IBM Business Automation Workflow vs. ServiceNow Now Platform

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Business Automation Workflow
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
IBM Business Automation Workflow is a solution that helps users automate digital workflows to increase productivity, efficiency and insights — on premises or on cloud.N/A
ServiceNow Now Platform
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
The ServiceNow Now Platform is a digital workflow building and extension tool for ServiceNow featuring a number of low-code / no code tools.N/A
Pricing
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
20% above category average
ServiceNow Now Platform
-
Ratings
Dashboards10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process Engine
Comparison of Process Engine features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
17% above category average
ServiceNow Now Platform
-
Ratings
Process designer10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process simulation10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Business rules engine10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
SOA support10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process player10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for modeling languages10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Form builder10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Model execution10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Collaboration
Comparison of Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
3 Ratings
20% above category average
ServiceNow Now Platform
-
Ratings
Social collaboration tools10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Management Capabilties
Comparison of Content Management Capabilties features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
21% above category average
ServiceNow Now Platform
-
Ratings
Content management10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
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IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
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Medium-sized Companies
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Quickbase
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Enterprises
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(8 ratings)
9.2
(24 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.7
(17 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.6
(19 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(7 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Business Automation WorkflowServiceNow Now Platform
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
Have your process first on paper Its important to first document the process before venturing into BPMS. It will save a lot of pain and heartaches. A BPM tool is no magic bullet, it merely automates your process. Its upto you to put visibility and tracking on top of it. Provide monitoring so that you get a chance to improve your process continously. BPM is not an application If you are trying to build an application with BPM, chances are that your are alraedy failing. BPM must be a strategic initiative for an organization. Yes, you build Dashboards, Reports and other software in BPMS, however you do it at a process level not at an application level. http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/bpm-initiative.html Know the difference between process data and business data http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/lombardi-best-practices.html http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2012/02/bpm-system-architecture.html
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ServiceNow
Using it in the application support team is worth it as it is capable of carrying a lot of information. But using it for a Service Desk operation might not be of much use as it won't be used up to its full potential and will be costly as compared to other alternatives available in the market.
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Pros
IBM
  • System does a great job normalizing business process and automating order processing tasks. Before TeamWorks, the process was much more manual and more expensive staff ($65k to $70K) were required to manage the process. Since implementing TeamWorks, we need much lower-skilled workers to manage order processing.
  • System ensures that we have consistent data across all systems.
  • Rules engine is really the “company playbook” – it is the heart and soul of how the company works. It handles thousands of orders per day
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ServiceNow
  • The best ITSM management just in 1 tool.
  • User friendly for no IT people when they must raise a IT issue.
  • It offer very good workflow during incident or request item.
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Cons
IBM
  • The system gets crashed when many instances go into the queue stage. The system even crashes and sometimes restarts automatically when the load on the server increases. We had to develop a separate software for this and maintain the same.
  • We cannot manipulate the data during run time. It is difficult to develop user-interfaces with complex functionality.
  • In order to consume external services that follow HTTP protocol, we need to use IDE for that, and consuming services from IDE takes a lot of time to give a response.
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ServiceNow
  • Providing admins/devs with easier mechanisms for providing businss stakeholders with self-service admin capabilities across the platform
  • Tutorials on how to be the best at reporting in servicenow
  • Guided tour functionaltiy is a bit rigid and could use more workflow capabilities
  • Making it easier to push form variables to the user so there is more context when providing an approval. The out of box approval UI/form is terrible in my opinion.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
This particular decision will be made by other people. Overall IBM BPM is the best BPM engine that I have worked with. It is implemented at our company and IT and business are already somewhat familiar with it. Therefore if asked I will recommend renewal as long as the price is reasonable.
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ServiceNow
Everybody in the company is happy to use ServiceNow. All people are happy to use a user-friendly web tool in order to open IT incidents. IT people can easily support people with a stable and solid tool.
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Usability
IBM
• The system is easy enough to use but, by definition, is a complex tool. However, they have done a good job generally balancing tool complexity / capability with usability. When comparing to MS Biz Talk, for example, Biz Talk has less functionality but is actually harder to use.
• Software is very flexible. For somebody with the right technical background, it’s quite easy to write some Java code to overcome any hurdles or make the product do what is needed
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ServiceNow
As a regular user of the ServiceNow platform, including the incident management, change management and enterprise application management modules, I find that I am able to competently use the platform with minimal training and assistance. User guides are available from the vendor if required. The customisable front-end that we use in the organisation as an ordering tool for internal IT services is very easy to use, and makes searching for the required IT service simple for business users.
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Support Rating
IBM
Issues can be raised through tickets and it works based on the priority of the issue. The Support Team response is also good and the solution is provided in a short span of time. In a case where the issue is serious, they try to find out the root cause and provide an alternative for it.
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ServiceNow
We have many levels of interaction with ServiceNow. The first line of support sometimes is not equipped to resolve more complex issues, but the escalation process is clearly defined and followed with limited friction. Our account team is very responsive and willing to brainstorm ideas to improve and increase usage. We also have direct interaction with product teams to see previews of new features and at times to provide input to influence implementation details.
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In-Person Training
IBM
• Attended on premise sysadmin training for 4 days, 8 hours per day. Although further follow-up training was available, I never felt the need to go back. Training was very hands-on with real modeling (rather than just following a manual). Very effective.
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
IBM
• Very satisfied – not too difficult at all.
• We had a consultant available as part of our contract, but we didn’t really need to use (except for some advice on ActiveDirectory and single sign-on)
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
IBM
Pega Pega is a comprehensive suite which offers a unique theme of BPM development in the market. A no-coding approach based on rules with inheritance makes Pega a very powerful product. However Pega, falls short on integration centric capabilities and very rigid to customize. On the other hand IBM comes with array of products which suits needs of varying degree. Advanced integration is solved by BPEL Process Server which has support for state based patterns and mediation. Dynamic rules and event management can be solved with WODM, Cloud to on-premise connectivity with Cast Iron, Enterprise gateway and security usecases with DataPower, Social BPM with IBM BPM , WODM, mobify with Worklight. Pega has a little bit of eveything here and there. It solves the dynamic rule management, brings out the flavor of Social BPM and mobility with Antenna ( I guess) and predictive analytics as well in one single suite. There are certain usecases which needs to have a little bit of everything, however this little bits and pieces of functionality when its blows, Pega would have problems to scale. With IBM its a bit nightmare to maintain a variety of technologies, however you can wish to go for one without the other and go for something only when you truly need it. Pega vs IBM Its difficult to pick a winner. In nutshell when you want a full scale BPM with rich integration capabilities go for IBM BPM. On the other hand if you hava mature integration capability already, Pega can yield quick results for you as well. Pega's strength is its methodology. IBM BPM's strength is integration. Actually you can't go wrong with both in terms of implementation. My strong recommendation is to invest time to process analysis and pick a good vendor to support consulting and implementation.
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ServiceNow
ServiceNow is by far a better tool over Remedy. Its ability to integrate so seamlessly to so many tools allows for plenty of opportunity to streamline and improve processes. Servicenow has intuitive flows that allow you to quickly pivot if process change. Its adaptiveness is what makes it far better solution over Remedy
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
IBM
No answers on this topic
ServiceNow
1. It is not great when they can't seperate apps/products from a particular sku, forcing you to make a business case for a larger portion of functionlity than your current business case seeks to address. 2. ServiceNow reps are able to work with you when economies of scale are projected out. They are willing to start at a desired tier and provide pricing at applicable upgraded tiers
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Scalability
IBM
It scales from small team interactions to business processes serving thousands of employees, as well as straight-through-processing needs that go well beyond. Of course, scale is always in the eye of the beholder, but IBM BPM does a good job of giving you all of the hooks, APIs, and data that you need to take on whatever scaling approaches you need to meet the load
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
IBM
No answers on this topic
ServiceNow
Very easy to use. Capture more data from the Incident and problem management. Easier to escalate and following the change management process to resole the issues.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • It has added value to the upper management to give visibility into what is happening at any time in the enterprise.
  • Boosted employee morale because it gives them all the information to work the case/task in a single location.
  • Identifies bottlenecks and improves the turnover.
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ServiceNow
  • Ensuring good service support internally and externally has triggered opportunities to sustain good links with everyone and opened the door to more sales and successful business and ServiceNow has been key in all this, so the investment came back to us faster than expected.
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