ServiceNow, the road to enterprise services

ServiceNow was founded in 2003, specifically by Fred Luddy, the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Remedy (acquired by BMC) and Peregrine (acquired by HP). His vision at the time was: “Build a platform in the cloud so that all employees can create useful applications and perform tasks in the company.” In other words, to do ITSM (Information Technology Service Management), but better than BMC, HP, CA or IBM, and use the latest technology.
The result: a set of software applications integrated on the platform, accessible through a software as a service (SaaS) model. ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman said: “The main advantage of cloud computing is that it leads to a high degree of standardization of processes, and companies that choose on-premises solutions are not as efficient as ours. The company’s annual meeting Knowledge14 was held in San Francisco in late April.

Rapid and sustained growth

This method has attracted more than 2,200 customers worldwide, mainly large companies established in many countries/regions. “We get 150 to 200 new customers worldwide every quarter, including about 50 in Europe,” explained Christophe Bouchardeau, France’s regional director. This French subsidiary was established in France in November 2011 and will employ 30 employees by the end of the year and has already provided services to 40 customers.
Since its inception, ServiceNow’s turnover has continued to grow, with an increase of 74% in 2013 compared to 2012, and it is expected to exceed 50% in 2014. The company hopes to achieve a turnover of approximately 645 million euros. This year’s dollars. It was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in June 2012 and is still unprofitable. But Frank Slootman did not shy away from remarks: “The SaaS model provides recurring income, and we don’t want to force our profitability. We still need to invest. If shareholders want dividends, they only need to buy IBM, EMC or HP!”.

Support the “consumerization” of IT

ServiceNow hopes to support the company’s digital transformation and realize process automation and simplification, and undoubtedly the most important aspect is to give back to the CIO in the ubiquitous IT department of the business department. Devoteam Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sébastien Chevrel said: “ServiceNow will not bypass the CIO, on the contrary, it can help them move towards a professional and provide them with solutions.”
Frank Slootman (Frank Slootman) has repeatedly stated that ServiceNow hopes to surpass ITSM and extend its services to ESM: Enterprise Service Management, “a new era of service.” To this end, he introduced in detail the five components of service automation starting from the taxonomy, namely the definition and classification of services provided. Then there is experience, in other words, the conversion of services to the system, the assignment and orchestration of tasks, the guarantee of proper functions, and the final analysis. Chief Strategy Officer David Wright said: “In essence, this is to ensure that IT does not become a bottleneck, and to eliminate email exchanges between IT and business entities.” (CSO).

Ecosystem of partners and integrators

ServiceNow has mobilized many partners around the world, from the largest audit and consulting companies such as KPMG to digital service companies (ESN) such as Devoteam or publishers that use its platform to develop their offers, such as G2G3, Serious Games and simulation software English publisher. Everyone agrees that a $1 license incurs a $1 service fee.

They meet the needs of customers, which vary according to their maturity and presence in ITSM. Orange Business Services (OBS) has developed the original infrastructure supervision service called Customized Infrastructure Care (CIC). This provides a unified view of the customer’s entire fleet and can even be distributed to multiple providers around the world. “This is a decision-support tool. OBS International Operations Director Benjamin Bussenault explained that, therefore, companies that want to migrate to the cloud can have a comprehensive view of all the components of their systems anywhere in the world. The CIC solutions launched a year ago already have about 30 Customers.

Aspediens is another partner. The company resold and integrated a solution: ServiceNow. The company was founded in 2008 and has 50 employees in Europe and 20 employees in France since June 2010. The company chose a 100% cloud model, and there are no servers or software applications. She developed a method to quickly start ServiceNow, the Starter Pack, which incorporates best practices. “It’s very structured, and it allows you to get started quickly,” said Gérald Kalifa, French managing director.
The fact remains that relying on automation and cloud technology, the number of IT teams will gradually decrease. None of the speakers objected. Some people think that the ease of use of a solution like ServiceNow will initially reduce the number of experts. Others insist on refocusing and training people affected by the new profession. But one thing is certain, the IT team will gradually reduce their number in the next few years.