(Image sourced via ServiceNow)

ServiceNow San Diego, being made generally available today, pulls together a whole host of the workflow vendor’s process, automation, and low code capabilities to create a new automation engine that aims to help users and organizations tap into siloed systems and data. 

The aim is to improve agility amongst ServiceNow’s customer base, allowing them to adapt to increased complexity and pressures globally, whilst also bettering both employee and customer experience. 

Speaking to media and analysts this morning, Nerys Mutlow, Evangelist in ServiceNow’s Chief Innovation Office, said: 

Too often experiences that are delivered focus on some specific areas, specific silos, and that creates fragmented and disjointed experiences. That puts the onus on employees and customers to work around and outside of those very processes and the systems that were put in and designed to help them.  

Many, many organizations think of experiences and processes as different things, but we think that they’re absolutely, directly connected. We also connect and automate digital siloed processes in order to make that work flow through the organization. 

Some businesses [are] still dealing with analogue or paper based processes, or they're using spreadsheets to manage things that spreadsheets were never intended for.

Many have digitized some of those elements, perhaps by using an ERP system or CRM system. But these systems are typically quite siloed still, sometimes even managed by different organizations. 

And these are some examples of siloed processes that ServiceNow connects. And when we take these processes and we make them better, we're inherently creating better experiences.

diginomica recently wrote that ServiceNow is entering a ‘new era’, following a conversation with CEO Bill McDermott, who explained that the vendor wants to go deeper into process and back-end systems, rather than just serving as an integration layer for workflow. This San Diego release gives us a flavour of what that might start to look like. 

Whilst workflow is still ServiceNow’s bread and butter, it’s clear that there are further opportunities to automate and integrate back-end processes through its automation engine. 

ServiceNow describes the Automation Engine as a ‘complete automation and integration solution’ that combines Integration Hub and new RPA capabilities. It says that the Engine can on average help to deliver 3X faster time to value. 

Automation Engine also features a new RPA Hub, which provides a centralized command and control center to monitor, manage, and deploy digital robots, so organizations can automate repetitive, manual tasks. 

RPA Hub features 1300+ pre-built components and an RPA Desktop Design Studio, which allows users to design, test and publish both attended and unattended bots as they scale automation. No code access to RPA Hub is built into Flow Designer via the RPA Hub Spoke, enabling any ServiceNow developer to leverage RPA Hub alongside Integration Hub, all in a familiar interface. 

Having seen a demo of the Automation Engine this morning - using RPA Hub - the features do seem quite impressive. A user is able to drag and drop processes, highlighting which actions or systems they wish to connect. We then saw how this user interface was able to quickly add integration to Microsoft Active Directory, an SAP ERP system, and pull information out of an email relating to an order. 

A ‘robot’ then carried out the validated process that was created by the user, opening up the relevant systems and pulling the required information in a matter of seconds. 

Obviously this was just one pre-planned example chosen for demonstration, so we need to speak to customers using this at scale for a more thorough examination, but in theory it seemed to work well. 

Better visuals and industry solutions

As part of the San Diego release, ServiceNow is also announcing ‘Next Experience’ across the Now Platform, which aims to improve the visuals and UI for the vendor’s 70 million active platform users. 

Improvements have been made to the navigation, creating more space for users to see what tasks are at hand, as well as bringing every application together under one consistent experience. 

A user’s component library is now completely redesigned, and there are new iconography, typography, and illustrations. ServiceNow says that the new experience delivers “enhanced personalisation”, such as accessibility preferences, information density and layout preferences, and a choice between light or dark mode.  

In addition to the above, ServiceNow is also introducing new ‘out of the box’ industry solutions. diginomica has previously outlined ServiceNow’s verticalization strategy, which is being driven by a co-design approach with customers.

The Now Platform San Diego release includes vertical solutions that aim to address the distinct digital needs of banks, insurance companies, and telecommunications and technology providers. 

The following are being made available as part of San Diego: 

• Banking - ServiceNow wants to help banks create more transparent, repeatable processes to improve the end-customer experience. New Deposit Operations for Banking automates common checking, savings, and certificate of deposit requests to help bank employees complete work more quickly, and Client Lifecycle Operations for Banking manages onboarding, account updates, KYC updates, and notice of death processes. 

• Insurance - ServiceNow also announced new tools for insurance operations with its first solution suited specifically for the demands of carriers and their customers. This includes Personal and Commercial Lines Servicing capabilities to enable policy servicing across personal and commercial lines of business between carriers and their customers, policyholders, and distribution partners, informed by ACORD standards to improve consistency and collaboration.   

• Technology Providers - ServiceNow is launching its first set of solutions for technology providers to streamline customer and ecosystem experiences. New products include Technology Provider Service Management to combine care and operations together with AI-powered self-service and support for more proactive customer and ecosystem experiences. Order Management for Technology Providers aims to help grow revenue by launching and delivering products and services quickly and with greater control. 

My take

As noted above, the ‘hyper-automation’ capabilities that ServiceNow demonstrated this morning were quite impressive. The ability for users to quickly and easily create automated processes, which use RPA and tap into a number of siloed systems, with just a few clicks…did seem quite simple.

That being said, I am going to reserve judgement until I speak to some customers that have been using this at scale for some time. What’s going to be interesting is to see how this goes even further with the Celonis partnership, which was announced recently. How will backend process optimization tie into this RPA/automation engine proposition? We need to find out more about how those two pieces work together, but it could make quite a compelling proposition.