ServiceNow: Four Highlights of Knowledge 2021

“We are at the center of the workflow revolution,” ServiceNow President and CEO Bill McDermott said at the beginning of Knowledge 2021, a virtual customer conference. Create great creative experiences-the new German experience-for customers and your own employees. McDermott uses the cloud-based Now platform as a central lever. The 59-year-old manager affirmed: “In all industries, it provides workflow solutions that make people’s work and life better, and we can build any workflow that our customers dream of.”

On the occasion of Knowledge 2021, ServiceNow outlines strategic guidelines for the coming months.

This workflow expert started in 2004 and initially provided IT Service Management Services (ITSM) from the cloud. For several years, he has positioned himself as a provider of Enterprise Service Management (ESM). Now he hopes to focus more on solutions and Industry-oriented. For example, the supplier strives to support global health authorities in handling vaccination campaigns against the coronavirus through its Vaccine Management Management (VAM). The solution should help to effectively coordinate and handle all processes and work processes related to vaccination. This includes from the logistics and distribution of vaccines to the appointment of vaccine recipients and arrangements for follow-up care.

For Knowledge 2021, ServiceNow announced the additional features of VAM, which will provide all relevant personnel with greater flexibility. This should allow the call center agent to have the best overview of all available vaccination appointments. This provides more flexibility and choice for recipients who cannot access the Internet and must make an appointment by phone. It is also possible to transfer the appointment to a different vaccination center, depending on the convenience of vaccination.

In Germany, health authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia use ServiceNow solutions. It said, for example, that the system could be expanded there to make it possible to make 5000 appointments per minute during peak hours. VAM is also used in Saxony. ServiceNow works closely with local service providers such as T-Systems and organizations such as the Red Cross. “We are solving the biggest workflow challenge of our time by turning vaccines into vaccinations,” ServiceNow CEO McDermott commented when commenting on the support provided to the healthcare sector.

The company hopes to be more closely aligned with the vertical market. For example, a variant of the healthcare sector aims to connect all participants in the healthcare system, from patients to doctors, from hospitals to insurance companies. The pre-configured workflow should ensure a more efficient process. A unified data model lays the foundation for this. All the information is gathered in the “healthcare agent work area”. The ServiceNow manager promises that patients can always stay in sight. Healthcare and life science management should be available from the third quarter of 2021.

In addition, workflow experts also announced a manufacturing solution for industrial companies, which will also be launched at the end of this summer. It said this will enable users to better combine operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). The solution aims to provide industrial companies with a comprehensive understanding of their OT and IT systems, thereby identifying the dependencies between the two parties and avoiding blind spots. ServiceNow promises its customers that it can reduce response time by improving transparency and production downtime. In addition, the solution includes ready-made safe work processes to reduce production risks.

The latter seems to be particularly important for Siemens Energy. Leo Simonovich, Vice President of Siemens Energy and Global Head of Industrial Networks and Digital Security, said: “Digitalization is transforming the industry into a hyper-connected business that requires seamless integration of physical and digital assets. This requires the ability to monitor, detect, and respond to threats to the operating environment. Data cyber security solutions. Siemens combines its own managed detection and response (MDR) solution with ServiceNow Operational Technology Management (OT Management) to “provide customized cyber security products,” Simonovich describes the requirements of German industrial pioneers Shi said.

“We are helping people return to the office safely,” McDermott announced, adding another focus for the coming months. This workflow provider has developed a solution last year that enables the company and its employees to work as smoothly as possible in a mixed scenario of home office, remote work and corporate office. ServiceNow management assumes that mixed and distributed labor environments will continue to exist after Corona.

In the future, companies should be able to use new workplace applications and services to safely and effectively manage their workstation teams. This also includes “workplace booking management” that can be directly integrated into tools such as Microsoft Outlook. The “Safe Workplace Kit” also gives companies an overview of how busy their offices are and enables them to plan better to ensure the safety of their employees.

ServiceNow launched a new software package “Employee Journey Management” to meet the requirements of new jobs for supporting employees-for example, when they return to the office, set up a remote workstation, or move to another department. The supplier promises that the HR team can use it to create a workflow that combines different processes and isolation systems. These workflows can also be personalized using code-free tools without programming to adapt them to the individual needs of departments, teams, and individuals.

ServiceNow announced the acquisition of Lightstep for Knowledge 2021. The software company was established in 2015 and mainly develops tools in the field of application monitoring and observation. Support developers to develop, deploy, execute, and monitor cloud native applications during runtime. “In a cloud-based and DevOps world, the software that powers businesses is becoming more and more complex,” the company said in a press release. The combination of ServiceNow and Lightstep aims to gain insight into how the technology stack works and how to use them more effectively. The solution analyzes system-wide metrics and tracking data in real time to better understand the cause and impact of application changes.

Ben Sigelman, CEO and co-founder of Lightstep, said: “Today, such an overview is particularly beneficial to DevOps teams that develop and operate mission-critical applications. Clearly, the Lightstep tool should not only benefit ServiceNow itself, but also users of the platform. As a result, they are increasingly able to configure their own workflows and interconnect systems through low-code and no-code functions. ServiceNow announced that in the future, customers will be able to more easily monitor and respond to key signals and indicators of software status.

It is not clear how the Lightstep tool will be integrated into the ServiceNow platform. Companies such as GitHub, Spotify, and Twilio are currently using Lightstep tools. According to ServiceNow, the transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of this year. Financial details were not disclosed.