ServiceNow: How to close the value gap

We have undergone a dramatic and lasting change in business, the economy, and the world in the last two years. Business leaders are faced with market and talent disruptions, along with rapidly changing business models. Because of this chaos, it’s no secret that companies are having difficulty with their digital innovations.

The McKinsey report found that less than one-third of innovation initiatives have been successful in the past five years. However, we know that the rate of change in the business will continue, which will drive more investments in innovation. In fact, IDC predicts that by 2023, 75% of organizations will have comprehensive roadmaps of implementing digital transformation, up from 27% today.

The inevitable step towards a true digital destiny increases our responsibility to ensure that our customers ’innovations create the value they expect.

Business leaders are well aware of the grave of bad projects, but what they often miss is that failure or success is often determined before implementation even begins. McKinsey found that nearly a quarter of value loss occurs during target setting, with an additional 23% lost in the planning stage.

This means that successful changes begin with a comprehensive and realistic analysis to identify opportunities for improvement. These goals set the tone and perspective for the appearance of success. Leaders can map those goals to an operating model that makes them achievable and then share them with the organization at large.

The value gap is the difference between the value an organization expects from their investments in digital transformation and what they actually experience. And in talking to customers, partners, and peers, I found that this gap is ongoing and almost universal.

There are three root causes that together create a value gap.

First, many organizations have difficulty tracking progress and making informed decisions based on the actual value of the business. They are also slow in capturing value, affecting ROI and consuming resources from other innovation initiatives.

Second, businesses are struggling with a gap in skills and tools. They may lack the right expertise to achieve the expected success, and they are often too busy dealing with technical debt to take advantage of new innovations and capabilities.

And finally, even after focusing on innovation and innovation, there is a gap for wider adoption. Managing organizational change — in other words, getting people on board — can be the difference between failure and success. If employees don’t buy into the transformation, they won’t strengthen and the initiative will go awry.

Taken together, these root causes create a value gap where expectations of digital ROI change do not meet reality and results.

It’s about empathy.

Only by taking an external perspective — putting ourselves in the position of our customers and really listening — can we understand what action we need to take to ensure their success and continued change.

At ServiceNow, we interviewed hundreds of customers in a variety of industries, prioritized what we heard, and then pushed to deliver innovative ways to animate their innovation. By putting the customer at the center, we can rethink and personalize their experience. It allows us to focus on results and evaluate more quickly, using proactive and preventive recommendations and a combination of technology and human expertise to ensure success.

Personalization is incredibly important because every organization is different, regardless of industry.

We expect as consumers that our preferred brands will know our preferences. We hope that relevant information and recommendations will be delivered to us at the right time in the right context. We want an intuitive and engaging experience with any personal device. So why not take these core principles to heart and use them to shape our customers ’experience?

Personalized, by company, by stage of their journey, by role, and offers relevant recommendations, industry and peer benchmarks, all through a premium digital experience to access you have what you need when you need it.

It’s up to software companies to work with customers to provide customized metrics and support to track progress and get to results faster.

Today, everyone is competing with experience, working to create “wow” moments and build deep, meaningful relationships with their customers.

Unfortunately, the customer experience of enterprise software hasn’t changed over the decades.

Customers are more deserving. That’s why we started with a structured approach to understanding — and then modifying — our customer experience.

The result is ServiceNow Impact, a new value acceleration solution designed to meet customers with personalized guidance, training, and recommendations wherever they are on their unique journey to change. By marrying our expertise with AI -driven recommendations and an innovative digital experience, we can create a more personalized and proactive customer journey.

Our solution is unique because it was developed from scratch with the customer center. And isn’t that how every customer experience should be? My bet is that once our customers have experienced ServiceNow Impact, they will demand the same kind of personalization and insights from every technology partner they work with — and the industry needs to thrive.