The Enterprise Service Management (ESM) Programme

   

Modernising our service experience and transitioning to ServiceNow ahead of the new academic year.

What is Enterprise Service Management (ESM)?

Enterprise Service Management is a well-established practice outside of the sector and a growing one within HE too. It means using the same structured way of delivering services across all professional services — not just IT/Digital. ESM brings everything together into one place, ‘a single front door’ where staff and students can get help, request services, and find knowledge easily.

ESM is not new to us – we are at an exciting stage of our ESM journey, but it is something we’ve been working towards for a few years, following the first mention of ESM at the inception of our 5-year Digital Strategy back in 2022. After market research and discussions across the sector, ServiceNow was selected as our ESM solution; it is used widely across the HE sector, often scores the highest in external benchmarking and was deemed most suitable to meet our needs.
 

Why are we moving to ESM?

Current UoR systems offer limited self-service and case management workflow capability, with no central helpdesk across professional services. Each Directorate has its own approach to providing support tools and services.  A single, enterprise platform for staff and students will bring lots of benefits:
It creates an efficient and service-centric approach, that prioritises user experience and service delivery over processes

  • It introduces standardisation and consistency
  • It provides the opportunity to automate repetitive tasks so we can remove those from our to-do list and focus instead on where we can add value
  • It promotes self-service by providing access to lots of knowledge articles
  • It provides data which we can then use to further improve
  • It helps track compliance against regulations
  • And it provides an intuitive singular interface for users to go to

Our Design Principle: Out-of-the-Box (O.O.T.B.)

We are adopting a strict "Out-of-the-Box" approach. We will adapt our existing processes to fit ServiceNow's standard capabilities, rather than building customisations. This ensures the platform remains easy to maintain, cost-effective, and simple to upgrade in the future.

The Programme Roadmap

In June 2025 we went live with our first instance of ServiceNow in Student Services, commonly referred to as the Student Portal; this was to replace an existing component, SID, which was no longer being supported. In February 2026, we moved into an exciting phase of the programme where we received approval to procure additional ServiceNow licenses to replace TopDesk (our current ITSM tool) with ServiceNow, as well as introduce ServiceNow as our Hardware Asset Management and Software Asset Management tool. This is the first step into what is referred to as the Staff portal, which will eventually become our ‘single front door’ for all Professional Services. Future phases of the ESM Programme are being planned, further information will be shared as we onboard more services over the next 2-3 years.

For the current phase, our aim is to replace TopDesk with ServiceNow by September 2026, to align with the end of our current contract with TopDesk. To ensure we can continue providing critical services to the university without interruption, we are taking a two-staged approach to delivering this:

First Stage: The ITSM Foundation (September 2026)

Replacing TopDesk with a production-ready operating model

  • Core routing, approvals, and service desk controls.
  • Incident, Request, and Change management.
  • Operational reporting and Employee Center enablement.

Second Stage: Completing the Transformation (Early 2027)

Expanding our broader service operations vision.

  • Hardware and Software Asset Management.
  • Employee Center Pro expansion.
  • Self-service and AI experience items.

How you can get ready

  • Familiarise yourself: Explore online resources to build a strong understanding of ServiceNow as an enterprise solution. The sidebar on the right has links to online training resources.
  • Share your thoughts: Talk to the project team with your feedback, concerns, and suggestions.
  • Watch for updates: Keep an eye out for upcoming communications and training opportunities.
  • Champion the change: Help us build early awareness across the university that TopDesk is being replaced.

Key Contacts

Have a question? Reach out to the project leadership team: ESMProject@reading.ac.uk.

  • Becky Jeffries - Digital Programme Manager 
  • Gareth Phillips - Project Manager

 

Training and Online Resources
https://learning.servicenow.com/now/lxp/home