off that financial receiving process once physical receipts completed so yes there are integrations there for things that are not created in spokes this is where we lean on our partners we have that let's talk about expertise discussion um i would just tell you again in my history of being a partner there we had yet to find an erp system we could not integrate to servicenow um but they do specialize in a lot of those areas for things that were there spokes that do not exist now secondarily when we talk about integrating directly into oems we want to make sure that in ham specifically we provide a common framework and even a template in direct import for advanced ship notification data from vendors this allows you to pre-populate assets whether it's you're buying direct from dell or you're buying through cdw or insight or shy or anyone to be able to have a common framework that regardless of what vendor you're using you can import in these in transit assets your business that does a couple things one it strengthens and simplifies the receiving process because now we're validating what shows up on the dock and that asset record already exists two it gives us a check and balance so that if other equipment shows up we have the ability to just research those objects and not necessarily the bulk of what came okay so um one of the things they will you know there may be we may be looking at if we talk about and i'll go back to that safe harbor notice you know we've had the ask from customers about can we do direct integrations out to vendors or manufacturers to bring in warranty information um and maybe some additional information i will tell you there are some things that are on the roadmap i would encourage us to set a roadmap session to go through those um but really the appeal here is as a product team we want to bring more data in through standardized channels to ensure your accuracy yeah eric i got a question that was asked privately here um so won't any names or anything like that but the question was was basically more of a comment of uh about we tried to self-implement because we had a couple of workflows from the base asset module we thought we could just you know self-implement him pro and didn't go well and was trying to look at using our existing uh partner that does a lot of itsm and is familiar with base asset but just because we're kind of at a crossroads so what what would you advise to a client like that who thought they could self-implement but realize it's probably not the right move to go generalists that how would you kind of counsel a customer so yeah at surface level and in i would just say surface level if you look at something like him and say hey i can get through a workflow i can get through lists and views i think that we have enough to be able to to implement um i again that's really where i would just call timeout and say listen the reason we offer the certification is that ham is the automation behind him is is so powerful but that's rooted in a lot of scripting that's rooted in a lot of actions from task completion and as you're working through and maybe modifying a workflow or you're adding your own steps in you want to be able to have the consistency of the automation for those things layered in and that's really where the certification we we open up we crack all that code open we show them where everything is and if you come in and say hey eric i love your disposal process but i need to shred hard drives so i want to insert a test to shred hard drives you want that task to operate just like the others meaning we're going to say okay when that task is done what attribute should i be updating on the asset record what should be being applied and your certified partner is going to bring that requirement in to say well when you add a task to be consistent to keep your value up it's not just the task closes and nothing happens what are those other pieces and they can code them in so i i i'm empathetic to the initial process of trying to go through but i do those are really a couple areas uh particularly yeah why we offer the certification for those partners yeah and also why you know it's not as simple as just kind of trying to lift and shift what you tried to do in the base asset product and that's kind of a misconception we want to head off here as well is is those certified partners there's a reason why they're certified and and they've done they've got a lot of revs under their belt so it's great probably go to this last section here in the interest of time victor yeah so you know eric and the team are busy busy busy working on new product features so they have their road map uh but that's that's not to say that as a customer you have to be constantly in in line with with where the product is today i think one of the things that you want to keep in mind is your roadmap is going to be dependent on your business needs and your business capabilities so maybe we'll touch on that a little bit eric and when we say ham road map here we're not talking about product we're talking about as a customer my maturity my crawl a walk and run phases so you know i've spoken to many customers and often time i hear them tell me what their roadmap is and it it kind of boils down to we want to automate every every piece of the asset life cycle and we want to add to that you know mitigating security risks for our age assets uh and we want to be in legal compliance with how we dispose of those assets etc so i think on the surface it sounds good but what can we do to again going back to specificity what can we do to uh help that customer who has those grand visions on the roadmap yeah um so victor i think that then i'm going to go back to an earlier comment of two things right progress not perfection and talking about the difficulty of big bang but but understanding that um ham is a building process ham is bait your outcomes are based on your accuracy right and everyone's had a good experience where process just works i mean think of you know i think of the dozen amazon orders that my family places a week and and by almost by magic the package shows up on the porch right well we know it's not magic we know it's a well orchestrated process where we have the ability that when an order goes in the system is checking where that inventory is available right they have the ability to then send the order to that warehouse or to that stock room pull the order for us get it packed and shipped into a box and within that sla of two days or less or just even i'm getting overnight things now i can't believe it but they're delivering a great experience because of a very clear process that process is able to execute because we have great data underneath it okay so when i talk about a growth journey for hardware asset management it's going into do we know what we have and can we prove it at a very simple base level and that means not having to big bang the whole asset life cycle we will help with that with workflows but really the starting to control the inputs and outputs to our business or you know i'll say in a fancy way the inputs now puts to your asset estate right boil down how do assets get here how do they leave so what are the processes we're doing for request purchase fulfillment to get it into our stock rooms or get into the ends of users or in the rack in the data center and then also once that aged equipment is is done how do we retire it how do we prep it for disposal what are the steps we need to complete and how do we get that confirmation whether it's disposal whether it's lease expiration whether it's donation um you know so that we can be assured even to our internal compliance that it's not a server that's running eric's home brewing system at home that just happened to walk away from the business a few years ago hypothetical scenario but it really then allows us to focus on what are those outcomes what are the goals and are the goals that we're setting going to equate to the business outcomes and then we can communicate and show the value from it so what we see on the screen here right but even the second half we can work on those operational objectives but we haven't prioritized them in a way that tie into outcomes that tied a value that our executive sponsor or even the group is going to realize then we're we're missing the mark in that approach we really need to come back and put some focus on our roadmap yeah and roadmaps can change right i mean once you set it in set it in motion um it's good to stay on target and and and not change all the time but it but change can occur and change can happen i think uh there's there's a little bit of socializing that as well up front right and um yeah that's something that goes into what are the objectives needed for the deliverables right we know times change we know budget changes we know personnel change we know leadership changes right so what are those must-haves for each level of our maturity to achieve those outcomes the goals and deliver value definitely excellent well why don't we see if there's some more questions about this because i think this is a an area that in the past folks had a lot of questions about how to develop their road map so let's let's open it up yeah and and we've got these these um strategic initiatives here on the left so if you think about your own your own organization where you work um maybe just try to follow one of those all the way through if you know that you know accuracy is an issue you know maybe follow that through to some of the business outcomes or even the value claims and see see what questions you have about those i'll ask one in terms of more of a phasing question eric let's say you know you've got a lot of work to do in getting the inventory all all this you know straight but maybe you've got you know your newer customer and you know one area of the business does have good reliable accurate data um how would you guide them in terms of you know prior prioritizing you know trying to go and do maybe some some specific workflows on that one area where they know they have good data versus maybe prioritizing you know maybe focusing an effort to get more data into the system before you show that end-to-end so what are your thoughts on there so yeah let me and i'll even paint that into a more specific example patrick but it's even if we look at the top line here hardware asset management spend reduction okay spend reduction could often come into what we want to reduce overspend because we're in this perpetual motion of buying okay we hear this a lot from onboarding users or even new hire environments where um you know new hire comes in and it's x days to get their equipment in because we really don't know what we have right being able to have and establish that accurate picture of our inventory allows us to match that to say do we even have in inventory the objects that we need for this new hire initiative right so once we've established that it allows us to then put the request process in place and then drive an expected resolution so when we have visibility to demand hey we have a new hire coming in the request comes in we can see where that inventory is available uh where it is available it's a quick hole stage it and get it in the hands of the customer that's a different service level than if i if i don't have the appropriate equipment if i have to order if i have to wait look at supply chain delays right now and it really becomes a when is this thing going to show up when can i empower my new hire so with this some very something something as simple as the data quality and accuracy of my inventory in the in the visibility to demand of new hires i could have a very efficient and good process running through or i could have a very unproductive process and an upsetting one um with lack of visibility and lacks lack of predicted execution yeah that's great now let's go to a question uh there from lindsay just a great simple question here how do you define the must-haves when starting off in ham so maybe you could speak to basic platform stuff cmdb things like that so yeah maybe hit on that eric yeah um so great question lindsay what i'll tell you is a lot of organizations who have been on the servicenow platform or a or a separate solution um have a lot of the data points they need to get started um you'll hear so you'll hear talking about common core common core is users groups and locations right so when we talk about the platform do we have our users our groups our locations that really speaks to locations where i can stand up my inventory stock rooms it is groups where i can assign tasks and tickets from my asset workflows to be able to do the work and then the users who are my requesters and who's going to be receiving those assets in the estate so we start building from the platform aspect of those three common core and then being able to secure sources of our asset data and and you hear me talk about the green field of saying i want that procurement data coming in if you tell me that you're starting off and all you have is a discovery or monitoring your tool or multiple to be able to bring that data in we're going to start with what we have but we want to be able to start by then next creating the process for requesting and bringing new assets into the business and now from a check and balance approach we're going to walk through and we can then go identify all these assets in our state how do they get here let's go connect with procurement see if we can bring the pos in let's connect with the vendors bring the warranty and end of life information again be able to then stand up our outputs for removing those aged objects and you can iterately build it through that way but the must-haves if i'm starting off on the platform pre-asset data users groups locations and then we layer our acetate on top all right cool that's great so i think we we hit that one pretty pretty solidly um i'm just looking to see if there's any other final questions um oh here we go yeah good good one jennifer i'll read this one off is there a recommendation on people organization to manage think about a central team versus a decentralized team um you know maybe how many people i'm sure it's going to depend a lot on the size of the operation and also how distributed globally your state might be but eric you want to maybe give a just a quick answer on that for jennifer yes so jennifer here's what i would tell you um from a pure asset manager role there should be a centralized person or persons accountable for the end to end asset life cycle and the overall data quality of your acid estate okay their job is not to be experts on all the technology within your business their job is to govern and drive process through the different technology teams okay working with that server group working with that network group that end user computer those are the experts but what assets trying to do is empower them to be able to say go maintain your environments go manage and work your tickets but here's the information that's needed and here's the tests that are needed to be completed to keep everything on track okay so when they submit and they say hey we talked to a vendor and we have this new type of wi-fi router that we're going to start buying we need a catalog item created well here's the five piece of information that we need you know who's the vendor um what what's the model number what's the manufacturer code all these different things to be able to then build that catalog item get it into service so it can start being used okay then you can create templates empower them to do it but it's really about then governing the overall process and letting them run within those groups while we are accountable for the overall estate yeah yeah and you'll you'll also start to see some of this out there this is for everybody on our community um you'll see a getting started guide for hardware asset management so if you haven't already gone there and and you know downloaded that looked at that there's lots of really helpful uh links out to maybe 15 or 20 different assets there that can help you along your journey which is great so there is one last question we'll hit real briefly here what are some key tactics for getting the state the main stakeholders engaged procurement contract management i.t teams so and just any kind of tactical uh points there for jill eric yeah i i think that um number one letting them know how important they are to the sum of the outcome um when i talk about my procurement team it's if we're if we're not synchronizing the item masters of what they're selecting you know from a central um model table i can service now how do we know when new models are coming in or out how do we know when they're no longer or when they hit end of sale from a particular vendor it really creates more cycles and more work for them um but also then the ability to bring them into the process say listen if we're going to be able to put an integration in place between an erp and servicenow where we have a request system does that cut down on the manual entry pos they have to do can they then focus on maybe the project-based ones that demand their skill and not have to say hey eric needs a new um you know surface tablet and they need to go process that once you choose your request so i think it's about under letting them understand their impact the whole equation but then also letting them understand really what key pieces of interaction they need for you we need from them to be successful i think another thing here to that would be um kind of these quarterly business reviews with them right maybe a status check in right so hey these are the business objectives that we set out from the onset here's where we started here's where we are has anything changed you know always re re-verifying with them that things are progressing how they expect it to uh and then keeping them focused on what they originally said was the business objective right i mean they might get new ideas which is great uh but that that needs to happen after you kind of achieve the initial initial goals right or if something is changed and now is the priority then it gets communicated as such so having those regular check-ins is really good yeah that's spot-on very great well this is this has been awesome but eric um what final thoughts would you leave us with you know from a product team and hardware asset management customers here that are listening in what final words do you give us for success with sam well so first and foremost i i thank everybody for the the time and attendance day and their opportunity to for joining us um you know i think that everyone's here because they want to create a successful hardware asset management program within their business we are here to help from a product perspective but i will say that we go back to that people process tool the heavy lifting is is certainly on your end with with being able to drive these programs into your business and and make sure that um you're you're getting the goals and the values that that you need so i i would tell you again tack on to the executive sponsorship communication between the groups and common goal setting is really really important and progress not perfection um and you know i would also call out you know look at the community forums from servicenow look at your local events it's a great way for you to interact with your peers who may be running through some of the same issues or problems or political battles that you may have on that daily basis um and in i think it is there's comfort of knowing that there are a lot of common problems out there and maybe strategizing together and how to get through them is a great way to work wonderful that's great well i think that's about it victor so um with that i think we'll say thank you so much for spending some time with us today there are other uh itam live events that you'll be able to check out to help you with your hard wrap and journey so keep keep your eyes posted to that on the community and we'll talk to you soon thank you thanks everyone hey [Music] [Music]