Your CMDB is only valuable when the data inside it is trustworthy. When it isn't–when records are stale, systems don't reconcile, and assets change faster than anyone can update them–it becomes something worse than no system of record at all: a source of false confidence and lost ROI.
That's the state most ServiceNow CMDBs are in. Accuracy hovers around 60%. 83% of enterprises can't see at least a fifth of their assets, per Gartner. And the IT, Security, and Finance teams making decisions from that data don't always know how much of it to trust.
All the while, you lose time and credit trying to prove the technology investment was worth it.
Even with modern IT service management (ITSM) tools, CMDBs require too much manual input to maintain strong levels of data hygiene, leading to disappointing ROI.
Improving CMDB data accuracy requires IT teams to address the root causes of data degradation and implement automated processes that maintain consistency across systems.
In this blog, we’ll take you through:
- How so many enterprises end up with poor CMDB accuracy
- The harmful ways poor CMDB hygiene stunts your ROI
- How Oomnitza supports ServiceNow customers to achieve better CMDB accuracy
Why Do Most CMDBs End Up With Inaccurate Data?
Most CMDBs’ accuracy hovers around a disappointing 60%, per Gartner. That’s because it’s very easy to end up with bad data hygiene.
Even though you moved on from spreadsheets and shared drives, your CMDB data can be plagued by:
Disjointed Systems
If your CMDB is made up of asset data that comes from different endpoint systems, like Intune or Jamf, that data needs to flow into your CMDB to create a unified view of all your assets.
Siloed data means you can’t pull accurate discrepancy reports, know what data fields you’re missing, or leverage that holistic view to inform decisions.
Configuration Paralysis
When you’ve put so much effort, time, and money (hiring third-party specialists) to build out workflows and platform configurations that work just right for your IT needs, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to do anything to mess them up.
However, if you hold off on installing updates or modifying workflows to adapt to platform changes, you’re likely to also miss out on key data refreshes, meaning your data stays stale, outdated, and inaccurate.
Manual Management Processes
Without a way to automatically refresh and normalize data, your team is stuck hopping into your CMDB to make updates by hand.
Your reason for investing in a CMDB—to have a more efficient, accurate way to manage your IT assets—becomes redundant, since you’re back putting in the same manual efforts you did before establishing your system of record. And there goes the ROI you planned to achieve.
Duplicate Entries
Even if data is flowing into your CMDB from the necessary systems, and everything seems to be up-to-date, you can end up with dozens of instances of multiple records for the same asset.
Which one are you supposed to believe? You can’t be sure without manually going to check. On top of that, you have to reconcile and remove all the incorrect duplicate entries, wasting more time and resources.
Tight Budgets
If certain functionalities, such as hardware or software asset management, come at an extra cost, you might have to make the difficult decision to ditch one to remain in budget. That leaves you without accurate data into that entire asset category.
If you’re relying on a CMDB filled with missing, stale, or flat out inaccurate data, you’re looking at consequences that don’t just limit your ROI on your ServiceNow investment. They kill it entirely.
What Does Poor CMDB Hygiene Result In?
Accurate data is the foundation for strong automation, better decisions, and security alignment. So when IT, Finance, and Security teams lack that data—and a way to efficiently access it in the first place—you’re forced to operate entirely based on guesswork and hope.
As a lack of strong data hygiene leads to poor CMDB accuracy, you’re left with a laundry list of poor outcomes.
1. Untracked and Orphaned Assets
Most CMDBs operate using legacy parameters that don’t track an asset’s full lifecycle. When you don’t have insight into assets in lifecycle stages that fall outside traditional purviews, you end up with untracked or entirely orphaned devices.
Even if you have strong security tools and protocols in place, they need complete, accurate data to be effective.
Why That Matters
Cyberthreats are at an all-time high, and bad actors are banking on your lack of visibility into assets in lesser-tracked lifecycle stages in “The Overlooked Perimeter.. Without accurate, fully up-to-date CMDB data, you can’t see these devices—and you certainly can’t defend them. Instead of achieving your expected ROI for your ServiceNow CMDB, you might be stuck spending significant time and money resolving a breach of these devices.
2. Poor Asset Discovery
If you lack automated data hygiene processes, you won’t be able to get accurate details about these devices, severely impacting your ROI. Even if manual processes were enough to maintain complete, accurate data (they aren’t), they defeat your initial purpose of investing in a CMDB.
Why That Matters
If you can’t easily discover assets across all their lifecycle stages, you can’t make informed decisions about how to govern them.
- Want to recover devices after employees leave or business units close? You can’t without knowing exactly where they are. That’s security protocols broken, and money lost as you have to purchase new devices.
- Looking to ensure all devices are running on the latest operating systems and cybersecurity protections? There’s no way to know because the CMDB contains outdated data.
- Need to ensure you’re not unnecessarily replacing devices outside of standard schedules? You’re missing data fields related to refresh dates, so it’s fingers crossed you’re not buying new laptops after just a year.
Ineffective Incident Response Times
You need accurate, real-time CMDB data to know what assets are impacted by incidents and what systems or devices depend on them getting back up and running. Too often, poor CMDB accuracy results in data gaps that slow response times and leave IT teams scrambling to find the data they need to resolve issues.
Why That Matters
If you can’t efficiently manage incidents due to a lack of clean CMDB data, you’re directly limiting your ROI via:
- Patch Response Gaps: IT needs to know exactly what relationships an asset has before they can patch them. Without accurate data, they can have a limited view of the incident scope, and assets can go unpatched, increasing security vulnerabilities.
- Lessened Productivity: IT spends more time searching for the asset details they need to resolve the issues. The device stays offline longer. Employees have to halt their work while they wait for their device, cutting productivity at the knees.
So how are ServiceNow customers to improve CMDB hygiene, increase accuracy, and get the ROI they want? They support their CMDB investment with Oomnitza’s ITAM.
Oomnitza Empowers ServiceNow Users with 98%+ CMDB Data Accuracy
ServiceNow is only as powerful as the data foundation beneath it. When that foundation is inaccurate, the workflows, automations, and decisions built on top of it inherit those same gaps.
By connecting ServiceNow Oomnitza, you close those data gaps. By enhancing—not replacing—your existing ServiceNow investment, Oomnitza ensures that your CMDB stays accurate, complete, and aligned with your IT environment.
How do we do it?
- We deliver an easy-to-deploy, bundled ITAM solution: Get a complete system of record in weeks, not months, that covers all categories of your IT assets–hardware, software, cloud, and more– increasing time-to-value.
- We allow for user-friendly workflow configurations: Use our drag-and-drop automation tools to build out custom workflows in minutes, without the need for third-party consultants or manual intervention.
- We continuously reconcile data across systems: Leverage our bi-directional communication to collect, normalize, and enrich data between your CMDB and 1500+ turnkey connectors to maintain 98%+ data accuracy.
- We give you complete visibility into the entire asset lifecycle: Track and govern assets at every stage, from forecasting to final depreciation–even those devices that are off-network.
- We enable out-of-the-box discrepancy reports: Never again guess what system an asset lives in or what data fields are missing as Oomnitza instantly delivers that data and writes it back to other systems.
It all comes down to one key benefit: CMDB accuracy that delivers the ROI you expect.
Your ServiceNow investment goes further when asset data isn't a guessing game. See how you can connect Oomnitza and ServiceNow to start getting the near-perfect data accuracy that you need to enhance confidence, automate workflows, and maximize ROI across the full asset lifecycle.
Schedule a demo to see how Oomnitza improves CMDB accuracy within ServiceNow in action.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What causes poor CMDB hygiene?
The five most common causes are:
- Disjointed source systems that don't reconcile
- Configuration paralysis that delays updates
- Manual management processes that can't keep pace with asset changes
- Duplicate records from unsynchronized systems
- Budget constraints that leave asset categories uncovered
2. How often should CMDB data be updated?
In reality, data should be refreshed continuously rather than on manual schedules, as assets change status constantly throughout their lifecycle. Any update process that depends on human intervention will always be partially outdated before it's complete.
3. How do I improve asset discovery in my CMDB?
The solution involves implementing automated discovery tools and ensuring comprehensive lifecycle tracking beyond traditional deployment phases.
