News on the channel
Joseph F. Kovar
‘A lot of people are hungry to get into the digital business. Customers and partners are looking to fill open positions. It is a space of opportunity. RiseUp with ServiceNow is us saying, how can we provide an opportunity to fill that gap for anyone who wants to be part of the digital workforce,’ said Catherine Lang, ServiceNow’s senior vice president of global education.
ServiceNow is looking to address the shortage of skilled and certified personnel associated with its workflow platform with a new initiative that enlists support from its partners to train and certify one million people by 2024.
The initiative, called RiseUp with ServiceNow, is a global program aimed at equipping ServiceNow, its customers, and its channel partners with the right talent to help expand adoption of the ServiceNow platform in the face of a global shortage of people with digital transformation IT skills, said Catherine Lang, senior vice president of global education for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.
The IT industry, and the ServiceNow ecosystem, is standing in an interesting time and an interesting paradox, Lang told CRN.
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“A lot of people are hungry to get into the digital business,” he said. “Customers and partners want to fill open positions. This is a gap of opportunity. RiseUp with ServiceNow is us saying, how can we provide an opportunity to fill that gap for anyone who wants to be part of the digital workforce .”
RiseUp at ServiceNow is the culmination of work ServiceNow has been doing for years to help people learn and work with the company’s technology, Lang said.
“RiseUp is our inflection point to say that now we’re bringing everyone together in our community to accelerate people’s ability to be part of the ServiceNow ecosystem,” he said. “It’s also a way to connect individuals with what customers need, and for our partners to grow their service teams to build their aspirations.”
RiseUp at ServiceNow is aimed at individuals who want to build a career with customers looking to get the talent they need and partners looking to develop their skills, Lang said. To do this, the company is expanding its partnerships with companies that have a long history as authorized training partners, as well as other organizations that can help with training, he said.
One of those partners is Volteo Digital, a Chandler, Ariz.-based elite-level ServiceNow channel partner that is on its way to soon graduating 50 ServiceNow professionals.
Ryan Gallagher, chief operating officer of Volteo Digital, said his company, which has been implementing ServiceNow and training its people on the ServiceNow platform since 2013, in June opened a center of excellence in Guadalajara, Mexico if where it is training two cohorts of students for careers in the ServiceNow ecosystem.
The first cohort is expected to graduate later this year, to be followed in late January by the second cohort, Gallagher told CRN.
“We will do that program in the US in 2023,” he said. “We started in Mexico because it gave us a different way to reach the talent pool. Talent is short in the US But we get access to the top talent in Mexico. And they will also be available to help us in the US.”
ServiceNow has been working overtime to train digital professionals at scale, and is leaning on Volteo Digital to help, Gallagher said.
“And we realized it would help our services while increasing the diversity of the talent pool and giving us the opportunity to lean on our relationship with ServiceNow,” he said. “We also get to be a part of enabling the talent pool and not just to grow it. This is an accelerator for us. We are grateful to have this partnership with ServiceNow, and are happy to have a front seat in solving the talent shortage.”
Most of ServiceNow’s elite-level partners have training capabilities, and premier-level partners are starting to develop then, Lang said.
“Our elite partners are taking the point of view that they need to develop their own academies to develop the talent they need,” he said. “They’re making sure their skills and methods are based on what they need. Customers are increasingly hungry for expertise and skills. So partners are expanding to meet those needs.”
Not all partners will develop expertise for their own needs, Lang said.
“If it’s a RiseUp partner, it’s likely to focus on building skills with people who go to that partner or its customers,” he said. “Select partners tend to build capabilities for their own companies. But there are exceptions with some partners looking to build talent for the ServiceNow ecosystem as a whole.”
Joseph F. Kovar