Muhammed Omar, Country Manager, Africa, ServiceNow.
A fact about me that often surprises people is that five years ago, before I joined ServiceNow, I almost turned down an interview here.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was one of the best employers out there. But I’ve been in the IT industry for a long time, and I was looking for something more than your average technology company. In my mind, ServiceNow was just another ticketing solution – one that did great things when it came to ITSM, but not the career transition I wanted.
But after further research, I knew that ServiceNow is more than just your basic IT solution. This has the potential to help organizations in South Africa – and around the world – tackle many challenges, from the war for talent to the need to provide leading customer experiences in every industry imaginable.
Challenges facing organizations in South Africa today
First of all, the world of work has changed. Companies around the world are navigating a major shift towards remote or hybrid working, and South Africa is no different – with many of us looking to move to the coast and smaller towns in recent years.
With the height of the pandemic behind us, now is the time for businesses to organize their technology in a way that not only allows our workers to work from home, but to do it as efficiently and successfully as they would when personal.
This is linked to another key challenge that many of our customers in South Africa face – the ongoing talent crisis. We see high unemployment rates across the country – and what that tells us is that we have people available, but we haven’t necessarily nurtured them or equipped them with the right skills to fill workforce gaps.
This shortage, in turn, means that workers in the region are very competitive today. In other words, if organizations don’t give their employees everything they need to thrive, they will lose them.
Couple that with the increasing demands from consumers accustomed to top-tier, one-click experiences, and the pressure facing service providers is extensive.
This is where ServiceNow comes in.
How ServiceNow can help businesses navigate these challenges
The key to staying competitive today lies in two areas. First, organizations must provide an exceptional customer experience. Two, they must keep their employees happy.
In other words, the way we do both is to make sure everything inside is running as smoothly as possible. By empowering your employees with technology that enables them to do their work to the best of their ability – wherever they are in the world – you’ll not only enhance their experience, but also ensure that they can deliver on your customers the best possible experience.
How does this relate to South Africa?
What we see in the market right now is that many customers already have a solid ITSM foundation in place.
What they need now are all other tools and processes to deliver efficiency and a positive user experience to their employees. But they don’t want hundreds of different tools, all with different purposes.
That’s where ServiceNow comes in. Look at it this way: you already have ITSM as your front door to digital. With ServiceNow, you can take that same digital front door and turn it into a front door for IT and HR and employee services, and any other department that may benefit.
After all, technology isn’t just for the IT department anymore. Regardless of the industry you find yourself in, automation technology can ease the burden of time-consuming administrative tasks and free up staff time to focus on other projects. This, in turn, can positively impact the employee experience, boosting retention rates and saving valuable time and resources.
Helping you meet your business challenges
There is so much potential for organizations within South Africa to grow. But to do that, they need the right people, the right resources and, above all, the right technology.
Solutions like ServiceNow’s Now Platform are perfectly placed to help improve the customer and employee experience.
We may still be at the forefront of IT service management, but we’re not it just is the ITSM solution provider. We are now the full end-to-end platform and we can help your organization too.
If you want to know how, I encourage you to visit our website.
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