Welcome to The Innovation Today podcast where we speak with today's technology leaders about how they're innovating to stay ahead of changing industry Dynamics and reaching new levels of productivity and automation brought to you by service now your partner in digital transformation thank you for joining us today for another episode of The Innovation Today podcast I'm your host Spencer Beller responsible for executive Innovation and strategy at service now and today we're super excited to host Jason Mo CEO of Thera good job thank you his name is spelled a little tricky at the end it's not very phonetic is it it's not very phonetic I actually love to hear what the origin story of this last name is you really want to hear the misspelled last name origin story GNA do misspelled last name misspelled last name that's made it through generations generationally misspelled yeah unbelievable Alis Island you know you got what you got when you came over I guess that's true once it's in written in the books set don't want to change that might have to go back we might have to go back well let's not let's keep it the way it is Jason it's good to be with you here today I'm I'm excited to talk about the service Ops conversation which I understand is kind of top of mine in your world I'd love to know a little bit about yourself first though and maybe outside of the last name tell us a little bit about thura as well well first Spencer B Miller thank you it's a pleasure to be here and I'm looking forward to this podcast very much amazing was born in rural Colorado no I'm just kidding I'm not going to go there thought I was here service now story co-founded a company in 2009 one of the first five Partners in the service now ecosystem wow I call that first era by the way I'll get there at Romas yeah the third era yeah see what that see what's going on there see what's happening it was also your first era uh at service down itsm on cloud was the focus uh of service now at that time yeah and then uh a few years later seoa came in did a recapitalization of service now yeah new CEO came in Frank slutman I remember the uh dawn of the second era as I like to say and um IPO the company was an important thing for service now inflecting a Champions League of ecosystem Partners yeah in advance of that IPO was important and inflecting your market capitalization to your next addressable Market which was multi-product on cloud platform so that's the second era uh navus was one of the was the first company to be acquired in the service now ecosystem that was my first era company it was acquired by a company called Cloud sheret which was a PE backed company you might remember that one I at that time if I recall yeah and then eventually Cloud chirpas was acquired by Accenture and I was the senior MD responsible for the service now practice at extent from uh 2015 to January 2020 took some time off I was uh ruminating on things I might like to do next I love the service now ecosystem yeah I was looking and kind of uh just a just just surveying the landscape I was calling some of my old customers just kind of checking in you could see that service now was doing it again they were going to a next addressable Market it's kind of early 2020 which is digital transformation across the Enterprise sure which is the third era and I said that would be a great name for a company so that's what the third era name came from and come to you in a Moment of Zen or Enlightenment where did that where did that reach you you want me to be totally candid or do you want me to sizzle it up for the podcast I well you take the per however you want I'd appreciate the cander I was walking the dog yeah and uh I have this uh collectic hobby of collecting domain names and so you know I often think about things that I say or think I'm like oh that'd be a good domain name I wonder if it's available th.com yeah or daddy let's let's uh let's go nice you want to know another domain name I have yeah service meow.com all right is that the next era no it's the power of meow it's the power of meow oh my gosh great so did not wake up by the way in January 1st 2023 thinking I was going to sell the company that year yeah to Cognizant yeah made a great run six Acquisitions 900 organic hires opened in 17 countries the service now ecosystem is an awesome awesome place to be amazing uh largest pure playay partner uh ever created just over a thousand resources number two in the world for search number two in the world for CMAs and ctas number one in the world for uh training and a lot of other things that are going to keep us away from getting to your actual questions but uh started talking to Ravi Kumar the CEO of cognizant and um he'd been spending a lot of time with Bill and CJ and others M and uh he was bought in started talking to him about what that might look like if uh we brought our bands together so to speak uh I report directly to Ravi I'm in a very unique relationship we've established an entirely new business unit within cognizant focused on service now direct aligned to the CEO globally and our job is to work horizontally it's not to work vertically which is totally different than any other partner out there right now so we're taking our big bad service now power we brought the 2,000 service now Professionals in cognizant into this business unit and our job is to go across every service line and every industry within cognizant and bring service now value uniquely to those Industries and service lines and then uh we also took on the challenge of addressing cognizance service now needs so we run the coe4 cognizant and are we're working towards making it a flagship of innovation on the platform for all 355,000 of us that's and that brings me to today here we are so given your expertise in mergers and Acquisitions alone I mean you've been through already a couple of them I've been bought and sold a lot been bought and sold a lot I I know there's listeners out there that are either in m&a action right now or have been through m&a or probably will go through m&a at some point in their in their careers of companies that they're at and that can be a bit of a tricky process when companies are coming together so do you have words of advice from maybe Lessons Learned on how you combined Tech stacks and how you've gotten efficient on processes or even just like the the people aspect of combining two different cultures what what would you say to some of those individuals out there that are experiencing this it's Unique in the service now space unlike any other yeah so people that are passionate about service now and I don't want this to sound weird but I I mean it this way they identify as service now yeah right and then they identify with where they work does that make sense it does they don't it's not the other way around they didn't you know choose the job and then pick service now they kind of picked service now yeah lot of people bet their careers on it I mean I certainly have yeah right and so what's interesting about that is you get you get these people that are very passionate about service now and want to do meaningful and high value and push their skills and things and um if you can give people in this ecosystem a fun place to work where they can do their best work where they feel feel there's a fair exchange of of their value to the business's value they feel like they're doing good things with with customers they feel like they're pushing their skills you can achieve a lot in a pretty fast order and all by the way having been acquired a few times you know I can't say everyone's been perfect they haven't but we've been able to iterate over time and we actually use service now as our platform for change yeah so to the sugrin of my investors year one at third era I threw away every tool from every company we bought we bought six companies or acquired six companies in 10 quarters to bolster our service down capabilities across the globe because we needed to go fast there's a great opportunity right now and organic would have been too slow we built an entirely new system fit for purpose from the top of the funnel all the way down to the pennies in the bank account at the end all platformed on service now time cards project schedules demand management you name it it's all in there wow and that really galvanized us because we were quickly on a tool MH and we took the best of what everybody had to bring we didn't call our process an integration or an acquisition process we call it a harmonization process because we really wanted to take the best things from every company and kind of remix them together into something that was even more AC creative and we were able to accomplish that using service now in a very agile way and that fueled even more kind of success people got to contribute to how we built the company they got to go contribute to how we help their clients and then we built third area University now called the SBG Academy which flows off to the Mount really nicely service now business group Academy pretty good there uh but is the largest training organization in the world yeah we did more than 300 classes for service now last year we're extremely high seasat we not only help our customers and support service now and training uh but we use that in a big way with our own internal team so we're able to help people get to their next level their career as a result of that very low attrition rate sub 5% the entire time we were managing making third era and building it but I think ultimately you have to Foster environment of change the good news is service now is always changing so it's easy to kind of foster that environment right yeah yeah big theme that we hear a lot on this to is adopting an an agile mindset as an organization that you're able to change and you're able to stem Innovation through that change because that's really where it begins right adapting a a a centralized system that allows for continual progress forward and that can be failures along the way but it can also be learnings from those failures absolutely great on it I think we had a big sense in the company too of we just weren't done we were work in progress sure so if you had a great idea and a different way of doing things you we're going to at least listen we're going to be open to it maybe we'd make a change across the whole company because of it right so it's important to have a voice we all want to have a voice in our day jobs right we want to feel like we can shape the future yeah um and we want to be part of doing things we find interesting and like I said most of the people that I've experienced over the last 15 years now in the service now space identify very strongly as service now yeah so let's trans transtion a little bit to the original topic of service yeah we got way off there that's all right it's it's curious on the m&a strategy so it's good to hear that that aspect but on on the service Ops aspect what are you hearing from clients out there what's top of Mind as you're walking the floor here we're at knowledge this week for everybody out there listening and that the energy is bubbling it's energetic in the air what are you hearing in the floor and and your constant meetings this week but just in general as a theme what's what's happening in service Ops and how's that how's that affecting the the general lay of the of Technology we uh we received your worldwide CSN partner of the Year award earlier this week congrats we're pretty pleased about that so I'm talking a lot about service operations of course though what's funny is customers never use those terms you never say that you know that they uh they're they're just looking to explore value right what do they want they want efficient processes work well they want to have confidence that they're in the Investments they're making in their platform are business aligned and contextual they want to have confidence that the that those investments in the platform are going to prepare them for the next generational Technologies as well yeah right and so what I thought think we've done a good job is kind of grounding in the platform hey let's talk about your data model let's talk about your architecture your upgradeability let's get you let's get you really in an athletic stance now let's go talk about your business yeah and business is the intersection of service Ops as you know right so yeah that's what we're spending a lot of time talking about so setting that foundational layer first making sure that you're setting on steady ground yeah oh by the way now that we spent this time on this data model you're ready for AI as AI with no rigorous contextual data model underneath it is going to be that valuable so let's get you in an athletic stance ready for the emerging Technologies right I think service now has now been selling plus SKS with the AI goodness in it for eight weeks right so we want to take the time now to get people really ready to go so there's no backtracking later and um we want to show them how they can Traverse their Enterprise with workflow and automation experience more intuitiveness and get them outside get them in those B2B workflows get them in those B Toc workflows yeah as I talk to CEOs CEOs never say service UPS they never do they talk about capex expenditures for business value right and we have to bring it down there for them in the right terms now we all know because we speak Tech jargon that service Ops is the domain that we keep this in customers just want value they want great experiences they want to feel like their future ready they want to feel like they're a positive Roi and a good experience yeah and as such is there is there something that you can do in technology to help them feel ready that way or is it more of establishing the processes outside of the technology to then use the technology as a almost an oversight to what you suggest personally I try to avoid the platform first mindset oh really I know it's really easy to do because we just focus on service now yeah we're so used to talking platform first especially you service now guys like everything is the service now software solution right I mean in a good way I don't mean that in a negative way whatsoever but kind of going back to okay what's the business value for this process in the first place yeah you know what are you really trying to achieve here we've been working a lot in the uh CSM space particularly in order management which has been awesome because you're in that B2B b2c work area right and you know this is real ways that they work with other businesses to generate Revenue can you break it down for us or like order management just for maybe those that are sure sure uh well you know think of it as the processes outside of it that make businesses work sure so businesses sell things to customers and those are typically driven in some sort of order format right I want something I get I I there's some sort of Bill materials or order I receive that thing yeah you need tools to support those processes so they're efficient if you want to do them at scale and uh for years and years and years there's kind of an Antiquated set of tools out there to do these things but they work and you're generating revenue and you don't want to mess up that infrastructure right but the experience is lagging you know we're not so sure if we're going to get to AI pretty quick on that you know we we' like to do more with it service now is perfect for that right because you come in in an agile way in the same way we would have solved it problems that same sort of mentality that same sort of workflow mindset but you're now workfl flowing the business to business relationships and the way they make money or exchange things in those businesses to customer relationships and the way they interact and so uh we've had we've had a a lot of that work here recently you know they're kind of funny conversations I I had a panel yesterday um we had a CIO on on the panel from segra and I recalled sitting down with the CEO of that company him looking me in the eye and saying this is 15% of my total capex I'm transforming the way my business is going to work I've bet on the service now platform don't mess this up no pressure yeah yeah and um and we got it done on time on schedule it's a great experience it's working well it's garnered their fuel and interest in applying service out of many other problems outside of that that was their breakout project right and that's kind of the the thing I like to think about as I'm working with customers is like okay we're going to get you sorted out in it that's fine what's going to be the breakout project what's going the thing that gets you out and across your Enterprise really intersecting those data models and getting more value yeah that's the important part and they're willing to take the risk with you on that that's amazing well it's do you share the risk with me yeah true that true what but so as as we think of this as is kind of some expansive thought process on different topics out there that we're hearing misconceptions in the space so you're saying that service opice isn't really necessarily a conversation that or a dialogue that you're hearing as often but don't want to interrupt you but I'm not saying it's not a thing yeah just maybe not spoken in that term at all most customers don't kind of hit you square in the head with service Ops right so so what would be a misconception in in this umbrella of of service Ops that somehow it based thinking on workflows yeah does not apply you know you you so often see cross Enterprise maybe the HR team oh we want to talk to the it guys you know we want to talk to HR people that know it maybe Finance you see the same thing I mean you see a lot of that Spencer you have to see that too right of course yeah and the reality is is that I understand because it can sometimes have a legacy of being difficult to work with and slow to move and all the things that we hear you know uh that would be complaints about it I'm an IT guy so I'm I guess I'm calling a k black but the the reality is the structure and the way of thinking and the approach to solving those workflow-based problems work exactly the same yeah that domain of of methodology is exactly the same the The Continuous Improvement mindset The Experience now how you approach it and the terms you use and maybe how you structure things or how you develop an engaging model is uh is is up for difference across Enterprises and across Industries and and those things can create a lot of meaning and value in that but the the actual core kind of first principles thinking is really important yeah but often times it people can kind of forget about the first principles and go straight to the technology I think that's where we that's where we lose the Enterprise conversation so we try to kind of roll it back yeah I think it's just because that's maybe the comfort zone of the IT world that we're talking in that they want to you want to leave it what you're comfortable saying with rather than maybe listening a little bit up front to then apply that technology terminology later on yeah yeah I remember early on you probably remember this early in the service nowadays too of when our customers in it saw what saw the efficiencies they were getting in it and started walking us into other parts of the business like HR was kind of one of the more prevalent ones and really it was the little nuances of just naming Convention of changing incident to case would completely revolutionize the way that the pitch would go through or the way that they would receive it because now you're talking in in their world you're talking in HR profile World worlds versus you know assigned to and little things like that just like you said the terminology is a little less important it's it's applying the structure of how to solve the problem in a way that made sense to that department so so much of that is the workflow of just framing it in the way that that the that part of the business talks and understands and then you know it's a little bit more more of a seamless solution from there familiar you feel familiar and we all have different ways of communicating in different aspects of you know Corporate America or corporate Global you know companies HR people tend to talk in HR ways that's okay it's okay yeah yeah yeah well in in an Ideal World if there is such a thing what would the perfect service Ops organization EMB body what would that look like is there such a thing I think no different than service now is always changing and continuously evolving all of the underlying business processes and and methods that we use need to kind of be doing the same thing so the foundation for me would be this continuous Evolution continuous service improvement yeah mindset right I didn't want to say continuous Improvement because it just it's I feel like I kind of gets a cliche yeah yeah I knowes improving sounds like something from 1990s did you just read it book I mean that's the kind of thing you get right sure you have to have a foundation of continuously evolving you kind of have to have this mindset of we're never totally done there's always something we can improve yeah and then service now's always given us more to work with so let's figure out how we're going to use that too that's a foundation uh quickly on that one what what do you because there's always so much more coming at customers out there and you know you're you're helping to to Steward some of this value sometimes it can be overwhelming are there things that you find successful in consuming all this Innovation that continues to come out each release and in the stores and all the stuff that you guys create in their store Everest group did a uh survey of their customers that use service now 2020 and one thing that stuck with me on that survey was they listed kind of five main things customers were struggling with right they were struggling with the licensing complexity things change right there's new SKS those new SKS bring value but they're new things maybe I don't know about those new things yet there was some concern about are the customers or Partners rather enabled to give us the full value across the platform sure there aren't a lot of Partners right now that are comprehensive all the way across right so there are some specialized Partners which are great kind of narrower and deeper there are some very large partners that are very Broad and then there's kind of everybody else right they also Express concerns with the lack of Industry Solutions and service now has been very aggressive since 2020 on industry Solutions absolutely yeah and they also expressed and this again customer voice not mine right these are people that were surveyed that are customers of service now they also expressed a uh desire to have you know the ecosystem have better information about what was coming next and service now does a really good job you know we're in your beta testing program we're a member of many of your partner advisory councils like you do a good job of telling us what's coming as you can you know to make those commitments but one of the struggles in being a partner is that just knowing the technology is is not our full value our full value is being consultative with that technology so we have to kind of build our own reps implicitly in that so that not only are we able to converse about the technology are we able to configure the new technology do we understand the data models or what have you in the new technology but we can actually advise in that new technology that's not what we spend a ton of time doing internally trying to get our team really tip of the spear oriented with the newest things AI is a great example of that I mean everybody's got to have some sort of something they can say intelligently about AI or you're going to get kicked out of the room right right board to CEO to CIO on down have directives to you know engage and transform the way they work with AI and you know we've got eight weeks in the field of selling Pro Plus and working with customer zeros and you know those types of things right so yeah you've got to get the Reps in to get to the newest things to help the customers really understand them so that they can begin to think about transforming with yeah it's almost kinesthetically learning it right getting getting involved getting your hands dirty getting familiar with the technology to be able to feel comfortable when you're out there helping your customers I think sometimes so I'm a partner right so I'm going to think about things as a partner but I think sometimes it's underestimated the consultative side of things and the value that that provides so 90% of the services that happen in the world happen with Partners right in it we've got established rigorous models for reference points of how incidents and problems and changes should operate and you know you can find uh himels and libraries full of that information right yeah Stacks upon Stacks service now for the better part of what 20 years now has been incrementing and improving based on customer feedback and those reference points in it so yeah that is true you know there's not a lot that last mile of configuration it's going to be a pretty short Mile in it but as we get outside of it right some of those data mod models are less progressed some of those industry reference points are not as prevalent or robust as they are in it order management is a great example order Management in Telco show me an industry reference point on that it's going to be OSS and BSS and those tools are 35 years old right not a great reference point not so much so in those aspects the consultative value of your partner that last mile is is a is a much bigger Chasm yeah and the demand and the load on the partners is much more significant the way we approach those problems have to be different too sure yep perfectly put well thank you yeah any final thoughts any last thing that uh you'd like to share about how to find out more about what you guys are building and about maybe what you're thinking about for futures yeah so we're trying to skate to where the puck is where it's going to be yeah for us it's uh it's it's continuing to harmonize our two companies together into into one made a lot of progress on that and it's beginning to really attach the industry needs to service now in a meaningful way uh through the cognizant landscape I think customers are really on for that and over the next two to three years yes Ai and the emerging Technologies are going to be profound um we need to work with those but even more profound is making sure that we're getting out of it we're going across the Enterprise we're stitching together meaningful workflows and great experiences that are intuitive and highly adoptable and generate a measurable business value and that we're reaching strongly into industry with a firm point of view so we're not speculating on what we think those Industries need with servic now but we're projecting and being intentional with the value we bring so those are the things I'm uh spending a lot of time on at the nights in the mornings in the in the evenings what would you give what advice would you give to that it indiv idual that's looking to be the Catalyst of change in their work to Branch outside of just maybe their it mindset to say hey I I actually see the value of what this platform and multiple interconnected platforms could provide to my entire organization I'm going to bet big on it what would you advise them well you'll never go wrong betting on service now right you just won't it's a dominant tool and it's going to be the dominant tool for a long long time mhm it's a great product or Suite of products increasingly data models and platforms are converging and you have to think about okay where are they going to converge service now is the market leader in it so the DNA the blueprint of the Enterprise the digital Enterprise sits in service now for the most of the corporations in the world that's a great place to start from in transforming the way people work so you've got a lot to work with and there's going to be more coming you know to to help improve that through AI or otherwise so I'd say you know start there learn to speak the language of the business yeah right that's pivotal that's just huge um because when you do that you're going to learn that that a lot of the challenges and the problems and the issues and the opportunities are more of a linguistical gap than they are a uh an actual software Gap or configuration Gap right perfect thank you so much yeah thanks Spencer yeah I appreciate you Jason this has been very enlightening it's uh super valuable to get all your knowledge and your background and I look forward to fourth era if it ends up happening you know I get that question a lot is that do you have this domain name I don't I didn't register that one okay Ser meow it is Ser meow Ser meow it is meow perfect thanks again and thank you to all our listeners out there please subscribe if you like this episode and send it to your friends listen to another episode of innovation Today podcast [Music]