hi dave good morning a very early morning in the us um how are you today i am good apart from as you say apart from it being 7am but you're one of the few guys i'm happy to get up at 6am in the morning for adela question question from my side um you know innovation in times of pandemic um has coveted 19 push companies to go beyond their comfort zone and seek innovative solutions more than ever before what's your view on that so i so i think i mean crisis crisis always drives innovation from from radar to the internet it's all been it's all been developed due to that crisis is happening i think what this crisis is driving is is this is giving more of a focus on digital transformation so i see people in two camps those are those are trying to just run the way they used to run before and not want to make any changes at all and those who are looking to to innovate and do things in different ways i think the the thing i've learned as we've gone through this process is that people adapt a lot better than companies do companies want everything to to be the way it was whereas people are adapting more to these new ways of working and i think there's a there's a natural there's natural feeling for people to want to go back to the way things were in the past and kind of run to the past as opposed to to looking to what we can see in the future but i think the i think the thing that people are going to take out of this from an innovation perspective is is what happens now isn't necessarily a one-off so i think people are realizing that the the real energy around innovation is created by those companies who are agile enough to react to it so i think when companies plan going forward they're going to start building that agility into the organization to allow them to deal with any situation like this that comes up if you think about the nature of business in germany do you think german companies have really recognized this need for for digital transformation yet to be honest i cannot give a clear digital answer on that you know in general i would say yes but we still see that agility and speed has to increase you know germany has an excellent reputation on looking at looking at um high-tech strategy the federal government in joint effort with the private sector has set itself a goal of interesting uh three and a half percent of the gdp in research and development by 2025. that's a high number compared with other economies i have to say having said that it's not a secret that germany is a little bit lagging behind when it comes to digital transformation you know which is for me the turbo for innovation at the end of the day digital transformation drives innovation and this time so what we heard from a research is still 12 of the german companies currently see their existence threatened by digitization which is a little strange if we hear that because it's needed when asked management why why it's concerned with the use of new technologies 37 of management in germany currently say i don't have time for that the answer is strange and the number is not understandable for us could you give us one example of great customer innovation that has been able to adapt but also thrive due to an innovative business model and thinking do you have an example for that if i look at someone who actually changed the nature of what they delivered from an industry perspective then i think one of the most interesting stories is probably the disney story so if you think of if you think of disney's prime markets it all revolved around things that were very difficult to do now obviously it's got the the tv side of the the company but they were providing movies for the cinemas that people all of a sudden stopped going to there was the whole park side of the market where people were going to theme parks they had the concept of cruise lines or all these things that were very orientated on big groups of people being together but the interesting thing disney did just before we got to this was was the launch of disney plus so they'd learned that that it wasn't just about it wasn't just about providing the content from a creation perspective it was about being able to deliver that content digitally as well so that they actually moved into a market where they they didn't have a presence before and they managed to get millions of subscribers onto that system straight away and then be able to to manage and organize those subscribers and grow that business by releasing new content moving forward and if you look at the way the stock performed over the past 12 months you know they've they've completely managed to change their business model and keep their stock at a at a great price even going through a pandemic such as this so i think that's a true example of digital transformation where you've developed a whole new business model do you think again when we look at german companies and the economy at large do you think german companies have learnt lessons when it comes to technology and are ready to to kind of make that leap forward so so i wondered what the the feeling was we've talked very much about digital transformation but what you guys speak to customers now in germany is has anything changed in the world the digital transformation between what you'd say now what you would have done 12 months ago so here would clearly say very digital yes you know innovation is a top three management priority for almost two-thirds of the german company two serves are not a hundred percent but it's really increasing you know and our research has shown that companies are doubling on innovation during downturns uh using the opportunity to invest and position for the recovery out of home over the autumn so for the future at the end of the day but doing that successfully really requires a clear innovation strategy we see that coming coming from many important and strong industries in germany look at automotive the car makers at the end of the day they tend to go away from producing and selling cars to innovative new forms of mobility and mobility services for sure with the inclusion of their core product which is a car at the end of the day i have a i have a kind of final question for you any food for salt you can leave with us today looking five years beyond yeah i think i think what i start to see more and more now when i speak to customers is this this focus on operational workflows so how do i actually manage the production of the core good that i make and i think what's driving a lot of that is people starting to to get ready for or actually deploy iot as a concept so when people start to connect devices to the internet to become connected devices obviously there's a huge amount of data that comes with those but there's the process of how do you deal with that data how do you make a digital twin of an asset to actually understand what the operational parameters are for that asset and then how do i actually deal with everything from break fix to maintenance to event driven maintenance that comes from that device and as people start to look at the the concept of being able to connect some of these assets they're also starting to look at the process around how they actually manage the workflow that sits behind operations do you think there's there's still room for the german market to get better for for customers to to perhaps look at more innovative solutions so i personally have a recommendation for our customers and partners it is check how we do it at servicenow get inspired you know join us because next month early october we have our now it's our prince early october join us with industry leaders expert connect with regional communities and come to join the keynotes for sure dave you and i we also attend and have a couple of sessions with our customers and once again we need you to have in germany so let's press fingers that a good development of the pandemic let us more travel and have you together with us with customer thank you so much steve thank you i look forward to coming and seeing you as well thanks for inviting [Music] me