From Custom to Scalable: Transforming Enterprise Asset Management for Strategic Growth

The Cost of Outgrown Systems: Hindering Growth and Innovation

For years, the organization had relied on a custom-built ServiceNow application to maintain and service enterprise assets. What began as a tailored solution to address specific business needs had become a costly, resource-draining liability. The system demanded frequent maintenance to stay operational, with updates and troubleshooting consuming a significant portion of the IT team’s time and resources. This constant upkeep created an operational bottleneck, delaying responses to critical issues.

Moreover, the application struggled to keep up with the organization’s evolving needs, becoming increasingly rigid as the business scaled. Its lack of flexibility hampered new integrations and upgrades. Additionally, reliance on a small group of internal experts for troubleshooting created knowledge silos, causing unresolved technical issues when key personnel were unavailable. This inefficiency disrupted workflows and drained valuable resources, making it unsustainable in the long term.

Going back in the box with Workplace Service Delivery and Enterprise Asset Management

The application has shifted from being a strategic asset to a thorn in the organization’s side. The organization acknowledged the pressing need for a more efficient and cost-effective solution. A recommended combination of ServiceNow's Workplace Service Delivery and Enterprise Asset Management, with their robust out-of-the-box capabilities, offered an ideal platform to address these challenges. Partnering with INRY, a trusted ServiceNow Elite partner and implementation expert, the organization initiated a back-in-the-box initiative to eliminate customization and streamline ongoing maintenance.

Step 1: Reviewing the Existing System

INRY started by reviewing the organization’s custom asset management system. This step was important to ensure all key data, such as asset and procurement records, were ready for migration. As part of this review, INRY drafted and submitted a comprehensive assessment report of the custom app, detailing the ideal approach to map its capabilities to ServiceNow's out-of-the-box (OOTB) features and providing a clear plan to sunset the custom application.

Step 2: Organizing Workplace Data

Once the review was complete, INRY worked on setting up workplace information to match the organization’s operations. Each location was configured to include cost centers or departments. The team uploaded key information about workplaces, such as buildings, floors, areas, rooms, and spaces.

Pro tip: To ensure smooth operation over the long term, create categories for different spaces and set up rules for how they would be managed over time. Additionally, we also added security features to protect the data and control who could access it.

Step 3: Setting Up Asset Management

INRY facilitated the organization’s transition to ServiceNow’s Enterprise Asset Management system, implementing dashboards and tools that offered comprehensive visibility into assets, including inventory, contracts, performance metrics, and lifecycle stages. The migration process involved transferring data from the custom app, with a focus on creating maintenance plans, schedules, and work order templates.

To make things even more efficient:

INRY ensured accurate data migration and organization within ServiceNow tables, streamlining asset tracking and boosting efficiency.

Automated processes were set up for adding and retiring assets.

Catalog requests to reclaim enterprise assets

Implemented catalog requests for reclaiming enterprise assets, simplifying the process and reducing waste

Step 4: Simplifying Maintenance

INRY set up maintenance plans based on the organization’s current needs, aligning with existing schedules from the custom app to ensure seamless data flow and avoid disruption. These plans included schedules to keep everything running smoothly. We also created user-friendly work order templates that enabled technicians to identify the precise location of assets and efficiently execute maintenance tasks, saving time and effort for day-to-day operations.

Future-Ready and Poised to Grow

By going back into the box with an amalgamation of ServiceNow’s Workplace Service Delivery and Enterprise Asset Management modules, the organization has unlocked a new level of strategic enterprise asset management. Maintenance costs dropped, and operational bottlenecks vanished, freeing up resources that can now be invested in innovation rather than system maintenance.

With automated workflows and sharper asset visibility, decision-making has become faster and more informed, positioning the organization to realize more value out of the platform. It’s not just about achieving smoother operations but also about fostering agility, maintaining competitiveness, and staying aligned with the organization’s vision.

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From Custom to Scalable: Transforming Enterprise Asset Management for Strategic Growth

Back-in-the-Box Strategy

Streamlined Asset Management

Workplace Data Optimized

Future-Proof Scalability