Kate Tulp (ServiceNow NZ)
Credit: Provided
Digital workflow management company ServiceNow thrives by automating otherwise challenging business workloads.
Kate Tulp, who was appointed to lead the New Zealand business in September, described the company’s offering as “a massive platform built to solve massive problems”.
It seems that many organizations are facing major problems. ServiceNow’s sales in A/NZ in the year to the end of 2018 were $137 million. Four years later, the company reports $410.7 million in sales in the region.
“It feels and operates like a start-up, a well-funded and mature start-up,” Tulp said. Reseller News. “The customer is the focus, the point of what we do every day.”
“Whether the conversation is internal or with business partners, it’s always about the customer – to deliver and provide value.”
Tulp said the company had done a good job landing in New Zealand and establishing credibility. His job now is to bring resources to bring and that is what is happening, including building strong relationships with partners.
ServiceNow launched as a developer of a powerful IT service management platform, but has successfully transformed into a workflow management provider to a wider range of business users.
New Zealand fertilizer cooperative Ravensdown, for example, uses Deloitte’s SustainABLE platform, built on ServiceNow, to provide visibility and insight into the company’s progress in achieving sustainability goals.
Tulp said he looks for three things in the company’s interactions with customers: doing something important, working with “good people” doing good things and continuing to put R&D at the core.
While conversations with corporate IT shops remain a very important part of the business, that’s where ServiceNow came from, but not where it’s going.
Automation is key to seizing what he described as the biggest opportunity to transform New Zealand and to address lagging productivity compared to the top end of the OECD.
“There is a real opportunity to make New Zealand a more productive and efficient place,” he said.
“Any time you see challenging workloads that require time, with too many steps, you see unhappy and frustrated customers and suppliers. The key words are ‘getting things done’ – is it a thing that can be automated?
“Bad workflow, eats up time and engagement. There’s an opportunity to be more productive and build a better standard of living.”
Using that lens, New Zealand is a target rich environment. Whether Tulp was talking to the CIO or the CEO, no one said they were falling for skilled people.
His time is spent approximately 50:50 talking to customers and partners. There’s a good reason for that: business partners are the way customers experience the Service Now platform.
“There are no incentives to compete with the channel,” he said. “It’s all about the customer. Channel is everything and we will keep investing in it.”
Lokal, Deloitte, EY, Accenture, KPMG, Fujitsu Red Moki, DXC, Tech Mahindra and more all feature in that ecosystem.
While ServiceNow has been involved in some of the biggest innovation projects, Tulp said not everything can be innovation. A tremendous amount of productivity gains can and will be achieved through evolution.
Another early adopter, Deloitte’s customer Department of Corrections, reduced payroll task time by 50 percent. That’s time and resources saved that can be redeployed to focus on people in the department’s care.
Plus, the types of projects supported by ServiceNow aren’t always a classic IT project, which is more of a process change.
Like most vendors, ServiceNow was called upon to support the immediate needs of organizations trying to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tulp says many customers who are on a transformation journey have had the opportunity to pivot and quickly capitalized on the opportunities.
Canterbury DHB is one and already has integrated systems into one HR portal. That’s perfect when everyone has to go home. The volume of service requests via email was reduced delivering massive savings while lease approval times were improved by 97 percent.
ServiceNow envisions its role as being the “platform of platforms”, Tulp said. It exists, co-exists and integrates with others, such as Salesforce, to make workflows meaningful, simplified and integrated.
In New Zealand expressed in four main areas, a healthier NZ that supports health reform, a safer NZ in cases like Corrections, a more sustainable NZ like in the case of Ravensdown, and a more productive NZ generally by automating bad work flow processes.
“Our job is not to get into politics, but to help organizations achieve their goals,” said Tulp.
Tags IT Service ManagementDeloitteitsmServiceNowprocess automationRavensdownautomation
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