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ServiceNow: Partners are critical to get us further faster

Partners take centre stage as ServiceNow aims for US$15B growth target.
Lara Caimi (ServiceNow)

Lara Caimi (ServiceNow)

Workflow automation platform ServiceNow is sharpening its focus on channel partners as they continue to play a critical role in its growth strategy. 

ServiceNow chief partner officer Lara Caimi, who has been in her role for almost two years, said creating her role focused on partners, was making an explicit statement to the market on how important partners are to its growth strategy going forward. 

“ServiceNow is a platform that really could be used across any use case, it's workflow automation, it's an orchestration layer and what's really great about it is partners are then able to use their expertise [and] their relationships across industries [and] different buying centres to pull ServiceNow into places that we haven't been before,” Caimi said. 

In 2021, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott revealed his mission to get the company to US$15 billion in the next five years, more than triple the US$4.8 billion it recorded in 2020. His plans to achieve this phenomenal growth were all centered on partnerships. 

Caimi said in the Asia Pacific and Japan region up to 92 per cent of ServiceNow implementations were conducted through partners – having an impact in some way along the deal process. 

“I constantly talk about the importance of getting customers to value and we know that partners are a critical part of that because once our customers get to value, they expand more, they buy more and renew at higher rates,” she said. “Partners impact 90 per cent of our sales, which is really important.” 

Co-innovate was the next frontier with partners, Caimi said, based on how they can build with ServiceNow. 

The firm also hired Erica Volini from Deloitte Consulting into the newly created role as senior vice president of global alliances and channel ecosystem in August last year. According Caimi, Volini is the throes of changing the vendor's partner program. 

“We’re rethinking how we are structured in a way to create the ability for partners to expand their own offerings or solutions using ServiceNow in areas that are clear skies for partners to go after that we currently don't have a presence in,” she said. 

In the market, the rate of global system integrators ramping up their ServiceNow practices has increased, either through acquisition such as Deloitte buying Entrago or further investing through setting up dedicated units such as AccentureKPMGEY and DXC.

“How do we allow partners to innovate and have a bit of a window of differentiation before they know we're going to build something ourselves there? They're critical for us in all sorts of ways that are creative and they're a massive force multiplier," Caimi said. 

“They can get us further faster, which is really exciting.”

Caimi said ServiceNow was continuing to invest, listen to partner feedback, evolve and improve its program while continuing to focus on customer value together.

“We need to continue to make sure that we're feeding the growth and encouraging growth of partners because they bring great skill sets and great differentiation,” she added.  

In May, ServiceNow relaunched a feature of its latest software release: Procurement Service Management.

This is fresh territory for the Now Platform, which has so far been used to automate workflows in IT (such as service or operations management), HR or order management.