Siemens AG drives digitalisation of IT processes with ServiceNow

The fortune 100 Company establishes a Service Integration and Management (SIAM) solution and improves not only costs and processes but also end-user experience.

  • Wednesday, 16th November 2016 Posted 8 years ago in by Phil Alsop
Siemens, one of the world’s largest and longest-standing engineering and electronics companies is optimising its IT processes, thereby cutting costs and simultaneously increasing productivity. Using ServiceNow, Siemens established an enterprise-wide Service Integration and Management (SIAM) solution creating a central portal for all IT products and services for its 348,000 employees. Using a single service integration platform IT services and products from several different providers can now be managed.  
 
Siemens has standardised its global IT services and products on ServiceNow, including:
  • A self-service portal for all IT products and services, currently being used by 285,000 employees. The solution provides simplicity through a one-stop-shop portal which focuses on the employees and consolidates multiple portals. Users submit service requests via one easy-to-use interface, improving agility and transparency for IT staff, while helping employees to stay productive. A significant simplification is provided through “bundles”. Bundling creates complete scenarios, as for example putting together all topics related to smart phones (e.g. Smart phone, SIM, messaging and Wifi-access) or Onboarding (e.g. Siemens-ID, email and laptop), this greatly simplifies the ordering processes for employees.  
 
  • A globally uniform IT Service Management (ITSM) portal for IT staff, internal and external providers. Taking an enterprise-wide SIAM approach based on ServiceNow’s platform has allowed the company to collaborate better with its providers by offering an ecosystem with well defined processes and standard interfaces. This improves IT service quality and time to market while simultaneously providing end-to-end responsibility. When connecting a new provider it is important that processes can be handled automatically: 14 million data sets are currently being automatically replaced by the platform. In addition external providers can quickly be plucked-in and -out, allowing greater market flexibility. Meanwhile the platform tracks service usage and expenses continually so as to reduce overall costs and wasteful spend. The company  profits from high service quality at the best price.
 
  • Managing over 160,000 mobile devices across various operators. Now IT has full visibility into mobile assets, plans, and features. Using MobiChord Mobile Expense and Asset Management – a certified ServiceNow Store application - Siemens has also consolidated its enterprise mobility management (EMM) system. It includes automated multicurrency expense and usage reporting. Powerful analytics are now available to analysts and cost centre managers and automated catalog management as well as speedy processing of mobile change requests for new mobile devices and services.
Dr. Matthias Egelhaaf, program director at Siemens, commented: “ServiceNow is our speed dial for digitalisation. ServiceNow has helped us to transform multiple processes within more than 15 tools into transparent, standardised processes, supported by a single service integration platform. It allows IT to provide better support and generate more value for the business.”
According to Dr, Egelhaaf, the ServiceNow mobility management platform MobiChord has changed how Siemens manages IT and collaborates with mobile providers: “We needed a scalable mobility management solution that would fully integrate with our ServiceNow SIAM environment. MobiChord and ServiceNow has given us complete mobile transparency, allowing us to streamline the internal tasks and shut down several legacy systems to substantially reduce operating costs. In addition, we have been able to standardise our mobile processes such as device requests and plan changes across different carriers.”
“Siemens has put the user experience at the centre of its service integration. Through the consolidation of multiple enterprise systems into one easy to use, single service platform the way its employees conduct work globally has truly been changed” said Georg Goller, Area Vice President Germany, ServiceNow. “Expanding this to a full SIAM environment for mobility management means the company’s digital transformation strategy really stands out with regard to scale and scope.”
Based on its success in consolidating and managing IT services, Siemens plans to further leverage the existing platform within IT, for example by releasing additional processes and functionalities. This includes the introduction of new use cases like automating the on-boarding process as part of its HR Service Management strategy, as well as shutting down additional existing legacy tools.