 ServiceNow Knowledge 14 is sponsored by ServiceNow. Here are your hosts, Dave Vellante and Jeff Frick. Back at ServiceNow Knowledge 14. This is Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. Adil Ahmed is here, he's the director of information architecture and knowledge systems at Bristow. Bristow is a $1.5 billion company that provides offshore helicopter transport services. So probably not something that you all are necessarily dialing up, but critical for a lot of industries, particularly the energy sector. So welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Tell us a little bit more about Bristow, very kind of unique business. Yeah, it is a unique business. It really lies at the intersection of oil and gas and helicopter aviation basically. So we have three lines of business, right? We transport people from onshore locations to offshore rigs. So we help keep those rigs running by transporting people. We also do search and rescue operations. So when incidents happen, people either fall in the water or even for governments, we provide Coast Guard rescue services. And then finally we train pilots. So we have the largest academy in the world to train helicopter pilots all over the world. How big is the fleet to give people a sense of scope? The fleet is roughly about 320 helicopters on most days. And it changes based on where we're operating. But it's probably the world's largest fleet of helicopters. Countries are maybe continents is the better measure. So we operate somewhere close to 60 locations worldwide. Many of these locations are very remote. So we operate in places where there's nothing for miles and miles, except for operating base that we transport people out of. And 23 countries. 23 countries. It's a global operations, lots of places, lots of movement of crew and helicopters across the world. So big assets. Tell us about your IT environment. It may paint a picture for us if you could. Sure. Our IT environment right now is really in the midst of a transformation. In 2011, there was a decision made to position the IT department to sustain growth or to essentially enable growth within the company. And as a result of that, we took on three different transformation projects. Two of them were really related to how our flight operations are handled. One of them about how ERP systems are deployed. And really the one that's relevant to this conference is the one around infrastructure. So it's about putting in a framework that allows IT to deliver services in a consistent manner to the business. So as a result of those transformation projects, we are in the middle, right in the middle of transforming IT and consequently transforming the business and how we operate. So we are redesigning processes around our flight operations, around finance, around maintenance and repair, which is a key part of our business. And then in the back office for IT, all of our service management processes are being redesigned as well, for have been redesigned at least in the last 18 months or so. So a lot of customers going through that transformation, they'll start with the consolidation exercise, right? Absolutely. So is that where you started or are starting? In fact, that was the first phase of our transformation. The idea was to consolidate our IT assets, our IT infrastructure and IT services into a single organization. Historically, as a result of our legacy, we were operating as essentially independent companies with an IT. And in 2011, when we had our new CIO brought into the company, we're currently in the company, one of our goals was to consolidate that. And the reason being that if you are not unable to consolidate and manage from one place, it's really difficult to implement global processes. We are a global organization. We fly helicopters out of 23 different countries. In order to have consistent processes and in order to sustain the growth, it was imperative for us to consolidate. And I think our service management approach was really helped in that as well because it really gave IT the language to talk about processes and gave us the tools to bring to the table in terms of consolidation. So it allows you, you say consistency, it allows you to create standards that you could adopt throughout the organization. Is that, are you there yet? It is, it is, you know, we are working towards that goal. I would say that, you know, standardization is not necessarily a automatic outcome of consolidation. When you have to work towards it. I mean, you know, in the sense that you can consolidate but still be operating in different ways across the globe. So it has to be a conscious effort. And I think we've made, we've gone a long way in that effort. Things like governance structures, you know, putting in reference architectures, these things help in working towards standardization in conjunction with consolidation. And, okay, so you're in the process of standardization now, putting in those reference architectures, sort of defining those? In many areas we have already done so. So for instance, in the area of service management, in the area of knowledge management, we've put in a lot of work in place to, you know, to standardize our processes, to standardize our reference architectures. In other areas, we still have some way to go. So for instance, in the area of program management, we've made some organizational decisions, you know, in terms of recruiting the right people, but we have some way to go in terms of standardizing those processes across the board. Okay, and so that's sort of, if I had to paint a journey picture, so you can consolidate, you're now going through the standardization process. That's right. And sort of what's next, is it automation, is it? So the way we think about it is, you consolidate, you get everything under a central umbrella, and then you have to really manage those services. You have to produce the things that need to, you know, that need to be there to produce services. And subsequent to that, you optimize. So really, right now we are in the service management phase, where we define those services, and then manage them, baseline them, and then subsequent to that, we would look at optimization. And that we're looking at, let's say in between two to three to five years roadmap. Okay, and then obviously the value increases the further to the right you go. That's right. Okay, now, I want to talk about this notion, we've heard a lot about the single system of record, and the single CMDB, is that obviously going to be a presumed part of the vision? Do you have a single CMDB? Do you have a single system of record? Or is it a series of single systems of record? So, you know, as an enterprise as a whole, we definitely acknowledge the importance of system of single records, and there's lots of benefits to that. We don't have a single CMDB at this point, and we are working towards that. That's one of the projects on our roadmap in the next three to six months. But even if you go beyond the CMDB, you have to really, the value of a single system of record is around having one version of the truth. So for instance, in our case, when we fly helicopters, that asset impacts our flight operations, it impacts our maintenance organization, it impacts the financing and invoicing around those services. Now, if we don't have single system of records for, for instance, that type of data, it becomes very difficult to make good decisions. And this really comes into play when we talk about business intelligence, because that's really the space where information from these various platforms comes together to help inform strategic decisions. So absolutely, it is critical to have single systems of record. One of the things they were doing in that space is essentially approaching our master data management program. So we are putting in a program to develop a process and a framework to address master data management. And the idea being as a result of that, one of the objectives is to identify where the system of records reside for various entities in the organization. What about data quality? Where does that fit in this whole initiative? I mean, from a master data perspective, data quality is one of the outcomes of the program, or one of the desired outcomes of the program because in order to have an effective framework for master data management, you have to address data quality as well. It goes back to decision-making. If you don't have good data to begin with, your decision-making is not going to be accurate or reliable and could be challenged in certain cases. So how do you achieve that data quality? Do you have, I mean, organizationally, do you have a data czar? Do you have a chief data officer? Is it the, who owns that challenge? So we do, we've, as I said, we've made some recent decisions to basically add, recruit a few people in that, in those types of roles. There's not necessarily data czar role, but we recruited a manager for master data management to help address that thing. And the remit there is to develop a framework that we can then use to address quality issues. Now there are lots of things that you can do to address quality. Some of it is the day-to-day processes through which data is manipulated within systems. And some of it is recurring checks and balances, where you go back to various systems and system owners and data architects and figure out, you know, are we really consistent when we talk about helicopters or when we talk about our customers? Are we referencing the same data across our platforms? Now, talk about how you interact with the business. And I'm interested in what role service now plays in that interaction and how that may have changed over time. You know, so often you hear the story of, oh, IT and business are not aligned and the relationship is not great. Was that the situation at your organization? And did service now change that? And how do you interact with the business today? I mean, you know, when we started with our transformation journey, one of the things that was evident was our IT organization was much more of a support organization. We were really focused on keeping the lights on at that time. Throughout the last 18 months or so, there have been things, organization structures that are put in place so that we can have a better engagement model with the business. So some examples of that would be, you know, recruiting people who can then interact with our CFO or the chief accounting officer. Recruiting people with deep experience in the maintenance organization. We actually brought in several people from the fixed wing airline world who are specialists in the area of maintenance and overhaul. So that they can take that knowledge that they've learned in those organizations and essentially use that to help our maintenance organizations. So in that sense, we've taken some big strides in engaging, setting up an engagement model with the business itself. And I think it's one of the things that started with was the recruitment of our CEO who essentially helped facilitate that process. So in that sense, you know, we've come a long way in defining engagement model with the business and actually, you know, getting really engaged with the business. And that is absolutely critical to run these transformation projects, you know. If you're putting in an ERP system, you need to have somebody who can work with the business in defining processes and then working through the implementations. What did you just say? If I'm hearing you correctly, it's much more the people and the process than it is the technology and the tool. Is that a fair assessment or am I understating the importance of the tool? I think it starts with the process and the strategy. But the tool is very important as well. So let's take the example of service now as a platform for service management. One of the things that it's really helped us in is how users, employees and our organizations engage with the service organizations. I'll give you an example. When we started with service management for IT, we developed a framework that was scalable. The idea being that if other service organizations in the company wanted to get onboarded onto the same framework, they could do so pretty easily. And in the last 18 months, we've enabled the service now platform as a service management tool for our fleet support organization, for our human resources organization as well as our facilities management organization. So when an employee goes out to our service desk to request services, whether it's from IT, whether it's from fleet support, whether it's from human resources, they get to see the same predictable experience from a tool perspective. So the tool is certainly very important in the process as well. You just answered my question. I was going to say with a big theme that we've heard over and over here again it was IT services management. Now just drop the IT at services management and the tool is really good for that. And I was going to say, have you seen that in your organization? And it sounds like it certainly has. In our organization, when we first launched the service desk, we actually did not brand it as an IT service desk to begin with. It was done for IT to begin with, but we launched it as the Bristol service desk. The idea being that it is an umbrella for any service organization to come onboard and provide services through the tool. How did you take that tack? Did the new CIO have experience with the tool? Was there someone else that came in that had experience with the tool? Did you just, you went to the show and you saw the, you bought the vision? How did you get to that point? To some extent, the conversation around enterprise service management had already started a couple of years ago. So some of the input came from that. But I think a lot of it also has to do with past experiences. I've been in organizations in the past where a service desk was implemented for IT and then HR wanted to do something similar. But they went about choosing a different tool or they went about a completely different process. So in our case, it was a way to preempt the service desk umbrella for the enterprise as opposed to just starting with IT. And you knew that from the beginning? We had a sense that yes, we wanted to go about that way. I'll say that a lot of the growth was organic in the sense that once we launched the service desk for IT, there was demand from other service organizations to get onboarded onto the same platform because they saw value out of the system itself. That's great. Adia, we're out of time, but a last question. And you may not have a great answer because you're still adopting, but what could service now do, the one thing they could do to make your life better? You know, I think there are several things that are already working on. Some of the things we saw in the keynote today were quite impressive. So for instance, for me, one of the challenges that we face is around user experience and user interface. I think there's some need there to simplify the user interface, make it more modern and more intuitive. That is one of the complaints that we get from our support organization, because there's a lot of stuff happening in the system on a single screen. So maybe adopting more of the modern principles around user interface and design, and that is something that was showcased in today's keynote as well. I think that to me is probably the number one area of improvement. So what you saw today in the Eureka demo when they were showing us a little glimpse, is that do it for you? Is that sort of the direction that you want to see? I like the direction that they're going in. It makes a lot of sense to simplify. It makes a lot of sense to make it more intuitive for the users to use, certainly. Excellent. All right, well thank you very much. We'll have to leave it there. I appreciate you coming on theCUBE. Thank you. It's great to have you. All right, keep it right there, everybody. Jeff Frick and I will be back. We're live here at Moscone. This is ServiceNow Knowledge 14 and this is theCUBE.