okay hello and welcome to this servicenow podcast today we have paul hardy one of servicenow's innovation evangelists talking with tom cheese wright a futurologist over to you guys good morning paul morning tom how are you yeah good thank you so listen we've got an opportunity here for talk to talk for 20 25 minutes about one of the things that i get asked about most uh when i'm out talking to people or increasingly talking to people via video call and that's this this this change in the nature of work and and one of the things we've asked me about a lot is the tech i wanted to put a hypothesis to you which is that the sorting out the technology has really been the easy part of our response to covid yeah i think that's a great point actually and the conversations that i'm having with customers is very much following that theme um one of the things that we've always struggled with and my background is kind of in tech or using tech to help businesses transform um and one of the challenges that i think a lot of people have been wrapped up in is that tech was the blocker tech was the thing that slowed everything down when actually in real terms if you think back on the challenges that we had it was really focused around convincing the business that we had the right tech to do what we needed to do and i think what we've seen in the you know more recent months is really focusing around the now we just have to do it the tech has to work and actually when we've lent on the tech it's been there for us it really has it really has worked you know and there's companies that i've spoken to that the overnight same as servicenow overnight had to have a different policy of working had to have different locations had to employ different technologies but ultimately this was really about how people changed their way of thinking how people said well we've got to work differently now because there's no other choice and actually the day after lockdown everyone was working from home in most cases and the change was really quite dramatic so one of the the fascinating stats one of the really eye-catching stats that has come out of this research that servicenow has done is that your operational expenses down 90 according to a lot of executives going to the executives you're responding to this survey that's an incredible drop and when you consider that that we've done that really with i don't feel like lots of companies dropped enormous sums on new technology they just kind of used what they had it feels that feels like a really dramatic picture and and one that is going to take some time to get their heads around yeah i think you're absolutely right and you know the while these numbers and they're fairly big percentages of of people that agree with this um i think we're what we're seeing from this is really a new focus on you know digital transformation itself is is what was required and it was happening anyway but i think we we saw that in many businesses number one that's been expedited but the focus has now changed on yeah how can we connect how can we have i like to call it the golden thread that runs through an organization it's how do we connect all of the things that we've had that potentially have worked in silos and they could be departments but they could have been those departments technology how can we really start gluing those together to provide us information and data that allows us to make those really cool snap decisions that actually may have been you know may have been hanging around for a long time but no one really wanted to do it because maybe it was or wasn't the right thing and i think as i said right at the top i think really this is a there's a new pace that's that's happening now um and it's i i don't even like thinking about it as the new the new way of working you know people say the new norm i i could argue that we should have been doing this ten years ago right and it takes something like this to say actually now now's our opportunity now it's really it's really time to to pull our finger out and do those things we've been talking about because as you said right at the beginning tom this is not a technology conversation we always talk about people process technology what about location what about resilience what about those things that actually we all have as human beings but now we have to employ them and now they are starting to work and we're seeing the benefits from them it's almost quite damning in some ways isn't it that that it takes an event like this to force us to do those things which as you say we've known how to do for quite some time and you know one of the things that really shocks me when i go into clients when i go into organizations and you you find this out when you go into different departments when you go into hr or finance or actually even i t which i think comes out of your survey very well yes some incredibly backward process is still happening you know finance being one of my favorite examples where the entire budget is still constructed of 14 different interlink spreadsheets that someone created you know 25 years ago and no one dares change because they don't really know how it works do you think i i don't know do you think if this is this enough of a catalyst to force us to change that magnitude of issue inside our organization yeah we let's face it tom change is hard we get that we know that and i think that's that was one of the things that was holding us back for for a long time but actually what we're recognizing is that people can still be productive wherever they are no matter what device they're on you know if we look back in the days of bring your own device which never really worked that's because we were trying to force something on people that they didn't really want whereas they've all got the devices they don't need to bring them they have them already so we understand change is hard and actually what we're recognizing very quickly is that people can work effectively and actually they now want to maintain those new ways of working they they're comfortable with working from home if they've got an office you know if they've got a place where they can work so i think that um it's now our opportunity for execs to support this way of thinking and this really plays into the hands of you know finding great talent is difficult even more in this uh coveted economy um and even more so when you think that you know it's not just finding great talent it's now about retaining that great talent and if you're flexible on the way of working you give people you know the the technology that they need which is almost kind of innate it's almost native to their hand if they're using a mobile phone this is this is our great opportunity to uh really kind of say that this isn't a new way of working this is the way it should work so to make it really practical i mean i think there's a there's this sense then that you know we made this leap with the existing technology in general it kind of works right we can do this and yet everyone's saying according to this research that actually where we're going to put our money is on digital transformation where we should be putting our money on digital transformation what does that look like in practical terms like where do you invest next where do you go from here um well certainly for me the conversations that i've been having and i think this is fairly unanimously across servicenow is that it's really our opportunity to break down those walls break down the silos between departments so this isn't just focusing on you know keeping the lights on that we talked about before this is really about how do we need to act how do we need to be into the future that allows us to deliver new products and services be first to market in these crazy times means that you have to be able to have solutions that allow you to do it with agility and with speed and with pace now traditionally that would be something that would you know people would shy away from but ultimately if you think about it this is you know certainly with things like the servicenow platform you can deliver value in 30 days not three months or three years and it really is boiling down to those those days and weeks conversations breaking down those silos between all the departments allowing work to flow and i know it's this is kind of our purpose and our strap line but this is what people need is they want work to flow through the organization so that they can go and do the jobs that only they can do all to make the rest of it right automate the stuff that gets in people's ways and allow them to really be um productive and efficient in what they and what they love doing so it's taking some that sort of friction out of the movement of information inside the organization and and as you say sort of refocusing the attention back on the human and automating you know what's not there that kind of scares people though you know i think you know so much about sort of you know good example is that oversight inside the organization people are used to having a piece of paper a process flow across their desk you know so you want one good example i was working with a big manufacturing firm and it was something really simple like expenses approval right and yeah the expenses approval process you know required for the three different sign-offs because you know nobody wanted to take responsibility but also everybody wanted to see who was spending what yeah do you do people sort of lose that sense of uh of oversight and interaction with them or the or the advantage is greater that's of let being force people to let go yeah i think i think you know in a lot of cases we we know at servicenow that two out of a five-day working week is spent doing administrative mundane repeatable and frankly error-prone processes right historically that was part of people's jobs what they now want to focus on is the things that really make a difference to an organization and actually if you give them the opportunity to remove that churn work that routine mundane work then people are happier and there's also another side to this so that's kind of the automation piece but it's also really understanding your workforce really understanding why people come to work you know are they aligned to the business purpose does everybody understand what your business's purpose is and of course then you can look at things like having a diverse diverse workforce are you then looking at things are are people happy and comfortable and safe to return to work when that happens absolutely critical as well so this is as we said right at the beginning tom this is you know not a technology conversation this is really about how do we how do we enable people to do to do their jobs well and really love what they do and therefore become a bigger asset to the organization so i think there's a there's a couple of couple of kind of lenses to look through there but i think this is you know not one or the other this is an entirely new way of working right well and it feels like actually in some ways we need to free up more time for that new way of working and i haven't seen any good hard data on this yet but lots of anecdotal evidence but actually when you're working remotely the difference in the style of working means you actually have to devote more time to certain things so one good example that i have looked at in some depth is training when you're training new people and you know half your workforce is in the office and half your workforce is remote you have to treat everyone like their remote so rather than sort of doing the training ad hoc grabbing people sticking in the room go right yeah here's a 20 minute powerpoint or whatever you actually have to record it you have to put some you know you have to record people's responses to it you have some sort of interactive learning so all these processes sort of actually certainly in the setup phase in this transition phase consume more time so suddenly like taking away those old things that used to wipe out i can't believe it's two out of five days i totally believe that um uh it fits very well actually with the there's a i won't use the full term but uh an academic did some research on on how people's uh people feel valued in their jobs where they thought their jobs are valuable and 40 said they thought their jobs added no value at all that fits very closely with your two out of five days spent just doing administration that really doesn't isn't very rewarding unless you sort of potentially a bit of a neat freak and you just like things done so i think you in some ways we do have to clear out more time free up more time by taking those processes out and freeing up time to do those things that that allow us to connect to do have those human connections in a remote environment or in a hybrid environment yeah i often talk a lot about the kind of the three pillars of of kind of success in this state which is we need to simplify the things that we've been doing because processes and technology have often made things very complicated to do then you need to kind of automate as much as you can that you've simplified and you can only do that with great integration points so simplify integrate and automate it's really the focus that allows you then to kind of boil everything back down to the core and then actually people realize that when you take away a process that they've done for years you know like your conversation around you know excel spreadsheets that people have been using for years why don't you take that excel data and pull it into a platform like servicenow to enable you then to use that data in a way that you never have before to drive business insight to drive new products and services to you know really interact with it in a way that then empowers the employee or the customer to think differently and and act differently and i think that's really you know for us is is really the approach that we that we're taking at the moment which is it seems to be working because it then supports transformation as a whole and that could be both organizational transformation and digital transformation but it then focuses on things like you know operational optimization or operational resilience right because they're all part of the same they all become form part of the same thing given the success of the of the shift to this sort of remote working environment and the fact that you know the research shows you 90 percent of businesses have seen their operational expenses fall you know it feels like there might be a conversation going at the moment like what else can we cut like what else was not core to what we were doing that actually as you say we can either we can simplify you know we can say actually you know we don't need to we we're doing all the stuff we just don't need to do anymore or actually you know worst case we can automate it it feels like the um that old sort of urgent important uh you know quadrants you know actually joe all this stuff we thought was really important is actually right over here now the new conversation is about what's actually valuable what should we be actually actually be doing that's going to add value both to our employees and our customers and i thought it was really interesting that actually you're given that thought process actually jump we don't need to be doing a lot of stuff anymore what comes out on top is not okay let's go and win some new business or you know let's invest more in marketing it's actually there's more transformation to do you know we've almost like we're excited by this journey we've started on what's next what's next what's next yeah well you know we did we did some uh some great studies last year and you know 89 of you know sea level had talked about transforming their business but at the time and and this number's fundamentally changed now obviously mccoby but only 19 of those 89 had actually started something clearly that number is massive now because it's been forced upon our hands but i think you're absolutely right the opportunity to transform what we're doing whether that's simplification or whether that's agility and pace and that's you know that's really something that we've we've been working with customers on is allowing them to think that actually they can do something tomorrow or next week not at the end of the year or the end of next quarter but actually you know really functioning quite quickly and differently so i think yeah you know the the the flip from where that cost can be allocated now is real um and i think that you know that's going to have one of the biggest impacts on business in certainly in the next six months is around you know how quickly can we evolve into this new way um and how quickly can we you know still engage with our customers and our employees in a way where they feel like they're comfortable they feel secure and they're healthy in all of these things that we talked about yeah it's super important are you seeing differences in how that conversation plays out in different vertical sectors you know between all between public and private or between different verticals um as a whole we do verticalize conversations because it's very important there's a different language there's a different you know vocabulary to be used but if you actually if you actually take it up to 50 000 foot view most organizations are challenged with the same thing right um and i think and i think it's important to have those industry lenses absolutely critical um but it's not it's not the game changer if we can talk holistically about bringing your operational teams together who doesn't want to do that you could be a lawyer you know you could be a legal firm or insurance firm or a healthcare organization or manufacturing you still need to do that to some degree but what is core is making sure that you have the right conversations with the right people at the right time and i think that's what we're you know we we're now elevating our way to this now platform conversation which is a much more platform approach a strategic approach approach but still with those tactical pieces of work happening in parallel that fits very closely with my experience and people don't believe me when i say that if you go inside a big government department or a big corporation things kind of feel the same right you're having roughly the same conversations the same behaviors different motivators you know different levels of capital investment perhaps but fundamentally the same challenges of operating with lots of people lots of customers lots of touch points lots of generally really old processes that haven't been thought about for a long time and need that sort of simplification and integration process interestingly tom actually i spoke to a startup just this week in fact earlier this week and they're a year old and they've now got problems between departments already they've got processes that are getting in their way already and this is a this is a startup a you know a tech first company and it happens it happens naturally because that's that was always the traditional business model was to segregate things out so that they work in their in their own right but don't necessarily think so much on you know how the people interact with those and that's really what we're focusing on is is that experience part of it i think that's that's what's going to come to the forefront digital transformation for me is is as much around experience as it is around the technology that makes that experience great are you seeing like particularly popular use cases right now for that sort of platform approach you see it being adopted in certain departments certain areas first i mean i'm guessing you know i.t in terms of sort of service management is somewhat ahead of this are you seeing other functions go actually i'd like a bit of that i can use that to solve this problem well i mean clearly anything that is has people at the heart of what they do is is front and center for them so hr and customer services you know if you want to if you want to attract and retain your customers then you need to treat them in a way like you never have before because it's easy for a customer to make a decision to go elsewhere because often it's not just about the product now it's about the experience that they get so i think we are saying seeing a huge uptake on you know onboarding people so from an hr perspective but also managing the life cycle of an employee hugely hugely important you know it's not it's i was liking it a little bit to like the old it projects we had which was you know you take a year to define it a year to implement it and then the business has changed the people have changed and no one knows what it is you've implemented if you look at the way we approach it which is day one is the first day of your future of a servicenow implementation and actually then you can engage constantly with people going back to your point around training you don't have to big bang approach training people you actually train people every day in the platform on the applications they're using you know when you get a new uh mobile phone application you don't have to go on a training course how to reuse it do you you basically are told in the release notes that this button has changed this process does this now and actually then it becomes more native to learn those new ways of working because it's natural yeah absolutely that's a really good point actually it feels like that's a um you know those two areas are really solid candidates for investment right now because as you say our you know expectations from a from a digital interaction perspective with all of our suppliers are just getting heightened and heightened and heightened all the time and in this this environment you've got to cling on to people it's about that experience but also your staff and particularly i think those young staff where that on boarding process is so critical like right now when they could be they're coming on board and they might not see another human being in the organization for six months you've really really got to be on that they feel they feel like from a transformation perspective like really good candidates for the next piece of investment yeah i mean millennials make decisions on whether they're going to stay at a company based upon a structured or unstructured onboarding process right they've already made that before they've really had their first day you imagine you know i was speaking to a large financial services organization just a couple of weeks back and they were number one encouraging people to move on once they got to a certain point in their career absolutely fine right because none of these millennials or or younger want a job for life anyway right um and then the other the other the other view is that you know people make decisions on who they work for not just on the brand and logo now but on the technology that they use or how easy is it for them going to be to you know enhance their skill set or or learn more you know learn more things about what's going on in that organization and and have a broader approach to that so i think it's super important again that feels sort of particularly critical right now so what would your i mean where would you where would your um where would you what would you say to somebody now if they're if they're in this position right they've they've been through the chaos of the adaptation it's succeeded pretty well they've seen their expenses fall they've got this mindset of digital transformation this is what we're going to do next as you know as we start to prepare for 2021 what's the starting point like where do you where do you particularly want to get that sort of quick return on investment that you said what's the starting point what's the first thing you grab onto well i think for me and it's quite simple is you need to start here where you are today don't look back at where you have been so many organizations get wrapped up in saying well we've got all of these processes and surely these processes need to be need to continue well maybe they don't it's okay to maybe start with that blank sheet of paper and say there is a different way to approach this um you know just speaking to an organization again a couple of weeks back and they said you know we we're just trying to keep the lights on and i said have you stopped to think which lights need to be on they said no actually no we haven't you know so so imagine if you take that approach then actually it builds confidence that you can continuously deliver you can have that agile approach and then you can then start interacting getting feedback from your employees constantly to make sure that you're doing the right things and focusing on then the short term and the long term but also then delivering constantly so everybody's happy everybody's efficient and everybody's productive or certainly more so than they were before no matter where they work you know we've seen this in people working from home they can be as productive as long as your measurements are different around are people happy versus the traditional you know mean time to respond you know we're not being mean anymore we're caring about your happiness and your experience it's brilliant i'm totally stealing the quote about which likes to keep on i love that thank you so much guys um that's been really insightful which lights we keep on and which lights we turn off um thank you very much both of you and we'll be back with another podcast coming up soon thank you bye thanks guys