ITIL Maturity Assessment | Global Aviation Technology Provider

Cleared for Improvement: How a Global Aviation Technology Provider Turned ITIL Maturity Findings Into a ServiceNow Roadmap

The Client

This aviation technology provider delivers communications and information technology that supports the global air transport industry. Its technology is used across more than 90% of the world’s airports and by most major airlines, giving the organization a significant role in the technology infrastructure behind global aviation.

Supporting an environment of that scale requires IT practices that can operate consistently across regions, teams, and time zones. The organization had already established mature processes in several areas and wanted a deeper understanding of where targeted improvements could strengthen performance, reduce risk, and support its long-term IT strategy.

The Challenge

Following a major security incident, the organization wanted an independent assessment of its core IT processes and their alignment with recognized ITIL best practices. Leadership was working toward greater standardization and maturity across its ITIL processes and needed a comprehensive view of the current environment to determine where improvement efforts should be focused.

The organization was already using ServiceNow to support core ITSM practices, but leaders wanted a clearer understanding of how well the platform and surrounding processes were working together. Questions around CMDB quality, data consistency, automation, and process ownership were beginning to affect areas including Incident, Problem, Change, Capacity, and Service Catalog Management.

The organization’s global scale added complexity. Processes crossed teams and locations, and silos were delaying end-to-end service delivery. Recent operational changes also raised important questions. Multiple local Change Advisory Boards had recently been consolidated into a single global CAB, and leadership wanted to understand how that decision was affecting governance, risk management, and the teams responsible for delivering change.

Certain practices also lacked clear ownership, contributing to inconsistent execution and making it harder to manage risk and prioritize improvement at an organizational level. Leadership wanted an objective view of current maturity, evidence behind the findings, and a prioritized plan that could guide both process and ServiceNow improvements.

The Engagement

The organization selected Beyond20 to conduct a comprehensive ITIL 4 Maturity Model Assessment and evaluate how well its ServiceNow environment supported the organization’s ITSM practices. The assessment covered all five components of the ITIL 4 Service Value System and eight operational practices, including Incident, Change, Problem, Service Configuration, Capacity and Performance, and Service Catalog Management.

Over approximately seven weeks, Beyond20 examined the environment from several angles to understand how processes were designed, how work was carried out in practice, and how ServiceNow was supporting those efforts.

• Document and process review: Reviewed more than 60 organizational artifacts, including policies, workflows, RACI charts, change reports, problem records, service and capacity plans, Service Catalog materials, and Configuration Management and CMDB documentation. This helped identify gaps in governance, ownership, process consistency, and execution.
• ServiceNow ticket analysis: Analyzed 189,163 records across three representative months, including 174,785 incidents and 14,378 service requests. The review surfaced concerns around data quality, duplicate fields, automation, and opportunities to improve availability and resolution performance.
• Stakeholder interviews: Conducted 49 interview sessions with 68 participants, including executives, service owners, practice owners, managers, practitioners, client-facing teams, and Service Desk agents. These conversations helped connect the data and documentation to the way work was happening across the organization.
• Change process observation: Observed two Change Advisory Board meetings to evaluate how requests for change were discussed, assessed for risk, and managed following the move to a consolidated global CAB.
• ServiceNow platform review: Evaluated how Incident, Problem, and Change Management were being supported in ServiceNow, with particular attention to CMDB maturity, CSDM, configuration data, and opportunities to strengthen the Service Catalog.
• ITIL maturity and capability scoring: Assessed all five components of the Service Value System and developed capability scores and recommendations for the in-scope practices, including Incident Management, Change Enablement, Problem Management, Continual Improvement, Monitoring and Event Management, Service Configuration Management, Capacity and Performance Management, and Service Catalog Management.

The assessment brought the findings together into maturity and capability scores, key risks, improvement recommendations, and a prioritized roadmap for what to address first. Beyond20 presented the results to executives and practice owners, and Axelos reviewed and approved the scores before issuing the organization its official maturity certificate.

The Results

The assessment gave the organization a clear view of where process and ServiceNow improvements could have the greatest impact.

Configuration Management emerged as a major priority. Weaknesses in the CMDB were affecting several ITSM practices, prompting the organization to elevate Configuration Management, appoint a more experienced practice owner, and begin addressing the underlying ServiceNow configuration.

The assessment also identified opportunities to improve ServiceNow data quality, strengthen ownership across Problem and Capacity Management, and expand the use of automation and self-healing technologies within Incident Management. The organization began reconfiguring ServiceNow fields and advancing several of the short-term recommendations soon after the engagement.

In less than 2 months, the organization had an independently validated view of its ITSM maturity, a stronger understanding of how ServiceNow could better support its processes, and a prioritized roadmap for continued improvement.