ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott referred to as for IT and the enterprise to come back collectively for a brand new future in what he referred to as the “exponential enterprise”, at the provider’s Knowledge 2023 convention in Las Vegas.
Some 15,000 attendees heard McDermott (pictured) evangelise as exhausting for ServiceNow as he used to do for SAP, as its CEO.
“The next 18 months will be the most active ever for technological revolution in the history of the world,” he mentioned in his speech. “There have been times in history when systems have changed the world. This new period of hyper-automaton will be bigger than all of them combined…. And to maximise this moment, we need to understand the difference between linear and exponential thinking.”
In a press and analyst information briefing on the eve of the present, McDermott mentioned he spent his first hundred days at ServiceNow, 4 years in the past, looking for a buyer who didn’t like the product. “I wasn’t used to not finding people that didn’t like the product,” he mentioned, including that the worth of the firm’s convention lies in having its prospects discuss to one another, with ServiceNow “getting out of the way”.
Behind the CEO’s rhetoric, the provider introduced a raft of enhancements to its “Now” platform.
“The next 18 months will be the most active ever for technological revolution in the history of the world” Bill McDermott, ServiceNow
It mentioned it had launched new finance and provide chain workflows to automate essential enterprise processes. It additionally introduced generative AI to its present synthetic intelligence performance, together with an AI-based product for worker development and abilities improvement. Another announcement was what it calls an “end-to-end observability solution for cloud applications”.
Alongside the know-how developments, it introduced a non-profit division referred to as ServiceNow.org. It mentioned this may “help with technology, employee and customer experiences, as well as low-code app development to enable disaster deployment, refugee resettlement, volunteer and member management, resource management and research trials”.
It additionally introduced “RiseUp with ServiceNow” accomplice programs to upskill a million people on the ServiceNow platform by the finish of 2024.
In an announcement, McDermott added: “There is an app for the whole lot, however nobody desires each app. CEOs want a single platform that may orchestrate the complete know-how worth chain to drive quicker enterprise outcomes.
“Knowledge is the place where our customers and partners realise how they can address the biggest challenges facing their businesses today. As the intelligent platform for end-to-end digital transformation, ServiceNow is meeting people where they engage with fully automated solutions to build great experiences in a new generation of cloud software”.
At the identical time as he was giving his keynote tackle at the convention in Las Vegas, his successor as CEO of SAP, Christian Klein, was talking at that provider’s buyer and accomplice convention, Sapphire, in Orlando, Florida.
Klein mentioned, in an announcement: “The innovations we’re announcing at SAP Sapphire draw on our rich legacy of responsibly developed, ground-breaking enterprise technology designed with decades of industry and process expertise to ensure our customers thrive, both today and in the future.”
ServiceNow and SAP each introduced nearer working with Microsoft.
ServiceNow mentioned its generative AI enhancements for the Now platform are enabled by way of an expanded ServiceNow and Microsoft strategic partnership. “New capabilities include ServiceNow Generative AI Controller, allowing organisations to connect ServiceNow instances to OpenAI and Microsoft Azure OpenAI, and Now Assist for Search, bringing the power of generative AI to Portal Search, Next Experience or Virtual Agent,” it mentioned.
Meanwhile, SAP declared “the subsequent step in SAP’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, utilizing the newest in enterprise-ready generative AI innovation to assist clear up prospects’ most basic enterprise challenges.
“The companies will partner on integrating SAP SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning, as well as Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to access powerful language models that analyse and generate natural language. The integrations will enable new experiences designed to improve how organisations attract, retain and skill their people”.
