>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's the CUBE. Covering ServiceNow Knowledge 2018. Brought to you by ServiceNow. >> Welcome back everyone, day two of the CUBE's live coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge 18. Here at the Venetian in Las Vegas Nevada, I'm your host Rebecca Knight along with my cohost Dave Vellante. >> Dave: Still have my voice. >> You still have it yes okay well we'll see how you do tomorrow but you're still going strong. But I'm really excited about this panel we have Pharrel Howe she is a GM in IT service management, asset management, business management. Have I forgotten one? >> Nope. >> Rebecca: I got it all at ServiceNow. >> Dave: This week. >> Exactly, at ServiceNow. You run the biggest business for ServiceNow. >> Yes. >> Thanks for joining us Pharrel. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. >> So I want to talk about employee experience which is really. It's just the cornerstone of this conference but really ServiceNow's purpose. Why has it become so increasingly important in IT today? >> Okay well in IT really you saw it today in CJ's keynote. The era of great experience is here and in IT we've been really really great at managing productivity and managing cost and making sure we were running efficiently and that we still do that and do it really well. But now we have to also make sure not just our customers have a great experience but our employees do too. And companies that do that well have the competitive advantage. It's absolutely required that we're able to do that now and so you know ServiceNow's paving the way for great experiences on our platform. For customers and employees and we're excited to be leading the next era of great experience. >> So I don't want to minimize the accomplishments that ServiceNow has made because they're phenomenal. >> Pharrel: Alright I'm happy for you not to minimize them. >> But I want to say this, you have thrived. I mean when Fred Luddy developed the platform. You thrived in the sea of mediocrity and you drove a ship through that sea and just mopped up a lot of business. Awesome, congratulations and in this world we live in it's like now it's becoming table stakes. If you guys have pointed out our home lives we live with these consumer interfaces we expect that now so as a leader of ServiceNow's a largest business. How do you continue to push the innovation levier? We expect now so much more, how do you continue to differentiate. Because your competition has woken up, the world was waking up. How do you stay ahead? >> Well you saw, you know earlier today CJ talking again and we're going to, you'll continue to see this theme from us. It is all about the platform. We are a platform company and when we build and innovate, acquire and then innovate. It is all within the platform and that I our competitive advantage. So then every application that was in existence today or that we build in the future can take advantage of that innovation natively. It's all integrated and seamless and there's nobody else out there who is able to do that and deliver those experiences. And so that is going to continue to be our strategy moving forward. >> So let's double click on that a little bit. Maybe get some examples. So clearly there's a big emphasis on UX and design. I think you guys have made some investments in design firms. >> Pharrel: Significant. >> There's machine intelligence I'll call it, AI. You're infusing AI throughout the platform and those are just two examples. >> Yeah. >> Maybe talk about those and give us some others if there are them. >> Sure well you know in the IT keynote that I'm going to have this afternoon. It's all about the era of great experiences and taking the roles that are in IT. It will be about the fulfiller, the requester, the planner and the operator in IT and how we've taken to the road and gone and done user research out with our customers and we're building great experiences in the platform for those roles. You no longer is it going to stand for you to just use your best judgment and go and build product and hope everybody will come. You've got to get out there side by side with your customers. Truly understand the work that they're doing and then build that back into the product and iterate again and again and again. And so that's the direction we're going from a design standpoint to build those experiences. >> So let's unpack this era of great experiences something that's simple, easy, intuitive but what are we really talking abut here. How do you define a great experience? >> Yeah well let's take it from something that we can relate to, we're all requesters of services one way or another right? And me as an employee I need services from IT in order to do my job. The thing is the channels that we have today are not enough. Phone and email aren't going to cut it and a lot of times if I'm in the carpool line waiting to pick up my daughter and her friends from school. I and you know I'm trying to check in on the ticket status for a laptop that I need immediately and I happen to think of it right then. I'm not going to call IT, I'm not in front of the laptop. I need more channels on more devices anytime anywhere at my convenience not someone else's. And so that's the kind of stuff that were talking about. We can't, it can't just be good enough anymore it has to be prolific. >> I'm interested in how you're using and applying machine intelligence. It seems like you're trying to anticipate my needs, put things in front of me that I might. You know I might shorten my search time or might be relevant that I hadn't even though of. Is that the right way to be thinking about how you're using machine intelligence and second part of the question is. What ar you finding that machines can do better than humans and how do they compliment each other? Srt of a long question. >> Sure I love this question. That's okay love it. Okay so our initial approach to agent and to machine intelligence, artificial intelligence. All of that is to you heard CJ say it today. You'll here micro-moments are moments that matter and we're looking to inject intelligence right there. Right there, those are very very practical use cases. They're not a panacea. They are not the answer but they are an answer in a moment that critically matters and so a perfect example of how that would play out would be my example previously of checking in on my laptop. The virtual agent that we're bringing to the market in our London release is all conversation based. And so I can very quickly see what topics that agent can handle and I can you know immediately engage on what that looks like and get the confidence that I need back and forth engaging with the virtual agent in m convenience wherever I am. Whether I'm at work or I'm at home and so you know that is a moment that matters for me because it's not, it eliminates the mental overhead for me to keep track of the administration of just trying to do my job everyday. Now take the flip side of that. The person who's on the other side of that virtual agent or would have been had that virtual agent not be there. They are not having to answer those kind of questions. Is my laptop coming please just assure me. They're not answering questions and so you know maybe that's not necessarily deflecting it an incident. It could be, but it's also reducing the administrivia that's happening when, and so it's cutting down the time it takes to resolve incidents and it's reducing friction and frustration. Between fulfillers and requesters of service ad so that's how we're looking at it. In those moments that matter and then as technology evolves and gets stronger. There may be bigger and larger use cases. >> And the machine verses human thing. I hate to say it that way but things the machines are doing. You're seeing categorization obviously is one at scale. Other things, I mean how do you see that evolving. What are the things that increasingly machine are going to do that humans can't do as well. >> Well I would say a use case besides maybe the virtual agent and those conversation based topics which really are just guided flows for conversation. Another thing might be being able to you know if there's just so much data that would take me a while. Or I would need a business analyst to maybe go and look for insights. That's something that machines can do and that's not replacing humans that's scaling our ability to act. And so that I think is the next foray to really move into and we'll start poking in different areas of insights as well and the moments that matter for work getting done in the enterprise as well. >> Because that is really what we're trying to do is help people get their work done. >> Pharrel: Yes. >> Quicker. >> Pharrel: And more easily. And when we talk about employee experience it's simply that. Please just let me get my work done and let me have some choice. I'm going to have a personal tool chain. Don't force me to use you know ServiceNow, please don't force me to use your messaging client. Our connect chat if I want to Microsoft Teams or Slack let me do that and let me keep that UI. So we're really when we talk about employee experiences it's a very broad arena there and its a great partnership between IT and all the other lines of business to deliver what employee experience is going to look like. >> And you know Rebecca, we talked about this yesterday. John Donahoe took on the machine replacing humans and was very transparent. The example I would use is search. When IDC we had a big library. We had like three or four librarians. They're not there anymore but nobody is saying oh wow. Search I mean search is a machine. It made our lives better, it created new opportunities. I think that's a good example, a small one but one where. I'm an optimist even though things are getting complex. >> Pharrel: Me too, absolutely an optimist on that and so for example with our virtual agent. Go do a search on LinkedIn and you will find for conversation designer. There are new jobs being created to be able to support this kind of technology. You know, jobs are evolving not going away. >> So speaking of jobs. You have been a very successful leader in a high growth organization. >> Thanks. >> I think on your Twitter it says I'm on a rocket ship ride of a lifetime. >> Pharrel: I am, I'm here to tell you. >> I'd love to hear what your advice is for other leaders who are trying to affect transformational change in their IT organizations. >> Alright I think whether it's personal change for yourself, you're trying to evolve or you need to evolve your organization. The first thing you need to do is check your assumptions. You know the older we get and the more we're barraged by noise we think we know. Make sure that you're really clear on and have some self reflection but also go and check that with people around you and get some clarity around alright is this really the reality. What's our reality that we're trying to transform? And when you're talking about transformation it doesn't necessarily happen overnight. It can happen overnight and that's called disruption but transformation that you are initiating. Give yourself a little bit of breathing room. You got to know that this is a marathon and you cannot be doing it at a sprint pace. You will burn out so keep your eye on the horizon and what you're trying to accomplish and just get started. Don't sit there and wait and try to have the perfect plan. You're going to attack your way through it, it's going to change anyway. Just get started. >> The rapid iteration we were hearing about that's so important. >> Yeah absolutely DevOps and you know personal digital transformation. You got it. >> I also want to talk to you about women. There is a dearth of women leaders in technology. You are one of them, what are you doing personally to promote diversity and inclusion at ServiceNow and then what is the company doing and finally what should the tech industry be doing to face this challenge head on? >> Yeah you know my take on it is, it's all about belonging and I got that word from Pat Waters. So diversity, inclusion and belonging. That's something that she's championing and we are so fortunate to have her as our chief talent officer. Prior to having that word I was just really focused on connection. You know really engaging just with people and trying to understand where they're coming from and really making sure that you're practicing active listening. That has been like the key for my success I will say throughout my career. Is just being able to constantly reflect back what I'm hearing. One to make sure I didn't put any filters on it obviously and then two people want to feel heard and so you know whenever I get into the conversation around women in tech. Yes there are some very real facts, fact based, data based challenges ahead of us but where I choose to put my focus is a much broader conversation that includes you know everyone. And really just focusing a lot more on connection and belonging over all makes a huge difference. >> What you're saying is really resonating because I mean that's what we keep hearing is happening but perpetuates the old boys club is that oh I know this guy because we went to college together. Or some other kind of biases that you hold that it's just oh he's like me. I want to promote him and bring him along and there are fewer women in positions of power who they can bring up the people that they see are like them. So I think that's another problem too is that you have to... >> Yeah that goes back to a really great HR practice which is you cannot just reach deep into your network every time you get in trouble. Rely on a great HR standard practice that says no you know we need to go out there and there's great talent out there that you just didn't even think of. So you know when you're going back to, we talked about transformation earlier in this conversation. Check your self awareness, be clear about wait a minute. Do I really know right now what I need. I'm not sure let me broaden my perspective here and HR's been a great partner to be able to do that. >> So that's a great point because gender and race and sexual preference are part of that diversity and certainly other factors. But like a financial advisor when the portfolio gets over balanced in one area he or she has to rebalance that portfolio. And again it sounds formulaic but I think Pharrel your point is what you're looking for is to open up that network to a wider audience. >> Absolutely. >> And not just the good old boys network. >> I have a little bit of a bias here, you know my background. I'm an English major and I'm running the large business for ServiceNow. >> We need to open the diversity to English, it's a liberal arts background. >> I don't want kids these days to think that if they pick one path they're stuck in that path and their locked into certain jobs. It's not true, you can you just need, it's the way that you think, it's having critical thinking skills. Now listen, you're not going to go put me on the platform although I probably could. Go in and start coding, you're not going to rely on me to do that right away. I can learn it but allowing us, allowing yourself to start to believe. That hey wait a minute, you know the labels that I've grown up with and put on people. Maybe I can remove a couple and I love it when I'm surprised and are able to bring an employee on my time that I'm like ah it doesn't necessarily make sense on the paper but look at you. You're amazing. >> Well one of the things that supports that is digital. For years if you were in the financial services business or the manufacturing business or the automotive business. You were there for life but if you have digital skills you can traverse now much more easily. >> Yes absolutely. >> Kids today just have phenomenal opportunities. >> I know, I know it's great. I think it's so cool and I love making. I love opening tech a bit more to make it more accessible. More appealing, that there are so many different roads to come in and it's important that we get people who think differently, creative you know people who are good strong communicators. Who can bring clarity to a situation. We need all of that and that to me is the first step for diversity. >> And because that's the stuff that robots aren't very good at. Is the empathy, the creativity, that kind of broad thinking. >> That's right. >> Awesome way to bring it home. >> Found full circle. Pharrel thanks so much for coming on the program. What a fun and enlightening conversation. >> Oh my gosh, super fun. I really appreciate it. >> And you're speaking today at 1:30, good luck with that. >> And by the way we have a diversity and inclusion belonging lunch with Pat Waters and CJ Desai which will be at I think 12:30 as well so. >> Great plug, excellent. Thank you so much again. I'm Rebecca Knight for Dave Vellante we will have more from ServiceNow Knowledge 18 hashtag know 18 just after this.

>> Narrator: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE covering ServiceNOW Knowledge17, brought to you by ServiceNOW. >> Dave: We're back, this is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We go out to the events and we extract the signal from the noise. I'm Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. Farrell Hough is here she's the general manager of the service management business unit at ServiceNOW, great to see you. >> Farrell: Yes, great to see you, thanks for having me. >> Dave: Awesome, you're welcome. Awesome keynote this morning, you have your baby, which is ITSM, we know, but at the financial analyst meeting and you know, you represent today's keynote, you represented, you know, more than just ITSM, which is, you know, good. But let's start there, so, awesome keynote, lot of energy, so much meat (chuckles). >> Farrell: Yes. >> Dave: In Jakarta. >> Farrell: Absolutely. We have been busy, for sure, in our IT portfolio. In ITSM we really spent a lot of time and energy in giving back to our customer base and making sure that critical capabilities and features in ITSM, have a lot of depth behind them as well. So making sure service level management's solid, service catalog, which is 99% adopted across our customer base, servicing over half a million end users, that making sure that that's solid. And then additionally, making it really easy for new customers to join onto ITSM as well by giving out of the box best practices and a guided set up format like a wizard format that they can within just a couple of hours stand up a brand new incident management process prescribed by ServiceNOW and feel confident in what they're getting. >> Dave: Yeah, so I didn't realize the number was that high in terms of adoption of service catalog. What do you see for CMDB, I mean, when you first started following ServiceNOW it was mixed, 'cause it kind of gets political, but now, today, when you talk to customers it's like, oh yeah that's a big initiative of ours, or we're already there, or what do you see? >> Farrell: Absolutely. I don't have the exact percentage in front of me but I believe that it's upwards of 70% adoption in our customer base. And that is a difference from where we were in the past, for sure. >> Dave: Which is like the mainspring of innovation, 'cause once you get there, with service catalog and CMDB-- >> Farrell: Yep, you get all your assets in there, you get all your services defined, it's go time. >> Dave: Then your operating leverage is huge in terms of when you bring out new function and the impact on the organization, the business impact, can be really enormous. >> Farrell: Absolutely. >> Jeff: And best practice out of the box is a huge, huge coo, everyone we've talked to, you know, they're smart enough now to now customization is bad. Keep it to a minimum, keep it to a minimum, do config but not customizations, so that all those upgrades are easier, easier, easier. So to come out of the box with an integrated best practices workflow, great, great solutions for the customers to get up and running quickly. >> Farrell: It is, and you know, they're asking for prescription, and we're going to give it to them. We've got our own services arm, we have a partner community, we know between all of us in this huge ecosystem what's working and what's not, and we're going to put it in the product and make sure our customers, existing and new, get best practice out of the box. >> Dave: So, kind of three areas you talked about today: service management, we just touched on, we didn't talk about the surveys, but that's cool, that's a nice little feature you guys have added. >> Farrell: Oh yes, that's right. >> Dave: So, you have new and improved surveys. Operations managements, so that's ITOM piece right? >> Farrell: Yep. >> Dave: And then business management. So give us the high level on office management. >> Farrell: I will, yeah, sure. So we announced this year that we're putting out the cloud management platform, and the adoption of cloud is long past it's tipping point. We're seeing cloud being adopted everywhere and cloud resources are extremely easy to procure, stand up, and use, and IT may or may not know about it. And that becomes just a huge problem in terms of cost and even in terms of security and compliance and when we're able to-- we made an acquisition roughly a year ago, the ITOM team, and this is basically the next generation cloud management platform, where now you're able to have a cloud portal where a end user can go and consume and, just like a service catalog, they're going to have a service catalog of cloud services that you've already provisioned very easily with the drag and drop interface, that accounts for all your policy already in those services. And so it makes it very very easy for the business to continue to operate at the pace and the skill that they need to, but for IT to make sure that we have the consistency and the compliance that we need to protect the business overall and manage cost, all with a really great user experience at the same time. So we're thrilled to be able to put out a cloud management platform. And then the second major thing that came out in the IT operations management space was around service mapping. When we went to market with service mapping it was for all on prem services and mapping out what that looked like. This time around we're just bookending it and kind of closing the gap and saying okay, let's look at what's off prem, and let's look what's in the cloud. So you get a holistic view and are able to discover resources in the cloud and on prem as well and you get that holistic view of your services mapped going forward. >> Dave: So I have to ask you, so we're always asking, when ServiceNOW gets into HR, it's like oh does ServiceNOW compete with Workday, no. And when ServiceNOW gets into security, it's like does ServiceNOW compete with FireEyes, et cetera, no no. Now when you talk about this multi-cloud, sort of mapping visibility, there's a lot of talk about, we call it sometimes inter-clouding and inter-cloud management, how far to do you go into that, I mean, can I actually orchestrate across clouds? Is it just giving you visibility, well not just, but, how should I think about the positioning of ServiceNOW in that space of cloud management? >> Farrell: We're out there to create flexibility for customers and we'll start to make it happen that you can orchestrate across different clouds regardless of what they look like. We're not totally there yet, but that's the direction it's going. >> Dave: Well nobody's there. >> Farrell: Yep. >> Dave: This is jump all for the industry. And it's got to be a huge market, I mean, everybody's doing multi-clouds. In fact somebody told me, today David Flora told me in Europe there was a mandate in the banking sector that you have to have a second source for cloud. >> Jeff: Oh really? >> Dave: Yeah, I don't know the context, but good news for the cloud vendors, right? Good news for somebody-- >> Farrell: Exactly. >> Dave: --who manages that. So, okay, and now what about, are we done with ops-- >> Farrell: That was operations management, yep done with that. >> Dave: And then how about business management? >> Farrell: Alright, on the business management side, the big news if the software asset management. We're able to deliver another new product this year, and that's really going to put a lot of power back in the hands of IT. You're no longer caught on your heels with a software audit, realizing you're out of compliance. We struggle with visibility and understanding where are all these software assets, who are they allocated to, are they actually using them, how much is it costing us, and when we're able to have visualization to that because it's on the ServiceNOW platform and we understand where all those items exist, we're able to go in and very easily reclaim licenses, or reallocate them, and to me that's found money. And I just love that. I think that's going to be great, and guess what? You want to find your sourcing for your next IT project it's right there. >> Jeff: Right, right, and you're being humble. I mean that was the thing where the biggest roar came up from the crowd, without a doubt. Super, super well received. >> Dave: We were talking to CJ this morning about how it works and you get the platform, the platform comes out with all these features, and then the business units take advantage of those features. Now of course he described it differently, he said you start with the customer, and then you figure out what to put in the platform knowing that the business units are going to take advantage of it. But when you think about intelligent automation you gave an example of predictive maintenance today, so that's a use case for that so called AI or deep learning, machine learning. So talk about that a little bit. And then I want to get into the DX continuum piece as well. >> Farrell: Yeah, absolutely. When we're sitting on this data set that our customers have and they want us to take advantage of it for them, on their behalf, we're able to go back and apply algorithms to those data sets to say what's the norm? And did it have a good outcome? And all that data is in there, we're able to model it now, you're not having to go do that in some--export that into some other system to try to figure out, with some advanced analytics, what's that looking like, you're able to be able to say very clearly, listen, here's what the normal pattern of behavior is, and establish that for everything else going forward. So it becomes really clear where outliers exist and what suspect events or suspect alerts look like in your environment and then you can fire off a process to say look, this looks like a problem, and with certain signposts associated to it, go ahead and automatically open up that incident. You apply it to change management where you're talking about predictive maintenance. Something has enough failures automatically schedule a change window or decommission it, fail it over, back it out, move it out of the way, so that it's not causing a problem anymore. We put so much on humans to do for so long because the technology wasn't there to allow us to do it, well it's time, it's here now. And so we can take some of the burden away. >> Dave: I just had a thought, we talk in this industry so much about consumerization of IT and trying to mimic consumers, Fred Luddy talks about all the time. What you just described, I thought about an experience of an iPhone user, and anytime you do a migration, my wife just migrated from an android to an iPhone, what question was asked, is it backed up? What you just described is proactive. You're way beyond is it backed up, you're at the point of, we're going to just eliminate any possibility of a disruption. So I guess my question there is, is enterprise IT finally, not only catching up, but in some regards surpassing, this consumerization trend? >> Farrell: Hey, I think there's an opportunity to leapfrog, all the way, and I'm behind a 100%. I do, I think exactly that. And why not get way out ahead and over our skis with that and over-deliver and show that yep, we can see what's coming, we're sitting on all this data. When you choose to go to the cloud, and all that data is accessible, and you're on a single platform, it's all intermingled. You're not having to stitch together, create a data lake that's got all these different integrations pulling data and trying to sort it out from there with some data scientists or some business analysts looking at it, you're now able to lean in way more with your operation and really start to take care of it and truly own it. >> Jeff: I was just going to say my favorite part of your keynote today was kind of teeing off what you said, which is using machine learning and artificial intelligence on relatively simple looking processes that are painful, cumbersome, and horrible, like categorization, prioritization, assignment, to take the first swag, let the machine take the first swag at that stuff, and take that burden off the person because it's tedious, it's cumbersome, and it's painful, so it's this really elegant use of machine learning and AI, which is talked about all the time, on a relatively, again, simple looking activity, that just delivers tremendous value. >> Farrell: Yeah, I'm really really excited about that part because there's a lot of mystic and-- ah, I don't know what the right word is, maybe misunderstanding potentially, which can lead to mistrust of AI and machine learning and what's really going to come of it. And when we're able to say using supervised machine learning, which is the model that we're going after with the auto-classification, you can work with customers to be able to to let them tune the level of accuracy that they are comfortable with. And so you're building trust right away with a really simple example of auto-classification or auto-categorization, that is so frustrating for both parties. The person who is filing the incident, and the for the person who's going to be supporting and fulfilling on that incident as well. And I just love that fact that we can start to dip our toe into this pool and wade in and create trust along the way so we don't leave anyone behind or create mistrust in our user-base that we're just trying to get rid of them in some capacity or pull the wool over their eyes, we're not and we're going to be really transparent about in the way we do it and I think that's phenomenal. >> Jeff: And it's dynamic right, so it continues to learn. You have Spotify, you have a playlist, I like this, I don't like this, the playlist hopefully gets better, so. >> Farrell: That's right, because it took your input. >> Jeff: Correct, right. >> Farrell: And so taking input from the end users is going to then help train that system over time, that's correct. >> Dave: I got so many questions for you. (Jeff laughs) >> Farrell: Okay! Give 'em to me. >> Dave: So the auto-classification piece, that comes from the DX continuum acquisition-- >> Farrell: It does, yes. >> Dave: So explain that, I know you guys re-platformed everything, but what did that give you and let's get into auto-classification a little bit. >> Farrell: Okay, well it gave us some incredibly talented smart engineers and some really great intellectual property in terms of algorithms that we are able to now apply. When we re-platform something we're making sure that it works in the ServiceNOW platform stack and that it is going to be available and pervasive for every application that gets built on top of the platform. >> Dave: Okay so, you had said before, we're not just building a data lake, which, I want to talk to you about that too, 'cause a date lake as we know turns into a data swamp and it's just a mess and then you got to really do a lot of heavy lifting. >> Farrell: Smelly, don't like that. >> Dave: Right? Not good. So-- >> Jeff: Scary critters. >> Dave: You're auto-classifying at the point of creation I presume, or use of that data set. So how does that all work? How is it being applied? Where do you see customers getting value out of this? Explain that a little. >> Farrell: Well really I see in the ITSM side and the IT Space and in the ITSM side specifically, anything that you've got to apply a drop down field to, whether you're an end customer doing it through a service portal, or you're an IT worker, too, like let's help those guys out, why not? Anytime you need to fill out a field through a drop down mechanism, it's one discreet set of values, that's a candidate there. Now you want to have a large data set, which is why incidents, incident category, or assignment, assignment group, or what skill set might be required to work that particular incident, works because there's tons and tons and tons of incidents out there so we have lots of examples around what it could possibly be. And then that's what the data model would be built on. This auto-classification is not meant for the obscure or the random or the infrequent. So when we're talking about high volumes that a service desk sees, this is the perfect setup to apply it. >> Dave: So how will it work? I'll have a corpus of data with a bunch of incidents and I'll just sort of tell the machine go classify this? >> Dave: And it'll do some kind of process? >> Farrell: You're going to have a set of data a portion of the records you're going to use for the training model, the other portion you're going to leave behind, almost as the control group. And you're going to go apply the algorithms to that training set of data and it's going to start to learn and you're going to tell it what fields you want it to learn from and pay attention to and spit a model out on the other side on and it's going to crunch through all that data and it's going to give you a model on the other side, and you'll look at it and see if you agree, and then you're going to take that model and you'll apply it to that control set and you're going to look at what level of accuracy came out on the other side and you'll decide with that data set what accuracy level you want to have. For me, 70% accuracy will work for me on password reset. 'Cause, in all likelihood, what's it going to be? But maybe for a VPN issue I want 90%. You'll be able to start applying accuracy by category to then tune in exactly how you want things to work to make sure you get that good user experience. >> Dave: And then you'll continue to train that model and iterate. >> Farrell: Yes, absolutely. And you'll be able to train it and often as you like. I mean on demand, like yep, I want to train it again. And when you have a service desk worker who goes back in and re-categorizes, because yeah, that wasn't quite right, that's just the same thing as clicking the like button, thumbs up, thumbs down, on Spotify. You're right that you've just given it feedback. When you train it again, it takes that feedback into account. >> Dave: And then the subsequent incidents get auto-classified. >> Farrell: They get the learning. They get the learning. There's not magical learning that happens in this particular case, the technology's not evolved to that state, there's no unicorn back there that's doing all the learning for you. It takes feedback and it'll take some tuning, but hopefully in being able to make the feedback mechanism very easy, the tuning happens naturally, therefore the model gets better over time. >> Dave: Well it's a great use case because it's relatively narrow, and you have tons of data, and it can be implemented right away. >> Jeff: And like you said, even if it just helps you partially down the road, it's better than zero down the road, especially these repeatable processes that have to happen over and over and over, it's like oh please shoot me, this is the work that machines are supposed to do because it's mundane and repeatable and-- >> Farrell: Mind-numbing. >> Jeff: Mind-numbing, thank you. Let me get to solving the customer problem. >> Farrell: That's right. >> Dave: Okay so when we first encountered ServiceNOW we did our first Knowledge, it was from 2013, and it was at the height of the big data sort of hype-cycle. And so we would ask, of course we asked, well what about data, what about big data? The response was always well we got a lot of data and we're looking at that. But now we're here. And you mentioned earlier, it's not some data lake that you're processing as offloading your data warehouse, so what are you doing in that space? So it's not a data lake, it's a corpus of data and you're basically applying these AI and intelligent automation models to, can you explain a little bit about how that works? >> Farrell: Sure, well first off we won't do anything, we have to have our customer's permission to be able to use their data, they showed interest in machine learning services then they will give us permission to leverage their data and all customer data is separated too, within their own instance, within their own database, there's no co-mingling of data, so there will be no data lake whatsoever. But what we are able to do, and it's on a personal level, which I just love, because that's who we are as a company, that we're offering personalized supervised machine learning, personalized auto-classification, we're not taking all the data of all of our customers, kind of aggregating it up and then building models against that, and then saying oh I think this model would pertain to you and then it's only 25% accurate or even relevant. We're building a model very specific to you. And working with your data set and we have access to it, with your permission, and we'll go build that model, using the training set as we described, and then go test it out, and then help you go re-deploy it. So we'll pull that data into a central instance, help retrain it, and then move it back into your instance so that model is always constantly tuned and then you get to decide when you retrain it. >> Dave: So who's we in that example? You have a team of data scientists that do this? >> Farrell: This will be in our platform team. It's a platform service. You don't need data scientists to, I would say on the customer side, maybe if they were wanting to interpret some of that data or do something with it maybe they'd have a data scientist. This is just tried and true engineering and having a good service model behind it, it's just a central instance. >> Jeff: Do--I'm sorry, I interrupted. >> Farrell: No, I was just going to say through our acquisition DX Continuum, those engineers are building those training models and will keep them up to date, but they're not literally turning a crank when that data comes in and it'll be-- >> Dave: So it's a model that they apply, it scales, it's part of the service. Now you iterate that over time-- >> Farrell: That's right. >> Dave: But it's the-- >> Farrell: And you can build out other training models. So we just talked about auto-classification for instant, but this can extend in other areas as well. >> Jeff: Well I was going to say, do you think it's an opportunity for the ecosystem that has specialty expertise around, pick your favorite topic area, we're talking to someone about oil and gas earlier today, that they know what the model is way beyond just simple correlation to take in this and it flow and predict that, I think the example was that the well cap's going to break, or whatever. So do you see that potentially as an ecosystem contribution as well around more specific use cases? >> Farrell: Well I think that would be super cool. If we had customers of similar ilk, whatever that looked like, wanting to collaborate and share and crowdsource something for a greater good that wasn't competitive, I think that that would be amazing to be able to do that. And we would be able to facilitate it. We don't have any current plans to do that right now but I could absolutely see it. >> Dave: Well we've talked about the ecosystem through for years, to see it just burgeoning and awesome story. Thank you for coming on theCUBE and doing a brain dump on us and educating us. >> Farrell: Yeah, thank you so much-- >> Jeff: You really had a great opening line, "exciting time to be in IT," that was your opening line, the key night, I know you've got the excitement >> Farrell: It is! This is the best time to be in IT. I mean oh my gosh, it's fabulous. >> Dave: You're exploding. Alright Farrell, thanks very much. >> Farrell: Alright, thank you. >> Dave: Alright, keep it right there buddy, we'll be back with our next guest, theCUBE, we're live from Orlando, be right back. (techno music)

>> Narrator: Live from Orlando Florida, it's theCUBE! Covering ServiceNow, Knowledge17. Brought to you by ServiceNow. >> Hi everybody, we're back. This is theCUBE and we're live from Knowledge17, I'm Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. Michael Dippolito, did I say that right? >> D'Ippolito, close enough. >> D'Ippolito, sorry about that. A fellow Italian, I should get that right. D'Ippolito is assistant Vice President of Run Services Delivery, infrastructure and operations for Nationwide Insurance. Nationwide is on your side. >> You got it. It's in our heads right? >> I remember that. >> What a great marketing campaign. Michael, great to see you, thanks for coming on theCUBE. >> Thank you, thanks for having me. >> So how's Knowledge going for ya? >> Very good, very good. I'm really excited about some of the new things coming out with the newest release that was just announced this morning. And as a matter of fact I'm ready to go back and say let's jump to that version right? Because it sounds really exciting. >> So where are you right now? Which version are you on? Are you on the Helsinki? >> We are on the Helsinki release now. We usually like to jump a couple and stay as current as we can, usually you know one release behind maybe but if we find there's good functionality in jumping one we'll do it. >> I want to come back and talk about that, because we like to pick your brains about what's the best practice there, but before we do maybe set up your role at Nationwide. >> Yeah, RunService is a pretty large organization for Nationwide, through acquisitions and through our legacy environments, we have lots of application systems, you know, keeping all those running is a monumental task. So, our group is kind of sitting mainly in the middle of the applications, the infrastructure, the process, and trying to help everything stay running smoothly. >> Okay and you started with IT service management change management, like most customers, is that right? And then, you've been evolving that. Can you talk about that a little bit? >> Yeah we just implemented, about a year ago actually, we installed a year ago. >> Okay. >> We went with the Fuji release that we implemented then we've already jumped to Helsinki, and we pretty much went all processes all at once and kind of a big bang. We actually did ask that management at first does a little bit of a pilot, but then we actually went through all the other ITSM functionality, big bang after that. >> Jeff: So you're all in. >> Michael: Yeah. >> So what was life like, you know, give us a before and after, and maybe take us through the business case and how that all came about. >> I'll give you a perfect example, I just kind of did an after action review for our senior management, on our previous platform, which was an on prem heavily customized platform, to take a release would require a year and a half with a lot of planning and about a million dollars. >> Jeff: To do an upgrade. >> To do an upgrade. (Jeff Laughing) This last release to Helsinki went about six weeks, and about $100,000. So, that's a huge business case right there. Being able to be in the cloud, not having to worry about the infrastructure ourselves, and really we drove a model of zero customization so we wanted to stay out of box as much as possible, just for that reason so we could take releases fast and stay current. >> Wow, I'm sure that benefits. >> In the, you know, was situtation, the cost was predominantly people cost, programming cost, license cost, maintenance, consultants? >> It was mostly hours of effort. >> Yeah. >> The amount of customization we had and then to retrofit and test all those changes back into the release from the vendor was a monumental task and we never want to get into that situation again. >> And so with the ServiceNow upgrade, it's not out of pocket cost as much, you're quantifying time, is that correct? >> Correct. >> Yeah okay. >> It's mostly our internal cost. >> You said the time it took was a year and a half and then, like a typical upgrade in ServiceNow is, >> Michael: Less than two months. >> Okay. >> For us to bring it in test it, exercise it, making sure all our customizations, or configurations actually I should say, are working well. And a lot of it is more just the change management around it, you know, putting out the word, the communications, doing a little bit of training, or whatever it takes to get ready for a smooth launch. >> And some of the upfront planning of that as well. Now, when we talk to customers, there seems to be, we heard today that 90% of customers are adopting service catalog, CMDB, I don't know. It's mixed, right? We hear some yes, some no. Maybe tell us your experiences. >> We have a huge focus on CMDB right now. We think that CMDB is basically the foundation to all your other processes to run more smoothly right? So good trustworthy data enables faster incident resolution, better problem solving, more rigorous change management so you asses your risk of change better. So really when we sold our CMDB project, we didn't sell it based on the CMDB, we sold it based on all those other things, >> All the benefits. >> That get a ramp off of it. You know, from doing that effort. So, we're putting a lot of effort on CMDB maturity. >> So you were talking before about some of the things you saw today in Jakarta that were of interest before we go there, you had mentioned you started with Fuji, and now you're on Helsinki. What was the, you didn't double leapfrog did you? Or did you? What's your upgrade strategy? You said you might be an N minus one, but you like to stay pretty current. What's your strategy in regards to upgrades? >> Right now, we're looking at trying to be N minus one >> Uh huh. >> and taking two per year. So looking at two releases a year. We're trying to plan our schedules around maybe spring and fall. So we organize our work and our patterns around that. But something like that. We haven't really solidified that yet. A lot of it depends on what we see coming up, and what we can take advantage of. Like for example, we're getting ready to implement Work Day. And we want to make sure we have great integration between Work Day and ServiceNow. Some of the things that Jakarta is going to offer us is going to integrate nicely into Work Day. So, we may jump to that version because of that. >> So we heard this morning that the big things, well CJ set up the big things in Jakarta were going to be performance, obviously everybody better performance, maybe some UX stuff in there too, vendor risk management, and then the software asset management, which got the big cheers and the whoohoo! >> Yeah. (Jeff chuckling) >> Yeah, so, what in Jakarta is appealing to you? >> This software as a management I'd say, is very interesting because we're looking at that very closely right now in terms of our strategy around that. The other one I really like is the performance analytics and the predictive analytics that are coming out. I'd really love to be able to benchmark ourselves against other companies in terms of how we're doing. I feel we beat ourselves up a lot internally around things like availability or performance. But then, when I look and talk to others, we're not so bad. (Jeff chuckling) We're actually doing pretty good. So it'd be nice to get that benchmarking. >> Right, right. >> And some of that trend analysis that's offered. And then, finally, how do we get into a more predictive analytics mode where we can prevent incidents from happening before they do? So that's key. >> It was interesting, listening to Farrell Hough this morning talk about sort of the evolution of automation. How do you look at automation? Some shops are afraid of automation, but it seems like the ServiceNow customers we talk to really can't go fast enough. What is your thought, and how are you evolving automation? >> Well, one of our key drivers right now is how do we increase the speed of delivery to the marketplace? But, we also have to stay safe and reliable, right? And the key to speed is through automation. You can't really get that speed if you're not highly automated. And, to be highly automated, you need really high trustworthy data. So that enables fast decision making, and accuracy. >> Jeff: And that ties back to your CMDB commitment. >> Exactly, so, that all entailed enables speed, which we really want because in today's world speed is everything in terms of how you're constantly adapting your systems of engagement out there with your customers. Constantly learning from their patterns and adjusting on the fly. And that requires new mindsets. >> So you start with IT service management, you've got HR as well, is that right? >> We don't have the HR model. Right now we're only IT service management. >> Okay, straight IT services. >> We're looking at other modules, as we speak. >> Okay, so you want to make sure you get the value out of the initial ITSM, and then, how do you see that, you know, evolving? What is the conversation like internally? Do the business lines say, wow, all of a sudden we're getting improved service, and how are you doing that? Or is it more of a push where you go out to the business and say hey, here are some ideas. How does that all work? >> I'll tell you what we're really starting to see is a really change in what's driving innovation. And it's more coming from IT versus, the former models where IT was kind of like the order taker, and the business came up with everything they needed. Now, with the pace of change with technology, new business models are coming from IT to the business. And we're actually almost seeing ourselves more of an IT company than we are an insurance company. And, you starting to see those patterns especially with things like, now we're talking about metered insurance for auto, right? So basically, pay by the mile insurance, versus paying the same rate for six months. With the data we're getting out of vehicles today we can adjust your rates on the fly as you drive. Why should you pay the same rate if your car sits in the garage all weekend, versus you take it out and drive it 200 miles, right? So with the kind of data, big data and analytics that are coming from the vehicles we can do that now. >> So how is that conversation taking place? Is it being initiated by somebody in the IT staff that says hey, did you know that we have this data and we can do this? Let's take it to the business unit. Or does the business unit saying, I just saw Flo, the competitor, sticking the little thing in the dashboard? (Michael chuckling) Can we do that too? You know, there's a lot of talk about IT taking a seat at the business table >> Right. >> But how have you seen it actually been executed inside of Nationwide? >> Actually what we're seeing is, the lines are very blurry now between IT and the business. Almost to where, we're just a team working together versus the silos you used to have, and throwing the ideas over the fence. So we actually have a team that their goal is strategy and innovation. They report up through our CIO, and then business line teams have similar organizations, and they all work in a matrix fashion together. So anybody can bring any type of idea to the table, regardless of who you report up through. And we take those into consideration and we look for partners, we've got partners coming to us all the time that want to join us in innovation. And so it doesn't have to be our own solution. It could just be us on the back end of somebody else's front end, right? So, there's a lot of interesting ideas coming at us. >> What's happening in the business Mike? I mean you've got, obviously you're supporting the big systems or claims, you've got your agents systems, but mobile has exploded onto the scene. >> Yes. >> How has that affected you? What are some of the drivers in the insurance business these days? >> Well, definitely we're in this digital world now so, mobile first is critical. Everything has to be mobile enabled. We have to think of our strategy in a digital way constantly so we have a whole digital strategy that we work on. The traditional models of agency sold insurance won't ever really go away, per se, but they are shrinking. You see the demands and needs of the millennials coming up, very differently and changing. You have to compete on price to get in the door. That's important, so again we're trying to find all those interaction or intercept points with our customers as they need us. People don't really like to think of insurance, it's not on top of mind in their day to day life. But, when certain events happen like oh, I'm going to get married, or I'm going to take a trip, or you know, those kinds of things. >> Jeff: Right, kid turns sixteen. >> Yeah, we have different ways to interact with our customers, and offer some solutions that meet their need at the time. >> Well it seems like you're right, to be competitive, you've got to have the right price for those that say okay, I've got to get insurance, I need to start somewhere, great, but are you able to, as an industry, sell value? I mean, increasingly you're seeing some companies I would say Nationwide is one, where you're selling value. >> Yeah. >> Is that a trend in the business? >> Absolutely, I'll give you an example. One of the things that, normally the insurance model used to be I buy insurance and I'm protected when something bad happens. then when something bad happens, you compensate me. You pay my claim. But what about, if we can help you prevent the bad thing from even happening? So with products like our Smart Home package that you can buy now with internet of things, we can put sensors on those hot water tanks or on those pipes, or connected to your alarm system so that maybe we could alert you when we see your pipe is about to break. >> Right so, we cover, as you know our audience, we cover big data a lot. And the data business, and the insurance business have come mashing together, right? You had mentioned before, Mike, in many regards you're becoming an IT company and digitization is all about data. And the data allows you guys to build new products, to offer new services, to be more competitive and at the end of the day it's all about speed. >> Correct, speed and then that helps drive that value equation, right? So it's not so much being the lowest price, although you have to have a good price to be in the game, but then after that how can you provide that value? >> I'm curious Mike, from an insurance point of view, where before the business was based on, you know you didn't have so much data, right? So you had some big swaths, Age, sex, smoker, not smoker, but now as you're able to get data to the individual level, how that changes the way you look at it? Because it's very different than just kind of aggregating to the bulk, and then the poor unfortunate soul who has a car wreck, you pay the claim. But now, like you said, you know if I'm driving on the weekends, or if I'm parking my car. How is that really shaping the way that you guys look at the marketplace and the opportunities? >> Well you know, in the old days, you used to be able to take basically a subset of data from the past, and make your decisions based on that. >> A subset of data from the past, I love that. >> Now we're taking all the data in real time. >> In real time. >> So that puts more demands on the need for the technologies to provide that. It's critical, like especially if we're going to change your rates daily on how we insure your car, we have to have all the data, all the time. >> I remember Abhi Mehta, one of our early big data CUBE interviews, he made the statement in 2010 he said, "Sampling is dead." And, now, some people will debate that but the point he was making is just the same one you just made Michael is that you've got that data coming in, streaming it in real time. Some consumers, you know, have an issue with sticking that little meter in their car, but ultimately, that's the trend. It's going to happen. >> And you know we're seeing, and you're probably seeing it in other businesses as well, if you can provide that value, customers will give you the access and the data, because they see a value in return. So, it's that value equation. If it's good enough, they'll give you the value, and they'll give you the data. >> Dave: Yeah, you see it every day in mobile apps, right? >> Correct. >> You know, you're in New York City trying to get somewhere and it's like, turn on location services and I can help you. >> When you download any app, there's a big screen that comes up and you say I accept at the bottom, and then it has access to your pictures, access to your location and you're free to hit that accept because you see the value in that application. >> It's a quid pro quo, you know it's interesting we had the author on yesterday, Pink, Daniel Pink? >> Jeff: Pink, Mr. Pink, yes. >> And he was pointing out, he said look there used to be that the brand used to have all the information, and now there's parody in information, but in many regards, this whole digitization is an attempt by the brand to provide, to use more data and to give the consumers more value, and to create differentiation in the marketplace, and that's kind of what you're describing in your business. Last question, what's on ServiceNow's to-do list? What do you want to see a year, year and a half in? >> Well, after we implemented, we partnered with ServiceNow in a project they call Inspire, and basically it's to, what are we going to do next? You know, that very question, how do we leverage now what we've implemented, and take advantage of what the platform has to offer? We see lots of opportunities, as a matter of fact our list is so long we just don't have the bandwidth to do it all (Jeff chuckling) and we have to prioritize, but we see a lot of integration points, we see a lot of APIs coming in, we are in a kind of a really big phase in automation right now, we're trying to automate as much as possible, so for our on prem technology, we really want to go into automated provisioning of our assets, which means being able to connect those into the CMDB as they're provisioned, all automatically, and we want to really shorten those cycle times for when we have to provision infrastructure and support our applications. So ServiceNow is setting us up to do just that. >> Inspire is a great program, it's one of the best freebies in the business, and it leads, it's a win win. The customer gets the best experts, they come in and obviously, the hope is they're going to buy more stuff from ServiceNow, and if the value's there you will. Why not? It's going to drive to the bottom line. >> Using cloud to provision on prem resources, I like that. (all laughing) >> Mike thanks very much for coming to theCUBE, it was really a pleasure having you. >> Thank you, thanks for having me. >> Jeff: Thanks for sharing the insight. >> Alright keep it right there buddy we'll be back with our next guest right after this short break, there's a CUBEr live from Knowledge, be right back. (techno music)

>> Man's Voice: Live from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE covering ServiceNow Knowledge17, brought to you by ServiceNow. >> Welcome back to Orlando, everybody. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We go out to the events, we extract a signal from the noise. My name is Dave Vellante, and I'm here with my co-host, Jeff Frick. This is theCUBE's fifth year covering Knowledge. We started in Las Vegas, a little small event, Jeff, at Aria Hotel, and it's exploded from 3,500 all the way up to 15,000 people here in Orlando at the Convention Center. This is day two of our three day coverage. And, we heard this morning, you know, day one was the introduction of the new CEO, John Donahoe, taking over the reins for Frank Slootman. And, actually it was interesting, Jeff. Last night, we went around to some of the parties and talked to some of the folks and some of the practitioners. It was interesting to hear how many people were saying how much they missed Fred. >> Right, right. >> And the culture of fun and kind of zaniness and quirkiness that they sort of have, and there's some of that that's maintained here. We saw that in the keynotes this morning, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but what are your impressions of sort of that transition from, you know, really the third phase now we're into of ServiceNow leadership? >> Right, well as was commented again last night at some of the events, you know, a relatively peaceful transition, right. So, the difference between an evolution and a revolution is people die in revolutions. This was more of an evolution. It was an organized handoff, and a lot of the product leaders are relatively new. We just saw CJ Desai. He said he's only 100 days ahead of where John is at 45 days. So, it is kind of a, I don't know if refresh is the right word, but all new leadership in a lot of the top positions to basically go from, as been discussed many times, from kind of the one billion dollar mark to the four billion dollar mark, and then, of course, onward to the 10. So, it sounds like everyone is very reverent to the past, and Fred has a huge following. He's one of our favorite guest. The guy's just a super individual. People love him. That said, you know, it's a very clear and focused move to the next stage in evolution of growth. >> Well, I think that, you know, Fred probably, I mean, he may have said something similar to this either in theCUBE or sort of in back channel conversations with us, is, you know, ServiceNow, when they brought in Frank Slootman, it needed adult supervision. And, Fred doesn't strike me as the kind of person that's going to be doing a lot of the, you know, HR functions and performance reviews and stuff. He wants to code, right. I mean, that was his thing. And, now, we're seeing sort of this next level of ascension for ServiceNow, and you seen the advancement of their product, their platform. So this morning, CJ Desai kicked off the keynotes. Now, CJ Desai was an executive in the security business. He was an executive at EMC, hardcore product guy. He's a hacker. You heard him this morning saying when he was at a previous company, he didn't mention EMC, but that's what he was talking about, I'm pretty sure. They use ServiceNow, and when ServiceNow started recruiting him, he said I opened up an instance and started playing around with it, and see if I could develop an app, and I was amazed at how easy it was. And, they started talking to some of the customers and seeing how passionate they were about this platform, and it became an easy decision for him to, you know, come and run. He's got a big job here. He run, he's basically, you know, manages all products, essentially taking over for Fred Luddy and, you know, Dan McGee as a chief operating officer even though he hasn't used that title 'cause he's a product guy. But, all the GMs report up into him, so he is the man, you know, on top of the platform. So, he talked this morning about Jakarta, the announcement, and the key thing about, you know, that I'm learning really in talking to ServiceNow over the years, is they put everything in the platform, and then the business units have to figure out how to leverage that new capability, you know, whether it's machine learning or AI or some kind of new service catalog or portal. The business units, whether it's, you know, the managers, whether it's Farrell Hough and her team, she does IT service management, Abhijit Mitra who does customer service management, the IT operations management people, the HR folks, they have to figure out how they can take the capabilities of this platform, and then apply it to their specific use cases and industry examples. And, that's what we saw a lot of today. >> But, it's still paper-based workflow, right? 'Cause back to Fred's original vision, which I love repeating about, the copy room with all the pigeonholes of colored paper that you would grab for I need a new laptop, I need a vacation request, I need whatever, which nobody remembers anymore. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's put in a request, get it approved, does it need to be worked, and then executed. So, whether that's asking for a new laptop for a new employee, whether that's getting a customer service ticket handled, whether it's we're swinging by doing name changes, it's relatively simple process under the covers, and then now, they're just wrapping it with this specific vocabulary and integration points to the different systems to support that execution. So, it's a pretty straightforward solution. What I really like about ServiceNow is they're applying, you know, technology to relatively straightforward problems that have huge impact and efficiency, and just getting away from email, getting away from so many notification systems that we have, getting away from phone calls, getting away from tech-- Trying to aggregate that into one spot, like we see it a lot of successful applications, sass applications. So, now you've got a single system of record for the execution of these relatively straightforward processes. >> Yeah, it really is all about a new way to work, and with the millennial work force becoming younger, obviously, they're going to work in a different way. I saw, when I tweeted out, was the best IT demo that I'd ever seen. Didn't involve a laptop, didn't involve a screen. What Chris Pope did, who's kind of an evangelist, he's in the CSO office, he was on... the chief strategy office, he was on yesterday. He came up with a soccer ball. Right, you saw it. And, he said >> Football. Make sure you say it right. He would correct you. (Jeff laughs) >> And, he said for those of you who are not from the colonies, this is a football. And then, he had somebody in a new employee's t-shirt, he had the HR t-shirt, the IT t-shirt, the facilities t-shirt, and they were passing the ball around, and he did a narrative on what it was like to onboard a new employee, and the back and forth and the touch points and, you know, underscoring the point of how complex it is, how many mistakes can be made, how frustrating it is, how inefficient it is, and then, obviously, setting up conveniently the morning of how the workflow would serve us now. But, it was a very powerful demo, I thought. >> Well, the thing that I want to get into, Dave, is how do you get people to change behavior? And, we talk about it all the time in theCUBE. People process in tech. The tech's the easy part. How do you change people's behavior? When I have to make that request to you, what gets me to take the step to do it inside of service now versus sending you that email? It seems to me that that's the biggest challenge, and you talk about it all the time, is we get kind of tool-creep in all these notification systems and, you know, there's Slack and there's Atlassian JIRA and there's Salesforce and there's Dropbox and there's Google Docs and, you know, the good news is we're getting all these kind of sass applications that, ultimately, we're seeing this growth of IPA's in between them and integration between them, but, on the bad side, we get so many notifications from so many different places. You know, how do you force really a compliance around a particular department to use a solution, as we say that, that's what's on your desk all the time, and not email? And, I think that's, I look forward to hearing kind of what are best practices to dictate that? I know that Atlassian, internally, they don't use email. Everything is on JIRA. I would presume in ServiceNow, it's probably very similar where, internally, everything is in the ServiceNow platform, but, unfortunately, there's those pesky people outside the organization who are still communicating with email. So, then you get, >> Exactly. >> Then, now, you're running kind of a parallel track as you're getting new information from a customer that's coming in maybe via email that you need to, then, populate into those tickets. That's the part I see as kind of a challenge. >> Well, I think it is a big challenge. And, of course, when you talk to ServiceNow people privately and you say to them, "Have you guys eliminated email?" Then, they roll their eyes and "I wish." (Jeff chuckles) But, I would presume their internal communications, as you say, are a lot more efficient and effective. But, you know, it's a Cloud app, and Cloud apps suffer from latency issues. And, it's like when you go into a Cloud app, you know, you log in. A lot of times, it logs you out just for security reasons, so you got to log back in and you get the spinning logo for awhile. You finally get in and then, you got to find what you want to do, and then you do it. And, it's a lot slower just from an elapse time standpoint than, actually not from an elapse time. So, from an initiation standpoint, getting something off your desk, it's slower. The elapse time is much more efficient. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> And so, what I think ends up happening is people default to the simple email system. It's a quick fix. And then, it starts the cycle of hell. But, I think you're making a great point about adoption. How do you improve that adoption? One of the things that ServiceNow announced this morning, is that roughly 30% improvement in performance, right. So, people complain about performance like any Cloud-based application, and it's hard. You know, when you even when you use, you know, look at LinkedIn. A lot of times, you get a LinkedIn request, and you go, "I'll check it later." You don't want to go through the process of logging in. Everybody's experienced that. It's one of those >> Right, right. >> Sort of heavy apps, and so, you just say, "Alright, I'll figure it out later." And, Facebook is the same thing. And, no doubt, that ServiceNow, certainly Salesforce, similar sort of dynamics 'cause it's a Cloud-based app. And so, hitting performance hard, as you say, the culture of leaving it on your desk. The folks at Nutanix, Dheeraj is telling me they essentially run their communications in Slack. (chuckles) and so, >> Right. >> You know, they'll hit limits there, I'm sure, as well, but everybody's trying to find a new way to work, and this is something that I know is a passion of yours, because the outcome is so much better if you can eliminate email trails and threads and lost work. >> Right. And, we're stuck now in this, in the middle phase which is just brutal 'cause you just get so many notifications from so many different applications. How do you prioritize? How do you keep track? Oh my God, did you ping me on Slack? Did you ping me on a text? Did you ping me on a email? I don't even know. The notification went away, went off my phone. I don't even know which one it came through its difficulty. The good news is that we see in sass applications and, again, it's interesting. Maybe just 'cause I was at AWS summit recently. I just keep thinking AWS, and in terms of the efficiency that they can bring to bear, that resources they can bring to bear around CP utilization, storage utilization, security execution, all those things that they can do as a multi-vendor, Cloud-based application, and apply to their Cloud in support of their customers on their application, will grow and grow and grow, and quickly surpass what most people would do on their own 'cause they just don't have the resources. So, that is a huge benefit of these Cloud-based applications and again, as the integration points get better, 'cause we keep hearin' it 'cause you got some stuff in Dropbox, you got some stuff in Google Docs, you got some stuff in Salesforce. That's going to be interesting, how that plays out, and will it boil back down to, again, how many actual windows do you have open that you work with on your computer. Is it two? Is it three? Is it four? Not many more than that, and it can't be. >> Yeah, so today here at Knowledge, it's a big announcement day. You're hearing from all the sort of heads of the businesses. Jakarta is the big announcement. That's the new release of the platform. Kingston's coming, you know, later on this year. ServiceNow generally does two a year, one in the spring summer, one in the fall, kind of early winter. And, Jakarta really comprises performance improvement, a new security capability where, I thought this was very interesting, where you have all these vendors that you're trying to interact with, and you tryin' to figure out, okay, "What do I integrate with "in terms of my third party vendors, and who's safe?" You know, and "Do they comply "to my corpoetics?" >> Right, right. >> And, ServiceNow introducing a module in Jakarta which going to automate that whole thing, and simplify it. And then, the one, the big one was software asset management. Every time you come to a conference like Knowledge, and you get this at Splunk too, the announcements that they make, they're not golf claps. You'd get hoots and woos and "Yes" and people standing up. >> Jeff: That was that and that was the one, right? >> Software SM Management was the one. >> Jeff: (chuckles) put a big star on that one. >> Now, let's talk about this a little bit because they mentioned in, they didn't mention Oracle, but this is a bit pain point of a lot of Oracle customers, is audits, software audits. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> And, certainly Oracle uses software audits as negotiating leverage, and clients customers don't really know what they have, what the utilization is, do they buy more licenses even though they could repurpose licenses. They just can't keep track of all that stuff, and so, ServiceNow is going to do it for ya. So, that's a pretty big deal and, obviously, people love that. As I said, 30% improvement in performance. And, yeah, this software asset management thing, we're going to talk to some people about that and see what their-- >> But, they got the big cheer. >> What their expectation is. >> The other thing that was interesting on the product announcement, is using AI. Again, I just love password reset as an example 'cause it's so simple and discrete, but still impactful about using AI on relatively, it sounds like, simple processes that are super high ROI, like auto-categorization. You know, let the machine do auto-categorization and a lot of these little things that make a huge difference in productivity to be able to find and discover and work with this data that you're now removing the people from it, and making the machine, the better for machine processes handled by the machine. And, we see that going all through the application, a lot of the announcements that were made. So, it's not just AI for AI, but it's actually, they call it Intelligent Automation, and applying it to very specific things that are very fungible and tangible and easy to see, and provide direct ROI, right out of the gate. >> Well, this auto-categorization is something that, I mean, it's been a vexing problem in the industry for years. I mentioned yesterday that in 2006 with the federal rules of civil procedure change that made electronic documents admissible, it meant that you had to be able to find and submit to a court of law all the electronic documents on a legal hold. And, there were tons of cases in the sort of mid to late part of the 2000's where companies were fined hundreds and millions of dollars. Morgan Stanley was the sort of poster child of that because they couldn't produce emails. And, as part of that, there was a categorization effort that went on to try to say, okay, let's put these emails in buckets, something as simple as email >> Right, right. >> So that when we have to go find something in a legal hold, we can find it or, more importantly, we can defensively delete it. But, the problem was, as I said yesterday, the math has been around forever. Things like support vector machines and probabilistic latent semantic index and all these crazy algorithms. But, the application of them was flawed, and the data quality >> Jeff: Right, right. >> Was poor. So, we'll see if now, you know, AI which is the big buzz word now, but it appears that it's got legs and is real with machine learning and it's kind of the new big data meme. We'll see if, in fact, it can really solve this problem. We certainly have the computing horse power. We know the math is there. And, I think the industry has learned enough that the application of those algorithms, is now going to allow us to have quality categorization, and really take the humans out of the equation. >> Yeah, I made some notes. It was Farrell, her part of the keynote this morning where she really talked about some of these things. And, again, categorization, prioritization, and assignment. Let the machine take the first swag at that, and let it learn and, based on what happens going forward, let it adjust its algorithms. But, again, really simple concepts, really painful to execute as a person, especially at scale. So, I think that's a really interesting application that ServiceNow is bringing AI to these relatively straightforward processes that are just painful for people. >> Yes, squinting through lists and trying to figure out, okay, which one's more important, and weighting them, and I'm sure, they have some kind of scoring system or weighting system that you can tell the machine, "Hey, prioritize, you know, these things," you know, security incidence >> Right, right. >> Or high value assets first. Give me a list. I can then eyeball them and say, okay, hm, now I'm going to do this third one first, and the first one second, whatever. And, you can make that decision, but it's like a first pass filter, like a vetting system. >> Like what Google mail does for you, right? >> Right. >> It takes a first pass. So, you know, these are the really specific applications of machine learning in AI that will start to have an impact in the very short-term, on the way that things happen. >> So, the other thing that we're really paying attention here, is the growth of the ecosystem. It's something that Jeff and I have been tracking since the early days of ServiceNow Knowledge, in terms of our early days of theCUBE. And, the ecosystem is really exploding. You know, you're seeing the big SIs. Last night, we were at the Exen Sure party. It was, you know, typical Exen Sure, very senior level, a bunch of CIOs there. It reminded me of when you go to the parties at Oracle, and the big SIs have these parties. I mean, they're just loaded with senior executives. And, that's what this was last night. You know, the VIP room and all the suits were in there, and they were schmoozing. These are things that are really going to expand the value of ServiceNow. It's a new channel for them. And, these big SIs, they have the relationships at the board room level. They have the deep industry expertise. I was talking to Josh Kahn, who's running the Industry Solutions now, another former EMCer, and he, obviously, is very excited to have these relationships with the SI. So, that to me, is a big windfall for ServiceNow. It's something that we're going to be tracking. >> And, especially, this whole concept of the SIs building dedicated industry solutions built on SI. I overheard some of the conversation at the party last night between an SI executive, it was an Exen Sure executive, and one of the ServiceNow people, and, they talked about the power of having the combination of the deep expertise in an industry, I can't remember which one they were going after, it was one big company, their first kind of pilot project, combined with the stability and roadmap of ServiceNow side to have this stable software platform. And, the combination of those two, so complementary to take to market to this particular customer that they were proposing this solution around. And then, to take that solution as they always do and then, you know, harden it and then, take it to the next customer, the next customer, the next customer. So, as you said, getting these big integrators that own the relationships with a lot of big companies, actively involved in now building industry solutions, is a huge step forward beyond just, you know, consultative services and best practices. >> Well, and they have such deep industry expertise. I mean, we talked yesterday about GDPR and some of the new compliance regulations that are coming to the banking industry, particularly in Europe, the fines are getting much more onerous. These SIs have deep expertise and understanding of how to apply something like ServiceNow. ServiceNow, I think of it as a generic platform, but it needs, you know, brain power to say, okay, we can solve this particular problem by doing A, B, C, and D or developing this application or creating this solution. That's really where the SIs are. It's no surprise that a lot of the senior ServiceNow sales reps were at that event last night, you know, hanging with the customers, hanging with their partners. And, that is just a positive sign of momentum in my opinion. Alright, Jeff, so big day today. CJ Desai is coming on. We're going to run through a lot of the business units. You know, tomorrow is sort of Pronic demo day. It's the day usually that Fred Luddy hosts, and Pat Casey, I think, is going to be the main host tomorrow. And, we'll be covering all of this from theCUBE. This is day two ServiceNow Knowledge #Know17. Check out siliconangle.com for all the news. You can watch us live, of course, at thecube.net. I'm Dave Vellante, he's Jeff Frick. We'll be right back after this short break. (easygoing music)