Exploring Benchmarks

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Exploring Benchmarks

    The ServiceNow Benchmarks application enables IT Service Management (ITSM) customers to gain comparative insights by measuring their key performance indicators (KPIs) against industry averages, top performers, and peer groups. Data is securely collected daily from your ServiceNow instance and aggregated into monthly global benchmark reports, allowing you to monitor trends and performance relative to others.

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    Participation is open to most ServiceNow customers with production instances, excluding Express, Federal, and on-premise customers. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) receive exclusive access to global MSP aggregate scores. Benchmarks support comparisons by global averages, industry categories, user size, and geographical region, helping you understand your standing within relevant peer groups.

    Key Features

    • Collection of KPI data from multiple ServiceNow applications including ITSM, ITOM, and Security Operations.
    • Customizable KPI definitions to align with your organization's specific configurations.
    • A mobile-friendly Benchmarks dashboard in the Service Portal, providing easy access to data visualization and drill-down analysis.
    • Downloadable KPI reports in PDF format for sharing and offline review.
    • Filtering options by industry, active user size, geographical region, and user company characteristics for relevant benchmarking.
    • Email notifications alerting you when new monthly benchmark data is available.
    • Percentile rankings that clearly indicate your performance within your selected peer groups.
    • Dynamic, data-driven recommendation candidates with guided setup instructions to help improve your KPI performance.
    • Role-based access controls to protect sensitive benchmark data.
    • Integration with Performance Analytics for continuous daily data collection and enhanced KPI insights.

    Key Outcomes

    • Global Anonymity: Your organization’s benchmark data is visible internally, while global benchmark data remains anonymous, ensuring confidentiality.
    • Industry and Peer Comparisons: Filter benchmark results to compare your organization against similar companies by industry, size, or region, enabling targeted performance insights.
    • Trend Analysis: Access historical KPI data for up to six months to track performance improvements or identify areas needing attention over time.
    • Actionable Recommendations: Receive monthly, data-driven suggestions tailored to enhance your KPIs, supporting continuous service improvement.
    • Regular Reporting: Monthly refreshed benchmark reports provide up-to-date comparisons and insights, with automated notifications keeping you informed.

    Use Benchmarks for ITSM to get a comparative insight relative to industry averages of your peers and to the industry top performers. With Benchmarks get a quick visibility into your key performance indicators (KPIs) and trends.

    The ServiceNow Benchmarks application securely collects daily data on your instance and then aggregates the data into monthly global benchmark reports.

    Performance Analytics collects daily data on customer instances. The data from the previous month is uploaded at the beginning of the following month via a scheduled job. If there are any errors, there are multiple retries.

    This video provides an overview of how you can get started with Benchmarks.

    During the month the data is uploaded, the data is aggregated and monthly results (your instance results, global results, and your ranking) are downloaded to the customer instance mid month. Monthly recommendation candidates are provided that you can implement to help improve your KPI performance. An email notification is sent when the global data is available.

    ServiceNow has over 2850 customers that have opted into the Benchmarks program. All ServiceNow customers are allowed to participate in the Benchmarks program by opting in from their ServiceNow production instance, except:
    • Express customers
    • Federal customers
    • Customers with on-premise instances
    Note:
    You must have a production instance to opt into the Benchmarks program.
    Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and MSP-managed instances are supported and have exclusive access to global MSP aggregate score data. All instances will support the following benchmarks that can be downloaded for comparison in the Benchmarks dashboard:
    • Global, which applies to all customers
    • Industry category
    • User size, based on active user count
    • Companies in your industry category and those that are of similar size to your company
    • Geographical regions
    Note:
    • These benchmarks aren’t calculated using MSP data.
    • Along with the above Benchmarks, you will also receive the top performers in each of these categories.
    • Changing KPI configuration within the month requires one to two months of data collection before your monthly values reflect that change.
    • The Benchmark Scheduler (bm.scheduler) user is added with Benchmarks. It’s required for Benchmarks data collection.

    Key features

    • Available KPIs from other ServiceNow applications such as ITSM, ITOM, Security Operations. For more information, see Benchmark KPIs.
    • Ability to change KPI definitions to match customizations.
    • Benchmarks dashboard in Service Portal (mobile friendly).
    • Ability to download KPI reports.
    • Ability to filter data based on the following parameters:
      • Industry, number of users, or geographical region.
      • Companies in your industry category and of similar user size.
    • Email notification when new aggregate monthly data is available.
    • Percentile ranking to indicate your standing within your participating peer group.
    • Recommendation candidates with guided setup to help improve KPI performance.
    • Product category-based roles to limit data access.
    • Integration with Performance Analytics for daily data collection and drill-down on KPI data.
    Figure 1. Benchmarks dashboard
    Benchmarks dashboard

    Benchmarks benefits

    Table 1. Benefits
    Benefit Description
    Global anonymity Viewers in your organization have access benchmarks for your organization, however the global benchmarks are anonymous, and don’t include any company information.
    Industry comparison
    Using the Compare with drop-down in the Benchmarks dashboard, you can filter the benchmarks results by industry, ServiceNow user size, or geographical region to make the results more relevant to your organization.
    • Industry is determined based on the standard industry code in the account record for the company.
    • Number of users is determined by the number of ServiceNow active users within the company, so you can compare your company to similar-sized ServiceNow implementations to gain insight about your company.
    • Region is determined based on the Region field in the company table.
    If a filter category includes fewer than 20 participants, the corresponding data is shown in the Other category.
    Trends You can see the results of all published KPIs as well as the previous six months of history.

    You can then use the trend data to measure and report on service delivery progress over a period of time to determine what is working well and what needs improvement.
    Recommendations Data is analyzed and recommendation candidates are provided to help improve the performance of your KPIs.

    All recommendations are dynamic and are updated monthly, based on data from the previous month.
    Reports

    Benchmarks reports get refreshed monthly, which can be downloaded in PDF format. An email notification is sent to the customer when new data is available.