Native learning on ServiceNow accelerates adoption, improves customer outcomes, and strengthens retention
“PlatCore has significantly accelerated our time to value, improved delivery efficiency by up to 25%, and gives us the data visibility we need to drive more accountable customer engagements.”
~ Kyle Holetz, COO, Proven Optics
Overview
Proven Optics is the leading IT Financial Management (ITFM) application built natively on ServiceNow. The platform enables organizations to manage IT budgets, understand total cost of ownership, and recover IT spend through chargeback models—all within a single system of record.
Serving large enterprises and government agencies with IT budgets ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, Proven Optics plays a critical role in helping IT leaders operate more like a business. However, like many enterprise platforms, the full value of ITFM is only realized when users adopt it quickly and confidently.
To solve this challenge, Proven Optics partnered with PlatCore, the only LMS built natively on ServiceNow. By embedding training directly into its operating model, Proven Optics transformed how customers onboard, adopt, and scale the platform, resulting in faster implementations, improved efficiency, and stronger long-term outcomes.
About Proven Optics
Proven Optics delivers three core capabilities that bring financial clarity to IT operations.
First, its budgeting and forecasting application enables organizations to align planned spend, requested investments, and actual expenses in a single system. This eliminates the fragmentation that often exists between financial planning and execution.
Second, its cost modeling application provides a complete view of total cost of ownership by accounting for all cost drivers associated with delivering IT services, including infrastructure, labor, and licensing.
Finally, its cost recovery and chargeback capabilities allow IT organizations to bill internal departments for the services they consume, transforming IT from a cost center into a financially accountable service provider.
“We bring the ERP to ServiceNow," said Proven Optics COO Kyl Holetz, "aligning financial data with the applications and services already tracked on the platform.”
These capabilities deliver measurable financial outcomes, but only when customers fully understand how to use them.
The Challenge: Non-Technical Users, Dual Learning Curves, and Slower Implementations
As Proven Optics expanded across enterprise and government customers, a consistent pattern emerged during implementations. The primary users of the platform were not technical administrators. They were finance professionals, budget owners, and business stakeholders who were deeply experienced in Excel but unfamiliar with ServiceNow.
This created a dual learning curve. Customers needed to understand both the Proven Optics application and how to navigate and operate within the ServiceNow platform itself.
Without structured enablement, this gap showed up immediately in delivery. Requirements workshops often slowed down because participants were learning platform basics instead of focusing on decisions. Implementation teams found themselves retraining users during live sessions, which consumed valuable time and delayed progress.
At the same time, traditional training methods relied heavily on human-led interactions, including live workshops, recorded demos, and repeated partner enablement calls. While effective in isolation, this approach did not scale and introduced unnecessary cost and inefficiency into the delivery process.
The impact was clear. Requirements cycles could stretch to four to six weeks, and project momentum was often lost early in the engagement.
Proven Optics needed a way to prepare users before delivery began—so that workshops could focus on outcomes rather than education.
The Solution: Shifting Enablement Left with Pre-Project Readiness
To address this challenge, Proven Optics reimagined training as a core part of its delivery strategy rather than a supporting activity. Using PlatCore, the company introduced a pre-project readiness model that equips users with the knowledge they need before implementation begins.
Instead of relying on live training during workshops, customers are now provided with structured, self-service learning paths ahead of kickoff. This approach, often described internally as a “summer reading list,” ensures that participants arrive prepared with a foundational understanding of both the platform and the application.
This shift fundamentally changes the dynamic of implementation. When workshops begin, teams are no longer catching up. They are aligned and ready to make decisions. As Holetz explains, “When we start the project now, we’re running instead of walking.”
By moving enablement earlier in the lifecycle, Proven Optics reduces friction, accelerates time-to-value, and creates a more efficient delivery experience for both customers and partners.
Persona-Based Learning Drives Faster Adoption and Better Outcomes
A critical component of this approach is the use of persona-based learning paths, which ensure that each stakeholder receives training tailored to their role.
Platform owners and ServiceNow teams are trained on how Proven Optics enhances the platform by adding financial visibility and governance. This includes understanding how financial data integrates with existing workflows and how the platform can be extended over time.
Product owners and daily users receive focused training on how to use the application during implementation, navigate the critical first 30 to 60 days after go-live, and communicate success to the broader organization. This ensures that adoption is sustained beyond initial deployment.
Executive sponsors are provided with a high-level view of how the platform supports strategic decision-making, including aligning IT investments with business priorities and improving financial accountability.
In addition, a general value track reinforces why the organization invested in Proven Optics in the first place, helping to build alignment across stakeholders.
This structured, role-specific approach eliminates unnecessary complexity and ensures that every user is equipped to contribute to project success.
Native on ServiceNow: Connecting Training to Delivery, CRM, and Outcomes
Because PlatCore is built natively on ServiceNow, training is not a separate system—it is embedded directly into the operational fabric of the business.
This creates a level of visibility and accountability that would be difficult to achieve with a standalone LMS. Delivery teams can verify whether customers and partners have completed readiness training before workshops begin, allowing them to proactively address gaps before they impact timelines.
As Holetz explains, “Our delivery team can check if the customer completed their readiness training before the workshop even starts.”
Training data is also connected to CRM records, project delivery workflows, and product development processes. This allows Proven Optics to track readiness, identify risks early, and ensure that all stakeholders are aligned before critical project milestones.
The result is a continuous system where training, delivery, and outcomes are tightly integrated, rather than siloed across different tools.
The Results: 50–75% Faster Requirements Cycles, 15–25% Efficiency Gains, and Stronger Adoption
The impact of this approach has been both measurable and consistent across customer engagements.
Requirements Cycles Reduced from 4–6 Weeks to 1–2 Weeks
By ensuring users are prepared before implementation begins, Proven Optics has dramatically reduced the time required to complete requirements gathering. Workshops that previously took four to six weeks can now be completed in as little as one to two weeks, allowing projects to move forward more quickly and efficiently.
15% Average Efficiency Gains and Up to 25% on Some Projects
Projects that incorporate pre-project readiness training consistently demonstrate improved delivery performance. Proven Optics reports an average efficiency uplift of approximately 15%, with some implementations achieving gains of up to 25% when training is fully utilized.
Faster Adoption and Improved Time-to-Value
When users enter projects with a foundational understanding of the platform, they are able to adopt functionality more quickly and confidently. This accelerates the time it takes for organizations to realize value from their investment and reduces the need for ongoing retraining.
Stronger Customer Retention Through Better Adoption
While training is not the sole driver of customer retention, Proven Optics has observed a clear relationship between adoption and long-term success. Customers who engage with training are better equipped to use the platform effectively, articulate its value internally, and justify continued investment.
In contrast, lack of awareness around existing features can lead to underutilization and unnecessary customization, both of which increase the risk of dissatisfaction. By ensuring customers understand the full capabilities of the platform, PlatCore helps Proven Optics reinforce the value of its solution over time.
Training as a Strategic Differentiator
For Proven Optics, training is no longer viewed as a supporting function. It is a strategic asset that directly impacts delivery performance, customer success, and business outcomes.
By shifting enablement earlier in the lifecycle, tailoring learning to specific personas, and embedding training within ServiceNow, the company has created a scalable model for accelerating adoption and improving implementation results.
“PlatCore has massively expedited our time to deliver," said Holetz. "It’s improved customer success and delivery efficiency at the most critical moments of a project.”
This approach not only enhances the customer experience but also strengthens Proven Optics’ ability to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes across its growing customer base.
Ready to see how a native LMS built on ServiceNow can transform your business? Contact us today to schedule a demo.
