In its Paris version, ServiceNow relies on workflow management

Among the applications delivered with the latest version of the ServiceNow code “Paris”, some should allow banks to issue credit cards, and telecom operators can manage network services and performance. These two additions alone prove ServiceNow’s desire to provide workflow management solutions across the enterprise, not just at the IT level. IT Service Management (ITSM) is just one of many applications that the founder of ServiceNow plans to run on the Enterprise Service Management (ESM) platform he built. However, in the past few years, the company has developed the most in ITSM. However, with this latest software update, ServiceNow’s ambitions for the company are becoming clearer. “Every day, in all industries around the world, we create opportunities for employee experience, customer experience, and low-code and non-code experiences,” said Bill McDermott, the company’s CEO. ServiceNow. Even before being appointed as the head of the company last year, ServiceNow has been continuously acquiring technology to expand its platform and create new applications to attract users at all levels of the company. .

But just as Charles Betz, a senior analyst at Forrester, specializes in infrastructure and operations (closely monitoring ITSM providers), its competitors are pursuing similar strategies. “ServiceNow is not the only one in this market. All traditional ITSM vendors say that customers are increasingly demanding solutions to solve various problems,” he said. “For a long time, these vendors did not know what to offer to customers who manipulated their systems to use them for non-IT purposes.” But today, driven by this customer demand, many vendors have expanded their marketing (perhaps And their code) to meet these new uses, thereby transforming its ITSM platform into an enterprise service management tool. (ESM). “From my perspective, this is a very organic, customer-centric trend,” Betz added. At ServiceNow, this translates into an increase in functionality and integration in the “Paris” version of the Now Platform, which has been built on the new artificial intelligence, analytics and mobile capabilities of the previous version, and “Orlando” was delivered in March last year.

Apps and more apps

ServiceNow’s latest products have applications for automating workflows: three of them can prove useful for any company’s shared services (such as human resources, finance, equipment, or law), and three others prove that ServiceNow wants to make services Adapt to the aspirations of major vertical industries. In general interest applications, legal service delivery applications legal service delivery. This allows the legal department to perform tasks such as reviewing and approving contracts, while avoiding email cascading. In addition, there are two other applications for IT teams, which may become more and more useful as companies adapt to the new environment created by the Covid-19 pandemic. More precisely, it is a business continuity management application, business continuity management: it can analyze the impact of activities, provide assistance in crisis management, and support the formulation of business continuity plans. Activities, aspects that many companies need to review. ServiceNow’s other hardware asset management applications are not only the only one of its kind available on the market, but thanks to the Now Platform, it can communicate with HR integration programs or HR processes. Approve the purchase.

For retail banks, financial services operations management application Financial Services Operations can enable them to digitize the workflow of credit card requests and payments, while telecommunications service management application Telecommunications network service management and performance management telecommunications network performance management will enable them to Simplify the self-service provided to customers, on the other hand, it can identify customers affected by network problems. Solve them.

The change initiated by Bill McDermott?

These initiatives raise the question: Now that the former CEO of SAP, Mr. McDermott (McDermott) at the helm of ServiceNow, how far will he go? IDC Research Director Larry Carvalho (Larry Carvalho) said about platform as a service that ERP providers like SAP don’t have to worry too much about ServiceNow: “SAP and ServiceNow provide different benefits to customers,” he announced ? But Forrester analyst Charles Betz is not sure. He said: “Obviously, ServiceNow does not want to become an ERP-type registration system one day.” “However, its plan to provide an ubiquitous framework as an intermediary between these systems may attract the attention of ERP providers.”

Rules of engagement

In this case, ServiceNow will become a key system for participation, and ERP vendors may be downgraded to manage workflow only in their own silos. How this situation plays a role in the business will depend on the decision made by the CIO as the workflow technology matures. “BPM providers have never fulfilled their initial promises, and since the early 2000s, a large part of the workflow is still managed by temporary means (such as shared mailboxes and the rest of groupware)”, Mr. Bates. “This is the market space in which ServiceNow and its peers operate. This is because knowledge workers need to access the various business services they need to create compelling new digital products and spread them.”

ServiceNow is not the only company targeting this area. There are dedicated work management platforms and many low-code and no-code tools-some were developed by former BPM vendors. However, according to IDC’s Larry Carvalho (Larry Carvalho), the main competitors are Microsoft’s Power Platform and Salesforce’s Force.com. In companies that use two or more of these tools, the issue where one works over the other is likely to be a controversial issue. Larry Carvalho (Larry Carvalho) pointed out some of the advantages of ServiceNow in the upcoming battle: ServiceNow provides an application engine with machine learning services to perform tasks, an IntegrationHub that can accommodate other SaaS software, and a It can be used by other applications to communicate in the form of a configuration management database (CMDB) configuration management database. “ServiceNow is unique in that the technical components of the platform are aligned with the business use cases of the no-code strategy, allowing IT departments to easily share the benefits of business users,” Carvalho explained. “CIOs will appreciate this ease of use, which enables IT departments to quickly provide users with business value.”

“Paris” relies on now

In addition to these six applications, the “Paris” version also relies on the functionality of Now Platform. The new process automation designer Process Automation Designer enables business process owners to describe and manage workflows without coding, and without determining automated preparation steps, they can use Predictive Intelligence Workbench to use machine learning to automate tasks. According to ServiceNow, the acquisition of Sweagle in June last year enabled it to add a service-oriented global view (technology, people, and processes) to the CMDB configuration management database through its so-called Service Graph. Also worth noting is the “Service Graph Connector Program”, which is a new name for software partners, including AppDynamics, Crowdstrike, Dynatrace and Solarwinds, who will use the service graph to facilitate the integration and organization of their common customer data on a single platform . -form. According to Paul Smith, the company’s European general manager, more than 1,500 ServiceNow customers have previewed the new version in the past 45 days. The entire quotation has been provided since yesterday.