Blender maker adds ServiceNow ITSM to business mix

Blender maker Vitamix has rolled out its ServiceNow IT service management (ITSM) software beyond the confines of the IT department to automate tasks across the business.

The company, which has 900 staff including 75 in IT, replaced its Request Transfer open source tool with ServiceNow’s cloud-based ITSM software.

Heather Brizzi, who joined Vitamix as service desk manager just over a year ago, said five years of strong growth at the company had made additional demands on the business.

“The administrator for the ITSM tool was part of the networking team, so there was no dedicated support and the tool had not been updated,” said Brizzi.

She said when she joined Vitamix she already had a good idea that she would implement ServiceNow after her experience of it in previous jobs. She said her direct boss was of the same view but it was only after visiting ServiceNow’s annual customer event, Knowledge 2013, and speaking to existing customers that they decided to go for ServiceNow. 

“Talking to existing users made us realise the value for the business and not just IT,” she said. “It helped us think about business cases.”

As well as its IT, the company has automated a number of small processes using the service across departments including HR and operations management.

“We had an expenses process done in Excel but when we saw ServiceNow in use we realised we could take that process and do it in ServiceNow,” explained Brizzi.

The company also replaced the Microsoft software used to onboard new staff because, unlike ServiceNow, it did not have any interaction between HR, the hiring manager and IT.

Brizzi said a real benefit of doing all the small processes in ServiceNow as well as the ITSM is the amount of data that it provides in one place.

She said that following the ServiceNow implementation she had gone back to the business departments to see how things had changed. She said staff were happy to have easy access to data rather than having to chase it. “This allowed them to do things that are more complex.”

The company is now working on a project to improve customer services by moving knowledge-based information to ServiceNow. When a customer contacts the company for help, their profile will be presented by ServiceNow to the member of staff offering them support.

Vitamix joins organisations such as Imperial College, Deloitte, SkyIQ, Enterprise Holdings and Wellcome Trust in moving its ITSM to ServiceNow's cloud.