Looking back at Aspediens 2011

30 Jan 2012 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

2011 has been quite an agitated year, the world around us bursted into revolutions and various ecological disasters, it was an incredible year for scientific discovery… It was a year to lose dictators but also visionaries, who helped shape our modern visions as well as the digital revolution that change business and society today. In short, it was a remarkable year…

For a better remembrance, we tend to categorize things into lists; an exercise we do unconsciously. Every life coach will tell you, lists help your productivity ;-); so like everybody else, we want to add to this year in review our own top ten, because it’s good to celebrate your own achievements from time to time!

#1: Our biggest customer goes live with 3000 + IT users and 70’000 end-users worldwide. 10 processes, 300’000 CIs

#2: ServiceNow EMEA Top Partner: in July, at the ServiceNow Sales Kick-Off, we were very honored to receive the EMEA Top Partner award.

#3: Authorized Training Partner: last year, ServiceNow certified Aspediens as Authorized Training Partner, validating our knowledge and pedagogy and more than 10 admin training sessions already organized since 2007!

By the way, our next Standard Admin Training starts on February 15th, register here.

#4: Our director of Technology, Dariusz Szybowski is the proud holder of the number 0000001 certificate as a ServiceNow Certified Implementation specialist. ☺

#5: Speaker at ITSMf Paris: Michel Regueiro, our Director Solution Consulting, presented an agile approach to deploy your CMDB !

#6: 30 projects went live in 2011: we successfully rolled-out 30 projects amongst which 14 new customers totalizing > 5’000 new process users and > 100’000 new end-users.

#7: At Knowledge11 we’ve been Gold Sponsor and held two breakout sessions.

#8: CERN receives the Innovation Of the Year award. Reinoud Martens gave us an interview prior to that!

#9: 10 new consultants hired: we succeeded in finding 10 new talents sharing our values and willing to grow with us. All our consultants are ITIL certified and (very soon) certified ServiceNow Administrators, which will make Aspediens the first and only European Partner with 100% certified consultants.

#10: Aspediens France continues its expansion and moved to a brand new office, 200 meters, with a nice Training Room and a field for ever-lasting Babyfoot games !

We could say 2011 has been a wild ride… 2012 is a fresh start! We prepare for a continuous shift in the world of business, accelerated by the rapid adoption of social technologies. Essentially our challenge is to stay agile and Think out Cloud!

Happy Holiday Season

29 Dec 2011 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

In appreciation of your faithful readership over the past year, the whole Aspediens team joins in sending our very best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and wishes you success on this coming New Year.

It was a very busy year for Aspediens and for that we are truly grateful! We are looking forward to an even busier 2012 for everyone ;)

The Future is NOW: Knowledge11 Farewell

13 Dec 2011 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

As Fred Luddy – ServiceNow Founder and Chief Product Officer – mentioned it, the Knowledge11 ServiceNow User Conference was energizing and inspirational! As we are coming back from Frankfurt and preparing for the last weeks of 2011, we couldn’t agree more! These were 3 exceptional days in Frankfurt where we had thought provoking discussions with many interesting people.

Here’s how it unfolded

Day One and Two, the pre-conference day was bustling with activity and enthusiasm, with conference rooms fully packed for the System Administrator training and the ITIL training.

Day Two, the show began at 4PM with the Kickoff Keynote by Fred Luddy which was least to say rich with information and news! The Aspediens crew was standing among an excited crowd of 400 attendees from 21 countries gathered to hear about  ”The Evolution of Service”.

Evolution it was indeed as Fred announced high availability n+n architecture for Gen 2.0 infrastructure and introduced  ”a clear and compelling vision of end-to-end service automation underpinned by ITSM, and sneak previews of a touch interface that will power not only mobile devices, but make impact on the browser-based experience as well..”

• Automated instance cloning: Fred also presented a new feature for ServiceNow customers requesting an instance clone (already possible today) and automatically get the instance cloned with Run Book Automation without involving ServiceNow Operations! This will improve the service delivery of more than 800 requests per month.
• Archiving: ServiceNow Development team is also working on a system feature that will automate the data archiving on another instance with definition of the time period and ability to define wether the logs, audit and attachments are part of the archiving or not.
• Fred also presented some new features coming with the Aspen Release (coming soon)

Day Three, was a great day! After the lunch that Aspediens sponsored, we held two Breakout Sessions. Michel Regueiro (@michelgva) and Chris Dancy (@chrisdancy) gave a very interesting and funny presentation on the social CMDB.

Michel presented a nice concept to moving from a monolithic CMDB to a Social CMLF (Configuration Management Live Feed). (see picture below).
More than 100 people attended and had a great laugh at those two tap-dancing around each other…(find slideshare here…)

Dariusz’s presentation raised lots of interest on the subject of SAP Integrations with ServiceNow and many people came to our booth to know more about our expertise in this area. ( find slideshare here…)

Both Reinoud Martens from CERN and John Walsh working at National Bank of Belgium gave in their presentations a real-world customer example ….. By the way, CERN walked away with the Innovation of the Year award, and we are proud to have supported them so far.

With 53% of the breakout sessions presented by customers, we can say that this was a truly User Conference. Analysts such as Stephen Mann from Forrester also covered this event and could confirm that customers love ServiceNow. This was the last european Knowledge event; next year we’ll all meet in New Orleans !

Now a short special mention to our themed booth… the choice of green grass & blue cloudy skies couldn’t have been more timely and appropriate…With concepts such as “cloud-architecture”, “SaaS & the cloud” or “mobility and the cloud” flying around,  one could say it was definitely THE buzzword during these 3 days! Our Thinking Out Cloud wall soon became a Hall of Fame…no name dropping here, pictures tell it all :-)

10 Reasons to Work with Aspediens

07 Dec 2011 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

Hello,

In the endless field of questions regarding ServiceNow implementation, Aspediens now provides a simple tool to help you figure out the answers you’re looking for and assist you in tackling the problems … with us! :-)

10 reasons to work with Aspediens is a short quizz that provides you, in just about 3 minutes, with the necessary arguments to help you set your priorities and better locate your needs. Effortless and agile, just like us!

Wether we are the perfect fit for your current needs or not quite,  Aspediens services will bring the right value . If you want to find out what we really add to the equation go visit www.aspediens.com/10reasons/

Pre Knowledge 11 conference Interviews: John Walsh working @ the National Bank of Belgium

02 Dec 2011 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

Introducing today a Q&A with John Walsh, Program Manager for the Enterprise Service Management Program at the National Bank of Belgium.

John M. Walsh is an IT Adviser and Enterprise Architect with over 25 years of experience in both Business and IT domains across different industries and cultural divides. He specializes in areas including IT Strategy development, IT Governance, Enterprise Architecture, Service Management and Social IT. He is currently working as a Program Manager for a Service Management maturity program in Belgium.

(for more http://www.johnmwalsh.com/discover/biography/

@ Knowledge 11 Europe in Francfurt on Wednesday, December 7th 15.10 CET : It’s the Organization, Stupid!

John Walsh’s focus is on both the tool and the process. And while both are key, one of the most underestimated aspects is the organization in which the process and the tool are both being deployed. In this session, John will present his experience and lessons learned – showing how ServiceNow helps the bank focus on the real issue of the organization.

Q&A with John Walsh.

1. Quick bio about you

• Working as an IT Adviser and Enterprise (solution) Architect.
• Studies Computer Science and Mathematics at University College Cork, Ireland.
• Background in Software development, Design, Quality Assurance, Outsourcing, Service Management and Enterprise Architecture.

2. First time you saw ServiceNow?

I discovered ServiceNow in 2007 when looking for a SaaS Service Management solution.

3. What did you implement?

Incident Mangement, Problem Management, Change Management, Service Catalogue, SACM – Asset Management, Service Request.

4. What do you plan to implement in the coming year?

SACM – Configuration Management, Service Level Management, Release Management.

5. What you like most about ServiceNow (the product)?

• The modern architecture.
• The Saas Model.
• As a relatively new company, it brings a fresh look at Service Management.

6. What you like least about ServiceNow?

• The Reporting could be improved.
• Company’s approach to introducing new functionality.
• Out of the Box processes are sometimes too basic.

7. What is the role of Aspediens in your project?

Aspediens were chosen as the Integrator based on their knowledge of the production and track record.

8. What will you present at know11?

On Dec 7^th, I will be presenting “It’s the Organization, Stupid!” This will emphasize the importance of organization readiness to avail of what ServiceNow can deliver.

9. One last word?

I really like the ServiceNow offering and their recent focus on Quality shows that they are listening to Customers. While they are very profitable now, I expect that competitors will be catching up with them within the next couple of years. The key to their survival in my opinion will be to stay original, agile, cost effective and last but not least, keep their original culture in tact in the midst of growing from a small to a medium sized company.

10. What do you think the word “Aspediens” means?

I expect it is derived from ASP – Application Service Provider, a term from the 90′s. Calling a company ASP Limited was not possible as the domain name was not available so Register.com suggested that aspediens.com was available :)

Pre Knowlegde 11 conference interviews: Reinoud Martens from CERN

01 Dec 2011 · by alex.broggi · No Comments

Introducing today a Q&A with Reinoud Martens, Service Manager @ CERN in Geneva, Switzerland

Founded in 1954, CERN is one of the world’s most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, discovering what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of nature.

CERN is known as the birthplace of the Web and is home to 2,300 staff members, playing host to more than 10,000 visiting scientists from more than 100 nationalities. A significant increase in CERN visiting scientists compelled CERN to revisit its approach to service management with a renewed focus on superior service delivery for organizational, IT and infrastructure services.

@ Knowledge 11 Europe in Francfurt on Wednesday, December 7th 15.10 CET : Non IT Services Using ITIL processes.

Reinoud will be sharing his practical experience introducing ITIL inspired best practice for non IT Services using ServiceNow. He will demonstrate how the ITIL principles can be used for to drive automated and efficient processes for non IT business areas, and discuss lessons learned on the significant differences he discovered after go-live between IT and non-IT support staff.

Q&A with Reinoud Martens

1. Quick bio about you:

Electrical Engineer from Delft University in Holland experimenting with digital electronics in the 1970’s migrated from hardware through programming in all languages and all levels to become DBA in the early 80’s. Spent the 90’s implementing and customizing ERP systems, and was in charge of all CERN’s administrative IT in the 00’s. As of 1/1/2010 in charge of service management for ‘non IT’ (but scope includes all application software) at CERN.

2. When did you see ServiceNow for the first time? What was your first feeling?

In the middle of 2009 we were given a demo of service-now, and it looked really attractive. We knew some tools but had no clear idea of the state of the art in service-management support tools at the time. For various reasons the fact that this tool was proposed as SAAS was particularly interesting for us too.

3. What did you implemented?

Request, Incidents, Knowledge, Business Service Catalog, Change, Service Level Management.

4. What do you plan to implement in the coming year?

Consolidation of Change; Problem and Event are under implementation

5. What you like most about servicenow (the product)?

Coherent modern architecture, 100% web based, flexible, SAAS.

6. What you like least about servicenow?

Reporting is not sufficiently developed.

7. What is the role of Aspediens in your project?

Aspediens launched the first modules of our service-management spacestation into orbit, we are now circling our service world, and able to extend the spacestation in many directions (scope, maturity of existing processes, additional processes) ourselves.

8. What will you present at k11?

How we apply ITIL best practice to “non IT” services.

9. One last word?

The SaaS concept has made us gain many months (that would otherwise have been necessary to negotiate, orchestrate, procure, install, test, adapt, etc.. the various parts of the technology stack). This combined with the experience of Aspediens in implementing service-now have helped us keep the momentum of the rollout of our service-management vision.

10. What do you think the word “Aspediens” means?

Aspediens are creatures from the planet Aspe who have traveled many light years to help humans improve their service management maturity. They can be recognized by their triangular navel.

Thinking Out Cloud: Pre Knowledge 11 conference interview: Fred Luddy

30 Nov 2011 · by alex.broggi · No Comments

In less than a week time, we will be gathering at the Knowledge 11 conference in Frankfurt, Germany to redefine and exchange about IT management in the cloud era.

As a Gold Sponsor to the event, we take our role very seriously and we also felt the need to share our enthusiasm with you. We thought of introducing a few ideas beforehand, exchanging on various topics about the implementation of ServiceNow and talk with the people with whom we have built strong relationships.

For this matter, we will be publishing a series of Interviews on our website… stay tuned for more!

Introducing today a Q&A with Fred Luddy, Chief Product Officer and Founder of ServiceNow

1. Fred, we met first in 2008. What a journey since then! What’s your feeling when you look back?

I have a feeling of great pride and great accomplishment. We started in 2008 where we had about 100 customers and are now getting close to 1’000 customers. This has only ben possible with companies like Aspediens who are able to bring customers in production so quickly… and this makes me feel energized.I feel the relationship between ServiceNow and Aspediens has been and still is very inspirational to each other. It is truly invigorating for me to work with you guys and create a better product.

2. You will be opening the knowledge 11 event with a keynote about the evolution of service. Tell us more about it?

Yes, we are moving now to a whole new era of IT: the cloud era. The question is no more if it will be viable but how it will work. We still don’t know exactly what needs to be owned by a company or what will be rented as a service in the cloud, it will be a hybrid model. This is a generational shift such as the ones from Mainframe to Unix, from Unix to the PC, and now from the PC to the cloud. Each of those shifts needed new tooling and the ones on the cloud will bring 2 main capabilities:

Self Service will expand not only to promote IT to a viable utility but also to bring a sense of community amongst the users.

Business people will manage their own portion of the cloud along the lines of the “Amazon experience”, provisioning services, shutting them down or decommissioning them in a very easy and user friendly way.

The enhanced automation coupled with Self Service will change the way people interact with the technology and within processes.

3. What you like most about ServiceNow (the product)?

I think it is the openness of the platform that allows people to create applications by themselves to solve their unique problems. I have never seen a customer where I did not smile… they all extend the system with amazing functions that I would never have imagined or that I was even not aware could exist!

4. What you like least about ServiceNow?

I enjoyed a lot when I knew everybody in the company, now sometimes I meet people in the corridor and I’m not sure whether this is a customer, a partner or an employee… I miss a bit this feeling of intimacy.

On another dimension, the more I see innovations in the field, the more I see the need to innovate in the platform… We need to further accelerate the amount of innovation in ServiceNow.

5. What is the role of partners for ServiceNow?

We would simply not be where we are today and will not be where we want to be tomorrow without partners. The partners network is not only needed to grow. We also need to fully integrate it in the “ServiceNow fabric”.

6. Do you know Dariusz from Aspediens will be presenting “sap integration with ServiceNow at k11?…

This makes me very happy… at what time is Dariusz session as I’d really like to attend it and learn how you did it?

[Note from the Editor]: Dariusz session is scheduled Wednesday Dec. 7th at 13:00.

7. …And Michel will present with Chris Dancy “how to make your CMDB social”?

Yes, please let me know the time of that one too… I would not know how to position this but I trust Chris and Michel will do an outstanding job on it! These are 2 very special individuals on this planet, very forward looking, with this extremely positive and can do attitude. I’m looking forward to this very exciting session.

[Note from the Editor]: Chris and Michel’ session is scheduled Wednesday Dec. 7th at 13:00.

8. What is your perception of Aspediens?

I’m very proud to be associated with you guys. Since our first dinner in Geneva I felt that we are interchangeable entities, you know one party starts a sentence and the other one finishes it… Working with you has been a very positive experience for me. I told the story many times about these guys working in multinational companies and leaving their jobs to create a business around ServiceNow, asking if they could represent us in Switzerland (to start with) and bringing in these fantastic and prestigious customers. I’ve always been very impressed by your independence in selling and implementing our technology; I’ve also been impressed by how you have built all your systems in the cloud.

9. Do you have a scoop for us? (we won’t tell almost to anybody)

We are running a couple of very exciting projects over here:

One around massive scalability, using technologies such as “database sharding” (term popularized by Google through their publication of the Big Table architecture), resources partitioning and data archiving. The success of our product and the requirements of our biggest customers are driving us there to further increase our technology’ span in the enterprise.

The other one around the user interface. The UI will become phenomenally simpler built around new paradigms brought by iOS5 and Androïd.

10. One last word?

I will say two words: thank you! I’m very excited meeting you there in Frankfurt, not only to attend your sessions or come to your booth, but also just having a coffee or a beer together.

Special question: What do you think the word “Aspediens” mean?

Accountable, Skilled, Professional, Engaged, Dedicated, Innovative, Evolved, Next generation, Success.

Thanks very much Fred!

Aspediens Gold Sponsor at Knowledge11 Europe

24 Nov 2011 · by nora.ghitescu · No Comments

Aspediens will be Gold Sponsor at the Knowledge11 Europe, ServiceNow’s user conference taking place in Frankfurt, Germany, December 5-8, 2011. We will be present during the four-day event bringing together more than 150 of the largest and most forward-thinking global enterprises that are redefining IT management in the cloud era.

On Wednesday December 7th, we will be holding two breakout sessions:

• 13.00: MAKING YOUR CMDB SOCIAL by Michel Regueiro

Our Solution Consulting Director together with Chris Dancy from ServiceNow, will introduce the  concept of creating a social CMDB.

• 13.00: SAP INTEGRATIONS WITH SERVICENOW by Dariusz Szybowski

A more technical session will be delivered by our Director of Technology, who will present concrete cases that we have achieved to date on how to integrate with SAP solution manager

So come visit us on our Stand #2… many “sweet” surprises will await you there…