The Eight Line Items That Inflate ServiceNow Consulting Costs by 40 Percent
The CIO of a mid-sized European insurer pulled me into a call last quarter with a problem most buyers only notice when it is too late. Her ServiceNow ITSM build had been signed at €620,000 and she was now staring at change requests that put the final number closer to €960,000. The work itself was not bad. The platform was being built competently. What she wanted to know was whether the overrun was normal or whether she had been set up. I read the SOW and the seven change orders. The answer was not flattering to her partner, but it was also not unusual. The original price was honest about the visible scope and silent about the predictable cost drivers that every experienced ServiceNow practitioner knows will surface inside the first six months. Those drivers were not surprises. They were a pricing strategy. And once you know what they look like, you can take 30 to 40 percent off most mid-market proposals before the kickoff meeting. This post walks through the eight specific line items that quietly inflate ServiceNow consulting costs, what each one really should cost, and how to write them into the SOW so you are not negotiating from a position of weakness later.
