Legacy systems continue to be persistent roadblocks for organizations wanting to advance business transformation initiatives. These technologies keep teams disconnected, hinder efficient service delivery, and contribute to increasing technical debt.
Jira Service Management and ServiceNow are two of the most popular ITSM tools on the market. Even though they both offer comprehensive ITSM capabilities, there are cases where businesses need both platforms to coexist within their digital ecosystems. But why would an organization need two ITSM tools that essentially do the same thing?
In this article, we explore the different use cases where organizations rely on both Jira Service Management and ServiceNow to drive business strategy.
Benefits of Jira Service Management
Positioned as a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, Atlassian’s Jira Service Management streamlines workflows and connects developers, IT operations, and business teams on a unified platform. While initially created to support ITSM and DevOps practices, Jira Service Management has grown into a powerful, user-friendly solution for implementing Enterprise Service Management strategies that bring businesses closer to their customers.
Benefits of ServiceNow
Offering full ITIL 4 compliance, ServiceNow is a cloud-based service management solution that enables cross-enterprise workflows and provides extensive features and customization options to meet specific requirements. Also named a leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, ServiceNow’s Now platform serves as the single source of truth for all business data by integrating a broad portfolio of IT and business applications.
Why Jira Service Management and ServiceNow Can Coexist In Your Organization
While both platforms have a wide range of features to cover the entire service management lifecycle, there are cases where organizations need both ITSM tools. Large enterprises have invested massive amounts of time and financial resources in ServiceNow since it is the best-of-breed, tried-and-true ITSM solution for enterprise organizations. They have spent years building out their processes in the Now platform, and they have reinvested their ROI from ServiceNow back into expanding the platform.
However, as organizations race against a fast-moving market, they come to discover that ServiceNow does not support agile or collaborative ways of working. These companies need more modern, flexible solutions that help tear down silos and empower all business teams with service management capabilities. That’s where tools like Jira Service Management come in.
These organizations also have an Atlassian footprint since Jira Software is widely adopted by enterprises. As that footprint grows organically, they start to consider Jira Service Management as a solution for smaller teams that need user-friendly, flexible technology to deliver services across the enterprise.
Jira Service Management makes sense since teams already use the Atlassian platform to move work forward. Plus, Jira Serice Management seamlessly integrates with other Atlassian tools, connecting DevOps, IT, and business teams on a common platform.
Jira Service Management and ServiceNow Integration In Action
Let’s say a large enterprise organization with 30,000 employees needs a way for the HR team to field requests like onboarding teams, documenting HR concerns, asking for a laptop, etc. Currently, the company’s IT organization uses the Now platform to implement ITSM practices, but they also use Jira Software as a project management tool.
To set up their service desk, the HR team would have to go through IT, which could take up to six months to implement in ServiceNow. Also, to support HR’s needs, the enterprise would have to invest even more in ServiceNow by purchasing additional ServiceNow products, which are extremely expensive.
Instead, Jira Service Management offers a lightweight, inexpensive way for the HR team to easily spin up their service desk without having to rely on IT. Also, it’s easier for teams responding to support tickets in Jira Software to use Jira Service Management. Because everyone has access to the same issues, Jira Service Management creates a seamless user experience, enabling both business and IT teams to deliver service more efficiently.
When ServiceNow and Jira Service Management are integrated, data can be shared across different teams. The goal of an IT help desk in ServiceNow might be strictly focused on providing technical support, while a service desk in Jira Service Management has the goal of offering non-technical support to multiple enterprise teams.
By linking these systems together, teams providing support can manage tasks in the tool they natively use. This way, you don’t force the IT Help Desk team to context switch to Jira Service Management when a new employee needs system access. Instead, the workflow in Jira Service Management can trigger an automation to create the access request ticket in the Now platform.
Thinking Long-Term With Your ITSM Software
Transforming the way people work and the tools they use isn’t always about licensing costs. It’s about cultural change, which is a complex–and often painful–process.
This is why it’s so difficult to replace ServiceNow, not to mention the process would be costly. Recreating workflows that support tens of thousands of employees is too arduous and would require a multi-year plan to migrate to a new ITSM solution.
Alternatively, it’s easy and inexpensive to solve short-term service delivery challenges with Jira Service Management, starting with smaller teams like HR, legal, and marketing. Then, Jira Service Management can expand organically to larger teams across the enterprise.
Having two ITSM platforms coexist in your digital ecosystem isn’t ideal in the long term, but this strategy works in the interim as organizations move away from traditional legacy systems.
Maximize Your Tech Investment with Praecipio
From improving your asset management strategy to building your ideal service management platform, Praecipio can help you get the most out of your technology investment. We have guided hundreds of organizations through transitioning from legacy systems to more team-centric ITSM tools.
If you want to know more about how Jira Service Management and ServiceNow stack up against each other, read this article. To learn more about the benefits, costs, and risks associated with investing in Jira Service Management, check out our whitepaper, Build a Collaborative Ecosystem with Jira Service Management.
Contact us and find out how our team can help your organization modernize ways of working and improve business outcomes.
