Bill McDermott on the future of ServiceNow

ServiceNow was founded in 2003 and quickly became a leader in IT service management (ITSM). However, the company has gone on to be a tool for more business functions than just IT.

During ServiceNow’s Knowledge conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, the company’s CEO, Bill McDermott, gave his insight into the current working landscape and the future of ServiceNow.

McDermott noted that “we’re in the biggest talent war in the history of business.” As a result, he gave sage advice on how to retain employees.

“You cannot take good enough care of your employees, there’s not a chance that you can because you have to retain them. You have to inspire them. You have to onboard them properly. You have to train them and you have to provision all the services so they love your company and your culture,” noted McDermott. 

He went on to add: “That’s what it’s going to take to win.”

The rise of the digital transformation market

When many begin to approach employee experience, they wonder whether tech tools can help. This has led to what McDermott referred to as a “$11.7 trillion [digital transformation] market in the next four years.”

ServiceNow wants to be an all-in-one platform that allows all employees’ needs to be managed. This means that the positioning of the tool will be changing as it goes forward.

Rather than talk about ServiceNow purely with C-level IT specialists, the CEO and the broader C-suite will now be involved. This not only illustrates how perceptions of the tool have changed, but how technology impacts all parts of the workforce’s lives.

This is in part why ServiceNow’s recent San Diego product release focused on engagement and automation as the tool caters to a broader experience than just the delivery of IT. 

This is an area that ServiceNow is looking to further in its next update; Tokyo.

Workplace tech

While looking ahead McDermott noted what technology he believed would change the world of work. 

“AI (artificial intelligence) is more than a fantasy. It’s a reality,” commented McDermott.

McDermott suggested that “AI may be the very reason you get to retain the people and make the people much more productive because the computer now should solve 90 to 95% of the repeatable problems.” 

Building on this, McDermott said: “The chatbot should come in and have its own understanding. And then when that doesn’t work, there should be an immediate workflow automation to the actual human that has the technical expertise is the know-how to solve the customer’s problem.”

McDermott reasons that the removal of mundane tasks will help retention, and this will make it an invaluable technology.

With these comments in mind, many will be eager to see if ServiceNow Tokyo offers this kind of functionality. 

If so, retention woes could be a thing of the past.