About the client 

A large enterprise IT organization (identity and sector withheld) that had run ServiceNow for many years. Its hardware estate spanned end-user computing, servers, storage, network gear and data-center equipment, distributed across many physical sites and stockrooms. Over time the platform had accumulated custom asset management: duplicate hardware models, custom fields shadowing standard ones, retirement processes that differed by device type, and inventory records that had drifted from the physical world. 

The organization engaged ValueCentrix to replace that customization with licensed ServiceNow Hardware Asset Management Pro capability. The program ran 16 capability streams in parallel across 20 two-week sprints and 15 production releases over roughly eight months, absorbed a platform upgrade mid-program without breaking cadence, and delivered 100% of committed scope into production. 

The situation 

Asset retirement had evolved separately for each equipment type. Server, network, real-time network, storage and appliance classes each ran through their own catalog item and their own decommission logic. Asset state, configuration item operational status and stockroom assignment were updated inconsistently or not at all, and there was no reliable point at which chain of custody was recorded. Assets that had physically left the building still showed as in use. 

What we did 

• Modified the shared decommission subflow so every retirement catalog item converges on the same custody-transfer, acknowledgment and disposal handling. 

• Made the stockroom variable mandatory at the custody acknowledgment task and drove the asset’s stockroom update from it, closing the gap where assets lost their location on retirement. 

• Set configuration item operational status to retired within the subflow, so the CMDB and the asset record stop disagreeing. 

• Routed real-time network device tasks by location using the parent flow’s script, avoiding a second assignment convention. 

• Removed disposal tasks embedded in the end-user device return flow and handed them to the disposal order process, so disposal is governed in one place. 

• Ran each catalog item through SME acceptance separately, so no owning team had to accept a change it had not tested. 

  
  

Outcomes 

• Six retirement catalog items unified on one maintained subflow, with IT asset disposal brought into line in the same release. 

• A workspace action now surfaces assets recorded as retired and disposed but missing a disposal certificate, turning an audit-time discovery into an everyday operator view. 

• An export action on the disposal pickup task produces the planned-asset list operators previously assembled by hand. 

• A late-program defect sweep closed the remaining edge cases: assets removed from a disposal order revert to their original state, and cancelled orders no longer strand assets awaiting a certificate.