ServiceNow adoption is accelerating across industries – but too often, organisations treat it as just another IT tool. The real power of ServiceNow isn’t in isolated workflows; it lies in enterprise-wide transformation. To unlock that potential, leading organisations are turning to a ServiceNow Centre of Excellence (CoE).
A ServiceNow CoE serves as the strategic backbone for scalable platform governance, innovation, and value realisation. It’s not just about administration – it’s about enabling business outcomes across every domain: IT, HR, CSM, Finance, and beyond.
What Does a ServiceNow CoE Do?
- Strategic Governance: Establishes standards, architecture principles, and a roadmap to ensure alignment with business goals.
- Platform Ownership: Provides centralised leadership to oversee upgrades, integrations, and ecosystem health.
- Demand Management: Evaluates, and prioritises enhancement requests based on impact, complexity, and ROI.
- Reusable Assets: Builds shared modules, configurations, and templates to accelerate delivery and reduce duplication.
- Innovation Hub: Acts as a catalyst for driving low-code development, citizen developer enablement, and AI/automation use cases.
- Measurement & Value Tracking: Defines KPIs to track adoption, satisfaction, and the business value generated.
Why Now?
As organisations adopt more ServiceNow modules – from CSM, and HRSD to GRC, and App Engine – the risk of platform sprawl, and technical debt increases. A well-structured CoE brings discipline without stifling agility. It ensures each new use case reinforces rather than fragments the platform vision.
How to Start
- Define the Mission: Align the CoE to both IT, and business goals. It’s not just a tech group- it’s a business enabler.
- Build the Right Team: Blend platform architects, business analysts, process owners, and product managers.
- Standardise Governance: Implement intake, approval, and change management processes early.
- Showcase Value: Track, and communicate wins – every automated workflow, every time saved, every dollar optimised.
Conclusion
A ServiceNow Centre of Excellence is not overhead – it’s a multiplier. It ensures you don’t just use ServiceNow – you master it. Organisations that invest in a CoE aren’t just deploying features – they’re building a platform-powered enterprise.