Success on file: Deloitte delivers digital briefcase on ServiceNow

In a world where digital information management and control determines business success in every vertical, organisations of all sizes have realised the need to provide data-driven tools for every employee workflow, every interaction and every business transaction.

With a determined action to deliver a set of tools that would enable staff to excel and reap greater fulfilment from their roles, Deloitte’s UK CEO Richard Houston set out a mandate for the organisation’s evolution back in 2019.

“I see a future where all of our people access a digital Deloitte, enabling them quick and easy access to the full capabilities of the firm – wherever they are. This will include a ‘Digital Briefcase’; delivering insights and capabilities that are personalised to an individual’s industries and clients”, stated Houston.

 

Inside the briefcase

A key element of the Digital Briefcase is the ‘My Support’ solution, a user experience tool built on the ServiceNow platform using ServiceNow Employee Workflow. Its core functions improve the efficiency of internal service desks operations and functions from service providers so that employee needs are satisfied quickly.

With an existing technology stack of legacy tools, Deloitte had not applied a consistent design philosophy across that estate. Its strategy with ServiceNow centred around the human-centric design of the engagement layer of its new technology stack.

“We designed our ServiceNow deployment to serve our colleagues and shield them from the underlying, data-hungry enterprise solutions. This also allows us to serve a more consistent experience and avoid fragmented connections,” said Sean Pepper, Lead Alliance Partner for the European ServiceNow practice at Deloitte.

With a degree of ServiceNow technology in place since 2013, Deloitte has now shifted its deployment to an enterprise platform model with federated build teams spanning defined business areas. 

This enabled the company to consolidate technologies across a number of functional areas and retire a host of legacy tools. It increased its use of ServiceNow for project and portfolio management, agile work management, integration, knowledge management, testing and other functions across HR, Finance and more.

 

The future of work

As a company well known for its analysis into technology trends and its work with eminent research institutions such as MIT Sloan on the future of work, Deloitte was determined to revitalise its own digital core to maximise employee benefits and wellbeing. Building My Support on ServiceNow Employee Workflow, Deloitte also engineered an evolution beneath the employee layer. In other areas, Deloitte has been building a new digital foundation using ServiceNow’s IT Workflow, IT Operations, IT Business Management, Integration Hub, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) and SecOps products since 2015

“We exploit ServiceNow Performance Analytics for a GBS Command Centre. The current solution uses the ServiceNow Employee Service Centre for our desktop and mobile engagement layers, but we have a proof of concept nearly complete to switch to the new Employee Centre – this is not surprising given we are the lead launch partner for this product,” said Deloitte’s Pepper.

Deloitte has recently added ServiceNow Virtual Agent to extend employee self-service abilities and to manage live agent chat. Additionally, ServiceNow Agent Workspace has been deployed to improve the experience of colleagues that provide services and improve their efficiency and the efficiency of the firm’s own service desks.

The team uses the ServiceNow Onboarding mobile product for its graduate and experienced hire processes. It also uses the ServiceNow App engine for some specialist areas where it has high data protection requirements. 

 

Out-of-the-box

Deloitte aims to always achieve an optimal out-of-the-box enterprise software deployment with minimal configuration or customisation as a standard. This approach has characterised its ServiceNow migration, but Deloitte has also built its own accelerator packages to enable employees to adapt to new functionalities where appropriate.

A 360-degree deployment programme with CEO Houston regularly updated, Deloitte’s progression involved front and back office colleagues working together to rapidly deliver outcomes. Deloitte is currently at the end of the second year of the delivery phase of the transformation programme, with its third year on track to see the completion of the transition. The company describes the entire process as a continuous transformation capability to build its future-fit digital core.