On Thursday the 13th of September, we attended the PEAK (Partner Enablement and Knowledge) event of our trusted technology partner ServiceNow in Amsterdam.
During the introduction we heard the software market for cloud services is booming. Only in the Netherlands this market is estimated on 1.2 to 1.9 billion. ServiceNow has ambitions to grow their customer base from 125 to about 350 customers by 2020 (tripling their current customer base). This means a challenge for them on how to address this growth. That’s where partners come into play, to help them grow while receiving help from ServiceNow to create a win-win situation. Knowledge exchange between partners was heavily encouraged. In addition, ServiceNow has a partner focused sales strategy which makes it easy for partners to acquire accreditation and certifications. In short, they are providing a clear plan on partner enablement, measurement and rewards.
After the lunch we had a break-out session in which ServiceNow presented the pre-sales track for their HR functionality. Originally, ServiceNow was focused on IT Service Management (ITSM), a saturated market in which they have a 47% market share. Nowadays the company’s focus has shifted towards HR and Customer Service Management (CSM) modules.
The HR module has been designed by people who were previously working in HR in different roles. They showed us an interesting story on how people, from agent to HR director, can interact with each other. How the new hire can find his/her information in the knowledge base, how they can create an incident, etc. Agents have a clear overview of incidents and priorities to process requests. The team manager and HR director get an overview of all the metrics.
After the break we got a presentation about ServiceNow’s CSM module. The processes and roles were a lot like those in the HR module. Last but not least, we were educated on the Field Service Management module, which was very impressive.
Field Service Management – ServiceNow
Their presentation was based on sensor IoT information for a conveyor belt supplier, delivering service for an airline. We saw how IoT information shows a disruption in one of their machines. The intelligent analytics device, based on machine learning, identified an unusual pattern and proactively notified the service agent. The agent was able to drill-down the information it had about hardware of the machine, and found a gear that probably needed to be replaced. The agent created a work order. In the background the Field Service Management module looked at the required skills for a technician, identified available technicians in the neighborhood, and assigned a task to be accepted for this technician with specifications about the machine, the failure details, the likely problem, suggested articles on how to resolve and a manual for the machine. The technician accepted the assignment through his mobile device, went to the location and fixed the issue. Then he marked the assignment as resolved. This information was immediately visible on a map, shown by a green dot. Very interesting!
We concluded the day with drinks and good discussions!
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