[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another Crossfuze
Friday Fast Fifteens. I'm Karen Glazier, Senior
Director of Marketing here at Crossfuze. And today, I am joined by Justin
Meadows, one of our solutions consultants. Justin, how are you doing today? I'm great, Karen. How are you? I'm hanging in there. I'm super excited
to talk to you. You have a wealth of
knowledge around ServiceNow. And I know today
in particular we want to talk about
ServiceNow's safe workplace applications, which I know have
been getting a lot of buzz. I know our customers are
asking a lot about them. We've implemented
quite a few of them. And those applications
are really about preparing the
workforce and the workplace to effectively resume operations
during any type of crisis, no matter if that crisis is very
individualized to that business or if it's impacting that
business as well as quite honestly their society
or even the world like the pandemic we're
dealing with right now. So I wanted to dive a
little bit into that today. And you know, with the
applications building on the same user friendly
architecture and automations that our hallmark to the
ServiceNow platform, the apps bring consistency and structure
to how a business operates during and even after a crisis. So I thought we could jump into
some really basic questions about this topic. And to start, what are
these applications? Can you touch a
little bit on that? Sure. There's actually four
different applications. There is an employee readiness
survey application, employee health screening, workplace
safety management, and workplace personal
protective equipment, or PPE, inventory
management applications. I like to think of
these as addressing four needs for the
organization for facilitating the return to the workplace
and ensuring employee safety once they've actually returned. The readiness survey
application helps an organization engage employee
sentiment and preferences for returning to work and what
resources and processes will be in place upon their return. I think of this as a great
tool to solicit feedback from your employees and adjust
processes and procedures based on that feedback. I think that app reads
well into the second app-- employee health screening, which
enables a designated screener to ensure that the returning
employee is not sick and has the appropriate PPE for their
role in that organization. The last two apps-- workplace
safety management and workplace PPE inventory
management-- can be used to facilitate
clean workspaces or implement a
reservation, an assignment system for those
workspaces, and then track the available
or assigned PPE equipment for those
employees and locations. It sounds like several apps
that a lot of businesses need, right? I mean, I think it's all
about not just dealing with the crisis
at hand, but it's being prepared for a
crisis that might come up. Sure. Exactly. So Justin, how has-- because that sounds like a
lot of automation, right? It's a lot of
workflow, automations, a lot of process automation,
that sort of thing, getting kind of everybody
flowing and operations running when times get a little tough. So where does the
automation play in society? Why is it so important today? Well, that's a
really big question that probably deserves a book. But I'll try to keep it concise. In the context of
workplace safety, I think what we're doing
is we're automating repeatable processes that
enable three important benefits, from my perspective. That's scalability,
consistency-- which you've already
mentioned-- and elimination of the need to repeatedly
solve the same problem. So those first two benefits--
scalability and consistency-- are really easy to see. Through automation, we can
do more with less, right? So we can scale. And we can ensure what's
being done is consistent. It has a consistent
workflow that meets the needs that
organization, meets needs the employees, but
maybe even create a consistent and we hope wonderful
user experience, right? The third benefit-- not
having to repeatedly solve the same problem-- means that
each division or department of an organization doesn't
have to figure out a survey, screen, and manage
workspaces and PPE all, you know, over and
over and over again. So there may be nuances
to each of the smaller units in the organization,
but the general process and workflow can be consistent. I think ServiceNow has
taken this problem-- or this step a bit further by
zooming out to like a world view-- since we're all
going through the same thing at the moment-- by creating a framework
for any organization to not have to repeatedly
solve the same problem we're all facing. The fact that there are
four different apps, too, means that an
organization can use one, some, or all of them
depending on their needs. In the end, Karen, I
think, on a broader level, automation eliminates
needless variation, decreases workflow cycle
time, and enables stakeholders in the automated
process to focus more on the steps and contributions
where they add the most value and benefit. Hm. So what type of
organizations would benefit from these
sort of applications? Is there a certain
type of organization? Any organization? I think that any organization
is going to benefit from these. I mean, even here
at Crossfuze, we're a mostly work from
home organization. But we do have offices and
shared work environments for which all of
these applications would be beneficial to
bringing back our teams and keeping them safe. Hm. Yeah, I know how
important that is. Obviously, we're right in the
middle of all that ourselves. So how long does it take to
implement these applications? Well, technically speaking,
not very long at all. I think the employee readiness
and the screening applications are essentially ready-to-use
as soon as they're installed, assuming you don't make any
changes to the configuration specific to your organization. The workplace safety management
and PPE inventory management applications may
take a bit longer since you need to import data
specific to your companies, such as locations,
workspaces, or rooms, or conference rooms, and
the actual PPE inventory. That's going to vary,
you know, if you're in a health care environment
versus an office environment, right? Those PPE needs vary. But I think that any
implementation should always take into consideration
the organizational change management component, which
is itself a time factor. So as you know,
Karen, we're all being bombarded with constant
change at the moment. So I think this is
more important now than it ever has been. Introducing new
applications, new procedures, new processes to your company
should be done thoughtfully and be communicated well. And that communication includes
the "why" in addition to the "how," right? So as part of that,
many organizations may want to configure
these apps to their needs. And that's, I think, the beauty
of these being on the Now platform is that
configuration that can be done quickly
and simply using the same tools and resources
we use every day to manage our instances. Interesting. Yeah, I can imagine
how quick you have to turn around
communication, not just flip the switch on
some new workflows and processes with these sort of
applications but also let people know you're doing
that and how to use them and when to use them and
what ultimately that business outcome will be
when they use them for their day-to-day operations. So I know we've implemented
these for several customers now. What are typical
questions or even concerns that they have as it pertains
to getting these in place, getting them up and running,
and getting users using them? Well, actually the
previous question about how much level of effort
is probably the one we're hearing the most. You know, how long is it going
to take me to implement these? And how soon can I use them? The other one we hear a lot
is, how much does it cost? And my understanding
is that these are free from the
ServiceNow store, similar to the emergency
response applications they released a few months ago. And of course, I
always say that and say you need to verify with
your ServiceNow rep, too, before you do anything
that may impact licensing. Mhm. Mhm. And that's great, right? Because if we're
having to negotiate price or services,
that sort of thing, it slows the process down. And in the center of a crisis,
you have no time to spare. So you have to move quickly. So this is our world today. These are apps
that are helping us with the situation
we're dealing with today and getting us through
what that looks like during and hopefully soon after this
crisis that we're dealing with. But looking long-term into our
crystal ball of the future, are these apps that can
actually help and, you know, deal with other crises? It could be a natural disaster. It could be a pandemic. It could be other things. Talk a little bit about
where these things can be used in the future as well. Sure I'm going to go
back to the easy one first. I think that in the
immediate longer term that we're definitely going
to be using these, right? Because our public health
officials are telling us that, you know, as
we open back up, there may be smaller
pockets of outbreaks and maybe even a larger
wave in the fall, which is our typical annual flu season. So you might be
able to use these in those flare ups that happen. So there might be a
couple life cycles of us being sent
back home and then coming back to the workplace. But I think thinking about
the cold and flu season is important, too,
because most of us have been in an
office environment where we've seen office spread. Like, one person on a team goes
down, and then all of sudden a couple more go down. So, you know, you could
actually probably use these to prevent that
in the future as well, where you have a good two
to three weeks of people being sick and not being
able to contribute at work. But Karen, I think the kind of
more profound thing for me is I think we're all going
to think differently about cleanliness and sanitation
from this point forward. I think, for those
of us that remember the severity of
being in lockdown and what it's done to our
lives and the economy, that things like workplace
safety management keeping things clean or
cleaning between uses, tracking personal
protective equipment, may have a longer shelf life
than we initially thought. I hope it does. I hope it does. That just puts, I
think, everybody at ease this was a big
shock for everybody. And just to know that
we have applications that can kind of coach
and support people through a process that
keeps everybody safe puts minds at ease. And I think that helps to
keep the workplace flowing and calm and productive as
well and, of course, morale up. So Justin, how can
Crossfuze help folks implement these applications? What would that process be? How can they get in touch
with us, that sort of thing? Sure. Yeah. So I think what makes us
a great implementation partner is the ability for us to
just fit in where we're needed. So that could mean
technical assistance with the installation
of the apps-- you know, setting up all
those workspaces and inventory like we talked about. It could mean advisory
assistance around processes and procedures specific
to your organization or the organization
we're working with. And finally, I think
what we're really good at is enhanced
workflows that tie different parts
of the platform together to automate even
more and provide a great user experience. And I want to give
an example of that. So let's say, we have
a positive screening, meaning someone is trying
to come back to work and they test negative
for the virus, so we're going to
return them the work. That may actually need to
kick off different ICSM and HR workflows related to
equipment, access, security, return of equipment that
they were using while they were working from home. So I think the beauty,
again, of these applications is they're on the Now platform,
which means we at Crossfuze can help organizations not just
implement them but expand on the base functionality
that they provide. So a well-designed-- a
well-designed and well-aligned workflow can actually
make things better-- can make things better and
a great user experience. Hm. That's true. It's always about expansion. As crisis to crisis or
situation to situation, there's always some new needs
and concerns that arise. And it's nice to know that those
applications and our ability to help with those applications
are very flexible and scalable. Yep. So Justin, this was
awesome to talk to you. It's definitely a
set of applications that are much needed. And it's nice to know
that they give us some peace of mind
today and they give us some preparedness for tomorrow. So I appreciate the time
we spent together today. And for all of you
who are watching, I hope you found
great value in this. And if you have any
questions or just want to continue this
conversation, always feel free to reach out to us
at letstalk@crossfuze.com. Thank you so much. Thanks, Justin. Have a great day. Thanks, Karen. Be safe. Take care. You too. [MUSIC PLAYING]