 Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering ServiceNow, Knowledge 17. Brought to you by ServiceNow. Hi everybody, we're back. This is theCUBE and we're live from Knowledge 17. I'm Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. Michael D'Polito, did I say that right? D'Polito, sorry about that. A fellow Italian, I should get that right. D'Polito is Assistant Vice President of Run Services Delivery Infrastructure and Operations for Nationwide. Insurance Nationwide is on your side. It's on your side, absolutely. It's in our heads, right? What a great marketing campaign. Michael, great to see you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thank you, thanks for having me. So how's knowledge going for you? Very good, very good. I'm really excited about some of the new things coming out with the newest release that was just announced this morning. And as a matter of fact, I'm ready to go back and say, let's jump to that version, right? Because it sounds really exciting. So actually, where are you now right now? Which version you on? We are on the Hill Sink release now. So we usually like to jump a couple and stay as current as we can. Usually, one release behind maybe. But if we find there's good functionality and jumping one, we'll do it. Oh, I want to come back and talk about that because we like to pick your brains about what's the best practice there. But before we do, maybe set up your role at Nationwide. Yeah, Run Services is a pretty large organization for Nationwide through acquisitions and through our legacy environments. We have lots of application systems. And keeping all those running is a monumental task. And so our group is kind of sitting mainly in the middle of the applications, the infrastructure, the process, and trying to help everything stay running smoothly. Okay, and you started with IT service management, change management, like most customers, is that right? And then you've been evolving that tend you talk about that? Yeah, we just implemented about a year ago, actually. We just installed a year ago. We went with the Fuji release when we implemented, then we've already jumped to Helsinki. And we pretty much went all processes all at once and kind of a big bang. We actually did asset management first as a little bit of a pilot, but then we actually went through all the other ITSM functionality, big bang after that. Okay, so you're all in. So what was life like, give us a before and after and maybe take us through the business case and how that all came out? I'll give you a perfect example. I just kind of did an after action review for our senior management. On our previous platform, which was an on-prem heavily customized platform, to take a release would require a year and a half with a lot of planning and about a million dollars. To do an upgrade. To do an upgrade. This last release to Helsinki, went about six weeks and about a hundred thousand dollars. So that's a huge business case right there. And being able to be in the cloud, not having to worry about the infrastructure ourselves. And really we drove a model of zero customization. So we wanted to stay out of box as much as possible, just for that reason. So we can take releases fast and stay current. Wow, sure to pay benefits. In the was situation, the cost was predominantly people cost, programming cost, license cost, maintenance, consultants. It was mostly hours of effort. The amount of customization we had and then to retrofit and test all those changes back into the release from the vendor was a monumental task. And we never wanted to get into that situation again. And so with the service now upgrade, it's not out of pocket cost as much. You're quantifying time, is that correct? Correct, it's mostly our internal cost. And the time it, you said the time it took was a year and a half, and then like a typical upgrade in the service now is... It's less than two months. For us to bring it in, test it, exercise it, making sure all our customizations or configurations actually I should say are working well. And a lot of it's more of just the change management around it, putting out the word, the communications, doing a little bit of training, whatever it takes to get ready for a smooth launch. And some of the upfront planning of that as well. Now, when we talk to customers, there seems to be, we heard today that 90% of the customers are adopting service catalog. CMDB, I don't know, it's mixed, right? We hear some, yes, some, no, maybe tell us your experiences. We have a huge focus on CMDB right now. We think that CMDB is basically the foundation to all your other processes to run more smoothly, right? So good trustworthy data enables faster incident resolution, better problem solving, more rigorous change management, so you assess your risk of change better. So really, when we sold our CMDB project, we didn't sell it based on the CMDB. We sold it based on all those other things and that get a ramp off of it, you know, from doing that effort. So we're putting a lot of time and effort on CMDB maturity. So you were talking before about some of the things you saw today in Jakarta that were of interest. Before we go there, I just, you had mentioned you went, you started with Fuji and now you're on Helsinki. What was the, you didn't double leapfrog, did you or did you? What's your upgrade strategy? You said you might be an N minus one, but you like to stay pretty current. What's your strategy with regard to upgrade? Right now we're looking at trying to be N minus one and taking two per year. So looking at two releases a year, we're trying to plan our schedules around maybe, you know, spring and fall. So we organize our work and our patterns around that, but something like that. We haven't really solidified that yet. A lot of it depends on what we see coming up and what we could take advantage of. Like for example, we're getting ready to implement workday and we wanna make sure we have a great integration between workday and service now. Some of the things that Jakarta actually is going to offer us will integrate nicely into workday. So, you know, we may jump to that version because of that. So we heard this morning that the big things, well CJ set up the big things in Jakarta were going to be performance. Obviously everybody wants better performance. Maybe some UX stuff in there too. Vendor risk management and then software asset management which got the big cheers and the woo hoo. And yeah, I mean, so what in Jakarta is appealing to you? The software asset management I'd say is very interesting because we're looking at that really closely right now and in terms of our strategy around that. The other one I really like is the performance analytics and the predictive analytics that are coming out. I would really love to be able to benchmark ourselves against other companies in terms of how we're doing. I feel we beat ourselves up a lot internally around things like availability or performance. But then when I look and talk to others, we're not so bad. We're actually doing pretty good. So it'd be nice to get that benchmarking and some of that trend analysis that's offered. And then finally, you know, how do we get into a more predictive analytics mode where we can prevent incidents from happening before they do. So that's key. It was interesting listening to Farrell Hough this morning talk about sort of the evolution of automation. How do you look at automation? You know, some shops are afraid of automation, but it seems like the service now customers that we talk to really can't go fast enough. What's your thought and how are you evolving automation? Well, one of our key drivers right now is how do we increase the speed of delivery to the marketplace? But we also have to stay safe and reliable, right? And the key to speed is through automation. You can't really get that speed if you're not highly automated. And to be highly automated, you need really high trustworthy data. So that enables fast decision making and accuracy. And that's back to your CMDB commitment. Exactly. So that all entail, enable speed, which we really want because in today's world, speed is everything in terms of how you're constantly adapting your systems of engagement out there with your customers, constantly learning from their patterns and adjusting on the fly. And that requires new mindsets. So you start with IT service management. You've got HR as well, is that right? We don't have the HR model. Now we're only IT service management. Okay, straight IT service management. But we're looking at other modules as we speak. Okay, so you want to make sure you get the value out of the initial IT SM. And then how do you see that evolving? What is a conversation like internally? Did the business line say, wow, all of a sudden we're getting improved service and how are you doing that? Or is it more of a push you go out to the business and say, hey, here's some ideas. How does that all work? Yeah, I tell you what we're really starting to see is a really change in what's driving innovation. And it's more coming from IT versus the former models of where IT was kind of almost like the order taker and the business came up with everything they needed. Now with the pace of change with technology, new business models are coming from IT to the business. And we're actually almost seeing ourselves more of an IT company than we are an insurance company. And you're starting to see those patterns, especially with things like, now we're talking about metered insurance for auto. So basically, pay by the mile insurance versus paying the same rate for six months. With the data we're getting out of vehicles today, we can adjust your rates on the fly as you drive. Why should you pay the same rate if your car sits in the garage all weekend versus you take it out and drive at 200 miles? So with the kind of data, big data and analytics that are coming from the vehicles, we can do that now. So how is that conversation taking place? Is it being initiated by somebody in the IT staff that says, hey, did you know that we have this data and we can do this? That's taken it to the business unit? Or is the business unit saying, I just saw flow, the competitors taking the little thing in the dashboard, can we do that too? I mean, there's a lot of talk about IT taking a seat at the business table, but how have you seen it actually been executed? It's like, it's interesting. The line is the lines are very blurry now between IT and the business. So almost where we're just a team working together versus the silos that you used to have and throwing the ideas over the fence. So we actually have a team that, their goal is strategy and innovation. They report up through our CIO and then business line teams have similar organizations and they all work in a matrix fashion together. So anybody could bring any type of idea to the table, regardless of who you report up through and we take those into consideration and we look for partners. We've got partners coming to us all the time that wanna join us in innovation. And so it doesn't have to be our own solution. It could just be us on the back end of somebody else's front end, right? So there's a lot of interesting ideas coming at us. What's happening in the business, Mike? I mean, you've got, obviously you're supporting, the big systems are claims, your agent systems, but mobile has exploded onto the scene. How has that affected you? What are some of the drivers in the insurance business these days? Well, definitely we're in this digital world now. So mobile first is critical. Everything has to be mobile enabled. We have to think of our strategy in a digital way constantly. So we have a whole digital strategy that we work on. The traditional models of agency sold insurance won't really ever go away per se, but they are shrinking. You see the demands and needs of the millennials coming up very differently and changing. You have to compete on price to get in the door. That's important. So again, we're trying to find all those interaction or intercept points with our customers as they need us. People don't really like to think of insurance. It's not on top of mind in their day-to-day life, but when certain events happen like, oh, I'm going to get married or I'm going to take a trip or those kinds of things. Hit turn 16. Yeah, we have different ways to interact with our customers and then offer some solutions that meet their need at the time. Well, it seems like you're right. To be competitive, you've got to have the right price for those that say, OK, I've got to get insurance. I need to start somewhere great. But are you able to, as an industry, sell value? I mean, increasingly you're seeing some companies. I would say nationwide is one where you're selling value. Is that a trend in business? Absolutely. I'll give you an example. One of the things that normally the insurance model used to be, I buy insurance and I'm protected when something bad happens. Then when something bad happens, you compensate me. You pay my claim. What about if we can help you prevent the bad thing from even happening? So with products like our smart home package that you can buy now, with Internet of Things, we can put sensors on those hot water tanks or on those pipes or connected to your alarm system so that maybe we could alert you when we see your pipes about to break. Right. And so we cover, as you know, our audience, we cover big data a lot. And the data business and the insurance business have just come mashing together. I mean, you had mentioned before, Mike, in many regards, you're becoming an IT company. And digitization is all about data. And the data allows you guys to build new products, to offer new services, to be more competitive. And at the end of the day, it's all about speed. Correct. Speed. And then that helps drive that value equation, right? So it's not so much being the lowest price, although you have to have a good price to be in the game. But then after that, how can you provide that value? So I'm curious, Mike, from the insurance point of view, where before the business was based on, you know, you didn't have so much data, right? So you kind of had some big swaths, age, sex, smoker, not smoker. But now as you're able to get data to the individual level, how that changes the way you look at it. Because it's very different than just kind of aggregating to the bulk. And then the poor unfortunate soul that has a car wreck, you know, you pay the claim. But now, like you said, you know if I'm driving on the weekends or if I'm parking my car, how does that really shape in the way you guys look at the marketplace and the opportunities? Well, you know, in the old days, you used to be able to take basically a subset of data from the past and make your decisions based on that. A subset of data from the past, I love that. Now you're taking all the data in real time. From real time. So that puts more demands on the need for the technologies to provide that. So it's critical. Like especially if we're going to change your rates daily on how you, how we ensure your car, we have to have all the data all the time. I remember Abhi met one of our early big data, you know, cube interviews. He made the statement in 2010. He said, sampling is dead. And now some people will debate that, but the point he was making is just the same one you made, just made, Michael, is that you've got that data coming in, it's streaming in in real time. There's, some consumers are, you know, have an issue with, you know, sticking that little meter in their car. But ultimately that's the trend. I mean, it's going to happen. And you know what we're seeing? And you're probably seeing it in other businesses as well. If you can provide that value, customers will give you the access and the data because they see a value in return. So it's that value equation. If it's good enough, they'll give you the value. They'll give you the data. And you see it every day in mobile apps, right? I mean, you know, you're in New York City trying to get somewhere. It's like turn on location services and I can help you. When you download any app, there's a big screen that comes up and you say I accept on the bottom. And that has access to your pictures, access to your location. And you're free to hit that accept because you see the value in that application. It's a quid pro quo. You know, it's interesting we had the author on yesterday, Daniel Pink. Pink, Mr. Pink, yes. And he was pointing out, he said, look, it used to be that the brand had all the information. And now there's parity in information. But in many regards, this whole digitization is an attempt by the brand to provide, to use more data and give the consumers more value and to create differentiation in the marketplace. And that's kind of what you're describing in your business. Last question. What's on Service Now's to-do list? What do you want to see for a year and a year and a half in? What do you want to see? Well, after we implemented, we partnered with Service Now in a project they call Inspire. And basically it's to what are we going to do next? You know, that very question. How do we leverage now what we've implemented and take advantage of what the platform has to offer? We see lots of opportunities. As a matter of fact, our list is so long we just don't have the pain with the do-it-all and we have to prioritize. But we see a lot of integration points. We see a lot of APIs coming in. We are in a kind of a really big phase in automation right now where we're trying to automate as much as possible. So for our on-prem technology, we really want to go into automated provisioning of our assets, which means being able to connect those into the CMDB as they're provisioned all automatically. And we want to really shorten those cycle times for when we have to provision infrastructure and support our applications. So Service Now is setting us up to do just that. Inspire is a great program. It's one of the best freebies in the business and it leads, it's a win-win. The customer gets the best experts, they come in and obviously the hope is that you're going to buy more stuff from Service Now. But if the value is there, you will. Why not? It's going to drive to the bottom line. Using cloud to provision on-prem resources. Mike, thanks very much for coming to theCUBE. It was really a pleasure having you. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. All right, keep it right there, everybody. We'll be back with our next guest. Right after this short break, this is theCUBE, we're live from Knowledge. Right back.