 ServiceNow Knowledge 14 is sponsored by ServiceNow. Here are your hosts, Dave Vellante and Jeff Frick. We're back, this is Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. This is Silicon Angles theCUBE. We're here at Moscone West and we'll be here all week covering Knowledge 14 wall-to-wall. Chris Pope is here. He's with the office of the CSO at ServiceNow. Welcome back to theCUBE. Good to see you again. Thanks, thanks for coming guys. Good to be here. Chris is here, but they want it. Everybody wants to take a look at the now guys. We got a photo bomb. Don't call them M&M's, whatever you do. Welcome back to theCUBE. You guys are cube belongs, right? They're cube belongs, right? We're wondering if Beth is in one of there because last time we saw the now guys, but Beth was with us, so. Beth, hopefully you're not working too hard in there. So Chris, I got to ask you, so we cover a lot of big data shows and we joke that with big data and all this data explosion, we're further away from a single version of the truth than we've ever been. You guys are sort of counter to that, right? Bringing a single version of the truth, single system of record. I mean, it is your raison d'etre and what you bring to the table. So I wonder if you could talk about that as a concept, why it's important, why it's so fundamental to your strategy. So I think if you go back to the days of when the platform came around and what it means, bringing all these IT processes, solutions, technologies together, IT's been very siloed over time. And really when you look at everything is enterprise service management. It's a request, it's fulfilled, it's tracking, it's analytics. How do you bring all that together? And too often, all these departments need to work together, whether you like it or not or what the reporting structure is. So the more they come together, work together and have that kind of single system of record, the more efficient they get, the service gets fulfilled. And if you think about things like we talked about this morning, delivering a book from Amazon, there's probably a thousand things in the background. It's a book at the end of the day and it gets delivered. So why is requesting technology, infrastructure, IT or phone any different? It's just internal and your actual span of control is a lot greater, but having everyone in a single system makes it a lot easier to fulfill. Now, politically within a lot of organizations achieving that single system of record is very hard because you got data all over the place in silos. How do you guys approach it? Do you go in and say, hey, you really should move to a single CMDB or do you sort of put it in and let the organic nature of your product take care of itself? I think there's a couple of different approaches. CMDB typically, if you talk to anyone now, there is hard, right? And a lot of it is usually the five terms that need to break down because it's my data, it's my server, it's don't come near my stuff. I don't trust you in number one. But the other side of it is what we've seen a lot of success is we start small and grow it and prove the success and then make that a repeatable scalable model. And we saw in the keynote this morning, the one variable that's everywhere is people. And if you really want to break something, put a person in the middle of the process, right? So it's that kind of things. And once you figure that out of what problem you want to solve, you can then go on and automate it. Too often we see people trying to automate day one. And really what it does is helps you fail a lot faster than you ever did. So if you figure that out, what you want to solve and then the technology as we've seen, right? We figured out the technology and the how and the heavy lifting, now it's around what do you want to do with it and how do we bring those groups of people together? And we, you know, from whether you're a smaller customer with maybe 5,000 servers in your data center to the massives, right? With the tens to the hundreds of thousands, proving it right and then like giving it the ability to scale through automation is absolutely key. But talk a little bit though, because now you're actually elevating the people in the process because you want them to build their own applications. Now we're hearing it's, you know, a system of engagement. That's not necessarily just a system of records. So how does taking people out of the process and simultaneously empowering them to do more? How does that work? And I think a lot of the time that process, right? If you look at anyone that deploys an app, you're waiting for infrastructure, you're waiting for the storage guy, your database is to be deployed. We're literally saying, hey, go, you know, hit here, create new, you can start building your app. And if you look across the enterprise, 80, 90% of what they actually do is forms-based workflow, right? It's a request, it needs data, and then you can drive consistency and automation with that common data set. And then it becomes a lot easier to do. And you don't need to be a programmer. And the technology changes so often anyway, how can anyone even keep up, right? I mean, you guys see this all the time. And really what we're saying is we've got the data, we've got the people, we've got the data models, we've now got the taxonomy, what do you wanna build, right? We've done all the how pieces. Too often it was almost the other way, you know, where 80% of it was very undefined and 20% was, well, you could use this, but you know what, things have moved on, go buy something different. We're flipping that model and saying, we've done all the how work, the heavy lifting, because all those core components are there that you need. What problems are you gonna go and solve with our technology now? And then the people are focusing on actually solving the problem. Not is it Oracle versus SQL versus what database versus what storage, what virtual platform? That's just kind of out of the question now. So the people are almost up and above the data center now. You could argue in the cloud, right? Because they're not worrying about all that tin and iron anymore, that used to be a big driver of their projects. So summarize the best practice of the journey that you're recommending with customers here. Some customers are saying, try to automate too fast and oops, let's pull back a little bit. Other customers saying, well, I don't really want to automate. Yeah, I'm afraid, whatever. We might be, I'm afraid I'll lose my job or I don't really see the business value, whatever. So what's the steps that you recommend on that journey? I think what I tend to go back to, I do a lot of work with customers on whiteboards. Take the technology out of it initially, or sticky notes, whatever you want to use, and plan it out. And if you can then do that, it can then be repeatable. Too often times people say, oh, it's too complicated, you can never write it down. Well, what hope of you ever got it to work, let alone automate the thing, right? You can't write it down. So there's a lot of activity there and it's really focusing on, just because you can solve it this way doesn't mean you should, right? It's like with seem to be in discovery, just because you can discover something doesn't mean you should, right? It's not that serious, so yeah. So really focus on what we need to do and what the value we want and then what technology is gonna help us deliver that solution. And then nine times out of 10, we are that solution. But we have so many partners, if you've seen here, it augments what we already do. So it's a very kind of step-by-stop methodical approach and then the technology's there and ready, waiting to kind of consume that process on the piece. So what information do I need as a prospect, you know, perspective customer, new customer, to be successful? Do I need to document my business processes, my application portfolio, my inventory of assets, all of the above, what else do I need? Yeah, so I mean, there's frameworks, right? ITL, ITSM, all those kind of good things are out there. And they're good fits for many organizations, but many organizations have their own processes. That's absolutely fine. The key is having them consistently written down and understanding what they are. And then along that process, you almost deconstruct it to say, what can we automate or what could get in the way of this being kind of the happy path to delivery, if you will. A lot of organizations don't know what assets they have, right? Often they'll sit on the finance side of the house because they came through procurement. But in terms of, you know, your machine, who knows, with consumerization and BYOD, I can pretty much bring in and out any device I want now. So it's really, you know, what are those table stakes? And then if they don't have them, you know, we have many complimentary apps and services that help us get the information we need. But you still have to ask the question, once you have the data, what do you want to do with it? Right? Having it is one thing. And then there's a whole data quality aspect to it of, can you even trust it? And if you're going to trust it, can you drive automation? If not, it's just going to repeat a big fail. So how do you deal with the folks in IT who say, okay, I think I can get my hands around this. And I can go around the organization and hunt and pack and get this information. But I need to get buy-in from X, from somebody. Who is that somebody? And how do you see organizations facilitating that buy-in? Yeah, I think a lot of the early success we've seen is because if you actually engage the people that have to fulfill the process, right? Too often you see PMOs or larger organizations on the side kind of driving projects, but they don't have a vested interest in the successful outcome because it's not their daily job. Whereas we've seen heads of service desks, service owners absolutely engaged in defining, say, incident or change management because they have a team of people under them who have to deliver that daily as part of an IT service. So they kind of have that carrot and stick approach that yeah, we're going to do something cool and new, but I've got to be kind of to my constituents or my people that we deliver something that makes sense and gives them the efficiencies to deliver their jobs. And then where we've seen it been really successful is start smaller, pick someone who typically has a noisy process or a very high volume, prove the model works, and then grow it, right? And prove the scale works. And as you get bigger and wider, you then bring in the automation piece because you're not going to get 300 new headcount next year, right? So how do you start to do what you do more repeatable? And then that whole shift left concept of level three to level zero, self-service automation. I mean, we saw that this morning in the keynotes, the more you can self-service and automate, the better and the more people are likely to use it. So is there some internal resistance, just kind of natural coming out of the gate that the more I automate, the less they need me around here? And how are people quick to kind of realize the value out opportunity that's in front of them? How does that really work out in the real world? That kind of model shifted because 10, 15 years ago, that meant outsourcing. And everyone was scared because they were going to lose their jobs and all that good stuff. Now we're trying to shift the focus to say, well, go and deliver value added tasks. You know, password resets, whether they're complex or not, you could argue, there's no real value add. And when I'm on social media or wherever, I can reset my password myself. So why do I need to call someone to do that? And it's more like, hey, rather than you being service desk analyst, you're now business application analyst, solving real business problems, you're intimate with the business, what they do, how they use the technology, not just almost like a dispatch service of logging password resets or whatever it may be. So you really have to focus those people into the more value add tasks and simple things like provisioning virtual machines, right? You saw live on stage, we did it in about 20 seconds this morning. You know, that used to be weeks of work. And in some customers, that's still a significant amount of time. But what's the value of someone pressing the button? There isn't one. And if it's a standard data model with taxonomy, as we've seen, go provision it because we've already approved it and we know what it is, so let it go. Whereas go and focus on that 20% that's unpredictable or undefined, that's the value add work and hopefully over time you drive that out of the organization too. So let's end on service now strategy, sort of where we started. If I had a summarize services now strategy, I would start with sort of the why, you know, the old Simon Sinek, don't buy what you do, buy why you do it. But your why to me is you're trying to help organizations turn IT from a cost center into a value producer. Finish that. And what is your, how do you summarize the service now strategy? So I think, you know, IT was often seen as this cost center as you said, right? Over time, now we're actually, we're at that table, right? We're a value added partner to every other line of business and we operate as a business. And I think what we're doing with service now is elevating those people up to have the table stakes at there and have that conversation. But say, look, not just, you know, IT's in the way of a project, et cetera, but let's give IT the tools to be successful and have credibility at the table to say, look, here's all the great things we've done, how we've supported the business, kept the lights on, and here's how we're an innovation partner as well to drive revenue growth rather than just be in the cost center. And just one follow up. Are there too many tools in IT? And are you a part of your mission to sort of consolidate that tool creep? I mean, geeks love tools, right? They love shiny new things and just look at phones, right? We change them so often. A fool with a tool. Exactly, yeah, it's still a fool. But, you know, we see that a lot and if it's going to address an absolute need then it makes sense and then, you know, you go with that. But really, we focus on the how and the shiny objects. If we actually focus on the what, you realize you've probably already got some technology that does it already. Or, you know what, it's a rip and replace, it's something that new. But we're too often to say how we're going to solve the problem versus what problem we're actually going to solve. Excellent, Chris. Well, thanks very much again for coming on theCUBE. Thank you for your time. It was great to see you again. Thanks guys. All right, keep it right there. We'll be back with our next guest. We're live at Moscone West. This is theCUBE.