ServiceNow uses App Engine Studio to fully enter the low-code market-Blog

Today, ServiceNow announced a new version of its platform, called Quebec. It contains many new features and extensions, but the most important is App Engine Studio. So far, ServiceNow has fully entered the low-code market.

ServiceNow releases a new version approximately every six months. Today, Quebec is about to become the successor of ServiceNow Paris. Every six months, the company rolls out a major update, and the ServiceNow platform gains new possibilities. This is a strategy that many companies would envy, because we have been following ServiceNow for some time, and each version comes with major new features and functions. In many other companies, you will see large and small updates appear alternately.

For this Quebec version, we participated in a speech given by Chris Pope, Vice President of Innovation at ServiceNow. Then we talked to the best man for a while so that he could answer our pressing questions.

The ServiceNow platform is at the core of your IT strategy

ServiceNow’s strategy is very clear: it hopes to become the core of every organization through its own platform, and it still calls it the platform of the platform. The idea is that the company runs everything through the ServiceNow platform. The foundations of IT processes, human resources processes, and workflows already exist. Today, Quebec is also used for low-code and no-code application development.

Developing applications on the ServiceNow platform is not new. Pope tells us that it has been possible since 2006, but you really have to program for it. This is great for some companies, but considering the speed at which companies want and need to innovate, the lack of developers, and the costs involved, low code is a very good choice.

related: No one knows what ServiceNow does and what you can do with it

Low code and no code

With low code or even no code, business users who have no programming knowledge but are familiar with Excel and other business users can build applications on the ServiceNow platform. This is already possible for low-code workflows, but now complete application development has been added. With the ServiceNow platform, you can build applications for the web and mobile devices.

To this end, ServiceNow launched App Engine Studio today, and all ServiceNow customers can download it and start using it immediately. For ServiceNow customers, App Engine Studio is included in their license at no additional cost. According to Pope, about 70% of App Engine Studio is currently focused on low code. However, ServiceNow hopes to try to make development easier in the upcoming platform version, so that there are more code-free, and the share will be greater than the current 30%.

To help business users start building applications, ServiceNow has developed 11 templates that can be used as examples. These can be customized completely according to your preferences. These 11 templates are derived from common scenarios. It is also possible to develop an application that does not appear in the template but can reuse parts of the template.

We also asked Pope about AI-assisted development. Although Pope has a lot to say about AI, it mainly focuses on processing data that customers put into the ServiceNow database, rather than developing applications on its own. It’s on ServiceNow’s wish list, but Pope believes that if ServiceNow wants to include it in one of the upcoming versions, it must be acquired.

Building blocks and industry-specific solutions

Developing a simpler application with a little more than a workflow will eventually succeed. ServiceNow will develop the necessary training and certifications for this. Ultimately, ServiceNow hopes to play a role in the core of IT and business strategy. This means allowing customers to also develop larger applications and thus rely more on the ServiceNow platform. Something that customers often beware of.

ServiceNow hopes to convince customers by developing industry-specific solutions. For example, two applications are now available: financial services loan operations and telecom order management. Both solutions are complete working applications developed jointly with dozens of customers from their respective industries. Therefore, ServiceNow provides a turnkey loan platform for financial institutions and an order management system for telecommunications providers.

These applications are the ideal foundation for these industry organizations. They can use the application as the basis of their IT strategy because ServiceNow proactively maintains and expands the application. In addition, you can use App Engine Studio to fully extend and adjust the application as needed.

ServiceNow provides building blocks for developing critical IT applications through low-code

These industry solutions are ultimately the building blocks of critical IT applications. There are only two large-scale industry-specific solutions, but they will not stop there.

Pope has stated that he expects that they will soon be able to demonstrate more industry solutions with many large integrators. He said that Accenture, Atos, Deloitte and other companies have many industry experts, and it is very valuable for ServiceNow to cooperate with them. ServiceNow will undoubtedly do business with some of these parties.

Smaller common building blocks

In addition to these two main industry applications, ServiceNow also targets smaller general-purpose applications that can be used as larger building blocks. In the ServiceNow store, ISVs and technology partners can provide applications and integrations. This is free and charged. ServiceNow also added many applications for this today to help people start using App Engine Studio.

For example, there is a reservation management solution that can be widely used. With this, you can build an application that can keep things. Whether it’s a meeting room, taxi, lunch or hotel room. The application can be customized as needed. There is also a visitor management system. With the reopening of the office, the company undoubtedly hopes to use it more. This allows you to track which visitors have been to certain places.

Another application uses Mapped-in technology. With this, you can create a complete office 3D environment, you can determine the route or display the location that can still complete the work and is now booked.

All the building blocks used to develop larger applications. ServiceNow aims to become a core component of many companies’ IT strategies through its platform. Each application will be based on the ServiceNow platform and then be extended through applications, interfaces or functions.

Low code without code fierce competition

Therefore, you don’t really use ServiceNow to build a completely independent application, the platform always plays a role in it. Basically the same as Salesforce, they tried the same things with the Lightning platform and ISV partners.

On the other hand, you have players such as OutSystems and Mendix, which you can use to develop independent applications. Mendix recently announced that it hopes to be active in as many areas as possible, making Mendix an all-in-one platform for low-code application development.

This keeps it busy in the low-code and no-code world, and the competition is fierce. On the one hand, you have powerful players such as Salesforce and ServiceNow. They have a lot of resources and manpower to expand their platform, but perhaps more importantly, make the company data in their platform multi-purpose. Although smaller players such as Mendix and OutSystems must be active in all aspects, and must be well integrated with the available platforms so that this data can also be accessed.

In theory, these independent solutions from Mendix and OutSystems may be more attractive to companies because they have fewer connections with platforms and vendors. In some cases, the company is allergic to lock-in. On the other hand, those SaaS platforms from ServiceNow and Salesforce are faster in providing other solutions for optimizing business processes because the data is already in their platforms.

The good news for all parties is that low-code and no-code are still in their infancy, and there is still a huge market available. For ServiceNow, this is a logical step. It already has a good platform that contains IT, HR and other business data. Many companies are already using ServiceNow workflow to optimize their business processes, and the logical next step is to use ServiceNow for more and faster application development.

We are curious how ServiceNow will further develop this and how customers will respond to it. In any case, it is clear that more and more major players are seeing the future of low-code and no-code development.

hint: ServiceNow launches Paris to respond faster to transformation and the Internet of Things