In this special “On Location” minute, Tony Uphoff reports from the ServiceNow Knowledge 2023, the Cloud Wars Top 10 company’s annual conference. Tony is on-site at the event, which takes place May 14-18 in Las Vegas. In this episode focused on the event’s official kickoff day, Tony shares takeaways and news from ServiceNow executives, customers, keynotes, and sessions.
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Highlights
00:19 — Today marked the official kickoff of the event, attracting more than the projected 15,000 attendees, in Tony’s estimation. “The welcome keynote this morning was packed, and frankly, far better attended than most industry keynotes that I’ve ever seen,” says Tony.
00:39 — ServiceNow has doubled in size since the last meeting, said CEO Bill McDermott, and is the fastest software company to reach $7 billion in organic revenue growth. The company is “myopically focused on customers and customer value,” Tony says.
01:00 — The keynote featured customer stories from leaders from Pepsi and State Farm, and began with a welcome from Paul van Renselaar, a ServiceNow customer from Nationale Nederlanden, a large insurance company that has transformed its business using the ServiceNow platform.
01:18 — Despite being well-known by IT leaders, ServiceNow is expanding its reach to the C-suite and line of business managers. When Tony asked McDermott what percentage of his time he spends with customers, the CEO said, “half.” This is remarkable in comparison to CEOs of other multibillion-dollar organizations, Tony notes.
02:00 — Wednesday’s sessions explored the theme of IT versus business challenge, a timely topic as technology accelerates with artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud platforms going mainstream.
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02:29 — ServiceNow highlighted the emergence of an expanded business technology buying committee. This shift underlines the growing perception of technology as a growth platform.
03:26 — Tony attended a part of the financial analyst presentation, where McDermott and the President and COO CJ Desai discussed customers, product, and growth strategies. The focus was on the company’s generative AI strategy. McDermott’s goal is for ServiceNow to be the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century, with a profitable growth trajectory of 20 billion-plus in revenues in the near future. He then announced a $1 billion share buyback plan.
04:12 — Tony also had the chance to catch up in person with ServiceNow founder, Fred Luddy, a low-key innovator he met years ago while he was a CEO of a JMI Equity company, which was one of JMI’s rare seed stage investments.
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