What is ServiceNow?

Summary

ServiceNowSimple's video offers a comprehensive introduction to ServiceNow, a cloud-based IT management platform. Founded by Fred Luddy in 2003, ServiceNow aims to simplify IT processes for businesses, enabling them to solve problems efficiently. The video delves into the company's history, its recognition as a top workplace, and its innovative approach to IT services. It explains the NOW Platform's capabilities, including its robust infrastructure, security, and customizable workflows, all designed to empower business users. With global offices and a commitment to innovation, ServiceNow redefines IT as a service, not just an expense.

Takeaways

• 😀 ServiceNow is a platform designed to simplify IT processes for businesses, making it user-friendly and intuitive.
• 🏆 ServiceNow has been recognized as a top workplace and has a reputation for innovation and being admired in the industry.
• 👥 The company is made up of over 17,000 employees globally and is led by CEO Bill McDermott, with Fred Luddy as the founder and chairman.
• 💡 Fred Luddy's motivation for founding ServiceNow was to address the frustration businesspeople felt when dealing with IT departments, aiming to make IT services more accessible and efficient.
• 🚀 ServiceNow started in 2003 as GlideSoft and rebranded in 2006, going public in 2012 and being named the most innovative company by Forbes in 2018.
• 🌐 The NOW Platform is a cloud-based APaaS that provides the necessary infrastructure, applications, and workflows for business IT needs.
• 🛡️ ServiceNow includes robust security measures, redundancy, failover, and data backup solutions to ensure business continuity.
• 🔧 The platform supports a wide range of pre-built applications and workflows, with the flexibility to create custom solutions.
• 📈 ServiceNow's applications are categorized into IT Workflows, Employee Workflows, Customer Workflows, and Creator Workflows, catering to various business needs.
• 🌍 The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with a global presence and data centers spread across different regions.
• 📝 ServiceNow's mission is to provide a cloud-based environment where businesspeople can solve their problems efficiently, reducing reliance on traditional IT departments.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of ServiceNowSimple's YouTube channel?

The main purpose of ServiceNowSimple's YouTube channel is to answer ServiceNow related questions in a manner that is simple and easy to understand.

What is the significance of the phrase from Rudyard Kipling's poem in the context of the video?

The phrase from Rudyard Kipling's poem is used as a framework to explore the definition of ServiceNow by asking the questions: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

How many employees does ServiceNow have, and what recognitions has the company received regarding its workplace environment?

ServiceNow has over 17,000 employees globally. In 2022, it was recognized as one of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in both the United States and the UK, and in 2021, it was listed among FORTUNE magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies and 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Who are some of the notable figures associated with ServiceNow?

Notable figures associated with ServiceNow include Bill McDermott, the current CEO and former CEO of SAP, and Fred Luddy, the founder and current chairman of the company's board of directors.

What was the original name of ServiceNow, and when did it change to ServiceNow?

The original name of ServiceNow was GlideSoft, and the name change to ServiceNow occurred in 2006.

When did ServiceNow become a publicly traded company, and what is its ticker symbol?

ServiceNow became a publicly traded company in 2012, and its ticker symbol is NOW.

What was Fred Luddy's motivation for founding ServiceNow?

Fred Luddy founded ServiceNow to address the frustration and inefficiency in the exchange between business operations and IT, aiming to make IT services more accessible and intuitive for businesspeople.

How does ServiceNow aim to change the traditional IT department's role in a company?

ServiceNow aims to transform the traditional IT department's role by providing a cloud-based platform that allows businesspeople to solve business problems themselves, making IT services more intuitive and user-friendly.

What is the NOW Platform, and what does it offer to business users?

The NOW Platform is a cloud-based Application Platform as a Service (APaaS) that offers infrastructure, platform, applications, and workflows to support business IT needs, enabling business users to connect and utilize the platform from their PCs or mobile devices.

What types of workflows and applications does ServiceNow categorize its functionality into?

ServiceNow categorizes its application functionality into IT Workflows, Employee Workflows, Customer Workflows, and Creator Workflows, with each category having subcategories targeting specific company needs.

Where is ServiceNow headquartered, and does it have a global presence?

ServiceNow is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has a global presence with offices and employees across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle-East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Japan.

Outlines

00:00

😀 Introduction to ServiceNowSimple and ServiceNow

Jeff, from ServiceNowSimple, introduces the channel's mission to simplify understanding of ServiceNow. He uses the acronym 'Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How' to structure the video, starting with 'Who' to define ServiceNow's identity. ServiceNow is described as its employees, recognized as one of the best places to work, its customers including major enterprises, and its leadership, including CEO Bill McDermott and founder Fred Luddy. The segment also touches on the company's history, starting from Fred Luddy's background and the founding of ServiceNow in 2003, becoming public in 2012, and achieving recognition as an innovative company.

05:01

🛠️ The Purpose and Philosophy of ServiceNow

This paragraph delves into the 'Why' behind ServiceNow, highlighting Fred Luddy's motivation to address the frustration and inefficiencies in the interaction between businesspeople and IT departments. Luddy envisioned IT services that empower businesspeople to solve problems themselves, making IT interactions intuitive and enjoyable. The 'How' of ServiceNow is explained through the NOW Platform, an APaaS that provides the necessary infrastructure and applications for business IT needs. The platform's features include security, redundancy, data backups, a unified data model, and a broad range of pre-built applications and workflows. The paragraph concludes with the global reach of ServiceNow, both in terms of its offices and data centers, and attempts a single-sentence definition of ServiceNow as a company solving IT delivery issues for large enterprises.

Keywords

💡ServiceNow

ServiceNow is a cloud-based software company that provides a platform for workflow automation, typically used by IT departments and other business units to manage and automate enterprise operations. In the video, it is described as a solution to the inefficiencies and frustrations that often arise from traditional IT service delivery, aiming to make business operations more intuitive and enjoyable.

💡APaaS

APaaS stands for Application Platform as a Service. It is a category of cloud services that provides a platform allowing customers to build, run, and manage their own applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure. In the context of the video, ServiceNow's NOW Platform is an example of APaaS, offering the necessary tools and workflows for business IT needs.

💡Fred Luddy

Fred Luddy is the founder and current chairman of ServiceNow's board of directors. He is portrayed in the video as a passionate programmer who dropped out of college to pursue his interest in technology. His vision and motivation for starting ServiceNow were driven by the desire to simplify the interaction between businesspeople and IT services, making the process more user-friendly and efficient.

💡Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott is the CEO of ServiceNow, having previously served as the CEO of SAP, where he significantly grew the company's market value. In the video, his appointment as CEO in 2019 is mentioned, indicating a significant leadership change that could influence the company's direction and growth.

💡IT Workflows

IT Workflows refer to the processes and tasks performed within an organization's IT department to manage and support the company's technological infrastructure. The video explains that ServiceNow categorizes its application functionality to include IT Workflows, which are designed to streamline and automate IT processes, making them more accessible to business users.

💡Employee Workflows

Employee Workflows are processes designed to improve the efficiency of employee-related tasks within an organization. The video mentions that ServiceNow offers Employee Workflows as part of its platform, which can include applications for HR, payroll, and other employee management functions.

💡Customer Workflows

Customer Workflows are processes that focus on improving customer interactions and experiences with a company. In the video, ServiceNow is described as offering Customer Workflows to help businesses manage customer relationships and support more effectively through its platform.

💡Creator Workflows

Creator Workflows are tools within ServiceNow that allow users to build custom applications and workflows tailored to their specific business needs. The video emphasizes the flexibility of ServiceNow's platform, where users can create their own solutions if the out-of-the-box applications do not meet their unique requirements.

💡Cloud-based

Cloud-based refers to services or applications that are delivered over the internet and do not require local servers or personal computers for significant processing. The video highlights ServiceNow as a cloud-based platform, emphasizing its accessibility and the ability to provide IT services without the need for on-premises infrastructure.

💡Innovation

Innovation in the context of the video refers to the process of introducing new methods, ideas, or products. ServiceNow is highlighted as being recognized by Forbes as the most innovative company in 2018, showcasing its commitment to developing new and improved ways of delivering IT services.

💡Simplicity

Simplicity is a core theme of the video and a key aspect of ServiceNow's philosophy. It emphasizes the importance of making complex IT processes and workflows easy to understand and use for businesspeople. The video's tagline, 'ServiceNowSimple,' encapsulates this commitment to simplicity in all aspects of the platform.

Highlights

ServiceNowSimple's mission is to simplify understanding of ServiceNow.

ServiceNow was recognized as one of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in the US and UK in 2022.

In 2021, ServiceNow was listed among FORTUNE magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies.

ServiceNow targets mid to large-enterprises with high-profile clients such as AT&T and Coca Cola.

Bill McDermott, former CEO of SAP, is the current CEO of ServiceNow.

Fred Luddy, ServiceNow's founder, dropped out of college to pursue programming and became a CTO at Peregrine Systems.

ServiceNow was founded in 2003 by Fred Luddy after Peregrine Systems' bankruptcy.

ServiceNow rebranded from GlideSoft to its current name in 2006.

ServiceNow became a publicly traded company in 2012 under the ticker NOW.

In 2018, ServiceNow was named the #1 most innovative company by FORBES magazine.

Bill McDermott joined ServiceNow as CEO in 2019.

Fred Luddy aimed to make IT services more accessible and intuitive for businesspeople.

ServiceNow's platform is designed to allow businesspeople to solve business problems themselves.

The NOW Platform is an APaaS that supports business IT needs with built-in applications and workflows.

ServiceNow provides a cloud-based environment for IT services with enterprise-wide data integration.

ServiceNow offers a broad range of pre-built applications categorized into IT, Employee, Customer, and Creator Workflows.

ServiceNow's platform includes redundancy, failover, and daily data backups for reliability.

ServiceNow is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with a global presence.

ServiceNow's working definition is a software company solving IT delivery problems for large enterprises.

Transcripts

Hey, it’s Jeff here from ServiceNowSimple

where we help you understand

the ins-and-outs of ServiceNow,

keeping it simple all the way.

If you’ve watched any of our videos,

you’ve heard me say that before.

In fact, it’s become the tagline

for our YouTube channel, ServiceNowSimple,

where we’re all about answering ServiceNow related questions

in a manner that is simple and easy to understand.

But, what if the ServiceNow related question is,

What is ServiceNow?

We answer that question in this short video.

There’s a phrase from an old poem that I love

written by Rudyard Kipling. It says:

I keep six honest serving-men

They taught me all I knew

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who

In this video, let's ask the questions

Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why? and How?

to come to our definition of what is ServiceNow.

And we’ll start with Who.

Who is ServiceNow?

It’s their employees.

Over 17,000 people across the globe.

And apparently, they like their jobs!

In 2022, ServiceNow was recognized as one of

Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work,

both in the United States and the UK.

In 2021, ServiceNow was one of FORTUNE magazine’s

World’s Most Admired Companies,

Future 50 Companies,

and 100 Best Companies to Work For.

ServiceNow is also its Customers.

The company targets mid to large-enterprises

and its customers include the likes of

AT&T, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Delta, Fruit of the Loom,

GE, McDonalds, Microsoft, The NBA, Overstock, Wayfair,

and well, you get the point.

Who else is ServiceNow?

It’s Bill McDermott, who currently serves as the CEO.

In his former position, Bill was the CEO of SAP,

where he grew that company's market value

from $39 billion to $156 billion.

And finally, ServiceNow is Fred Luddy,

founder and current chairman of the company's board of directors.

Fred was born in New Castle, IN, and attended Indiana University.

Fred loved to program!

In fact, he loved it so much,

he couldn’t pull himself away from his keyboard

long enough to attend classes.

So he dropped out of college and

eventually worked his way up to becoming the CTO

of a company named Peregrine Systems.

Unfortunately, that company went bankrupt,

due to an incident involving accounting fraud,

and Fred lost his job and a great deal of this wealth.

Ok, that’s enough of Who.

Let’s look at When.

When is ServiceNow?

It all started in 2003, shortly after the bankruptcy of Peregrine Systems,

when Fred founded a company named GlideSoft.

Then, 2006, when the company’s name was changed from GlideSoft

to what we all know now, ServiceNow.

In 2012, ServiceNow became a publicly traded company

under the ticker NOW.

And in 2018, when ServiceNow was named

#1 on FORBES magazine’s list of

most innovative companies,

quite an accomplishment.

And 2019, when Bill McDermott is named

as the company’s new CEO.

Alright, but Why? Why ServiceNow?

For that, let’s watch a quick clip of one of my favorite skits from

the American comedy series Saturday Night Live.

Oh darn it, my computer froze again.

You know, it hasen't been the same

since that virus attacked the system.

Did anyone call Nick Burns?

Yeah, I called him about half-hour ago.

He told me to go soak my head.

I don't like that guy.

Well I tried to run that Norton program to fix it,

but it didn't work.

That's because Norton Utilities can only detect a virus.

It can't repair your hard-drive after you've

downloaded an infected program, Patch Adams!

Nick, your computer guy,

He'll fix your computer,

and then he's going to make fun of you.

Cause he's Nick Burns,

your company's computer guy.

I've been a member of IT departments for over 30 years.

Maybe, I've been that guy.

It's embarrassing to say there's a lot of truth in that clip.

Recently, I watched an interview where Fred Luddy

was asked why he started ServiceNow.

What was his real motivation behind the company?

And I loved what he said.

Fred explained that, over the course of his career,

he had seen countless situations

where information technology, and its processes,

and its staff, made really smart businesspeople

feel silly and embarrassed.

And it infuriated Fred.

He set out to fix a problem that exists in many companies

across the world.

In most cases, IT departments do not produce revenue.

In fact, IT is an expense.

And oftentimes, one of the company's greatest expenses.

The IT department exists solely to enable or enhance

the ability of of the revenue-producing businesspeople.

It's a necessary evil.

To be successful, an exchange must occur

between business operations and IT.

The exchange of a business problem or opportunity,

with an IT solution or service.

Fred Luddy identified through his experience

that exchange was often frustrating,

inefficient, or completely broken.

Smart businesspeople had to explain, and often

re-explain business problems to IT-staffers

that were normally more interested in the technology

than solving the business problem itself.

But Fred Luddy dared to dream.

What if IT services were designed and delivered

in a way that allowed businesspeople

to solve the business problems themselves?

Is it possible to build a platform where

interacting with IT services is intuitive,

well-delivered, and dare we say, enjoyable to work with?

Let's outsource the entire IT department to the cloud,

and say goodbye to the Nick Burns IT guys of the world!

ServiceNow is your company's IT department,

in the cloud.

That's its why.

That's its reason for being.

What a great idea! But how? How, ServiceNow?

The NOW Platform is a cloud-based

Application Platform as a Service (APaaS)

that provides the infrastructure, platform,

and applications and workflows required

to support business IT needs.

Businesspeople can connect to and utilize the platform

from their PC's or mobile devices.

ServiceNow's infrastructure includes all of the compute resources.

It also includes the security,

both physical and virtual;

secured via multiple technologies

and continually audited and certified

by third-party security organizations.

Redundancy and failover are also taken care of by the platform,

with redundancy built into every layer,

from devices and network resources,

to paired data-centers that span the globe.

Data backups are also included,

with four daily backups each week,

and six days of differential backups per week.

The platform is under-pinned by a single, enterprise-wide

data model and database.

It comes out-of-box with a robust data model

and set of tables that can support most IT functions.

The platform also supports the ability to create your very own

custom workflows and applications as needed.

All running atop a single source of data,

and seamlessly integrated into the platform.

Finally, the platform includes an amazingly broad range

of applications and workflows,

pre-built, and ready to use.

ServiceNow categorizes application functionality

based upon the type of workflow being supported.

The categories include: IT Workflows, Employee Workflows,

Customer Workflows, and Creator Workflows.

Those categories are then subdivided into subcategories,

targeting the specific needs of the company.

This slide shows the number of applications, in parentheses,

beside each of the subcategories.

It's a lot of applications.

And remember, if you can't find an out-of-the-box application

that supports your business's unique requirements,

you can build one yourself;

right within the platform.

So that's an overview of how ServiceNow works.

Let's end by looking at where. Where is ServiceNow?

The company is based out of Santa Clara, California,

but has offices and employees spread across the globe,

including North America, Latin America, Europe,

the Middle-East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Japan.

The data-centers that support the platform and its redundancy

are spread throughout Asia Pacific Japan,

Europe, the Middle-East and Africa,

North America, and South America.

So that's it!

Who, What, Where, When, Why, How, ServiceNow.

Now, let's attempt a single-sentence definition;

an answer to the question, "What is ServiceNow?"

ServiceNow is a software company, based in Santa California,

founded by Fred Luddy in 2003,

to solve problems large enterprises face

with traditional IT delivery

by providing a robust, simple to use cloud-based environment

in which businesspeople

can solve the business problems, themselves.

That's ServiceNowSimple's working definition.

If you found this video helpful, give us a thumbs up!

And we'd love it if you'd consider subscribing to the channel.

We would also love to hear your definitions of "What is ServiceNow?"

Maybe we forgot something, or can improve ours.

But remember, keep it simple!

ServiceNowSimple!